CAN YOU LOSE YOUR SALVATION IF YOU DON’T ‘Hold Firmly’?

[Alive]

Often times 'George' the owner of the forum has gone through threads and deleted posts that offend the TOS and other Mods have as well.

There are posts in this thread that are pointed 'name calling'--I will leave them as examples. It is so easy to simply debate points and saying, I disagree and this is why--rather than calling someone a hypocrite, or false teacher and such things.

Whenever those tactics are used--things inevitable go down hill and taint what is otherwise a profitable and edifying topic. So why do it?

It simply harms everyone. Its not good for you. I get that Jesus turned over tables and stuff, but that doesn't work in a forum.

And it is not going to be tolerated here at Worthy. We have wonderful, smart and passionate about the Lord and His Word members---all of the same One Body.

Let's be a witness of His Life and Way.

[JohnD]

When will we ever trust God to the point that we realize we cannot LOSE

our salvation anymore than we can GAIN it...

It's ALL in God's hands:

John 10:27–29 (NASB95)
27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;
28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.
29 “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

"No one" includes us (we ourselves).

[Billiards Ball]

Frustrating to see an assurance thread linger, without dying.

People conflate salvation and sanctification verses.

One of them is free and a one-time act. The other takes effort and time.

[Don19]

3 minutes ago, Josheb said:

What God ordained from the beginning He did so without being the author of sin or causing violence to the will of the creature.

I know that you are paraphrasing your Confessions here, but my authority is the Bible, not confessions written by men who were probably unregenerate. These propositions are illogical and unbiblical. If God is not "the author of sin," who is? My God is is control of everything. He created ALL THINGS for Himself (Col 1:16). Is sin a "thing"? If so, He created it for His own purposes and glory. Thank Him and praise Him for it!

Don't you know that your natural body is the body of sin? (Rom 6:6). Did God create that? Of course He did. He created Adam and Eve as naked; they only became ashamed when they knew good and evil (that is, they knew they were evil, naked, destitute sinners in the eyes of God). Everything the natural man ever does is sin, filth, and corruption. The natural man is like a worm. The natural man has never done anything "good" because only God is good (Mark 10:18). How can he be clean that is born of a woman? In every possible way, we fall short of the glory of God. That's why the Scripture says, that God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom 8:3). Because He experienced pain, suffering, weariness, etc. In the flesh, you ARE sin! Not just because we all "do sin," but because we are sin.

[Don19]

31 minutes ago, Josheb said:

False dichotomy. 

Appealing to false dichotomies right from the beginning is not a very good way to start a conversation. Neither is scapegoating the confession that is firmly rooted in scripture. 

Am I being asked because the answer is not already known If so then you have no business telling anyone what or how to believe on the matter.
Am I being asked because the answer is known but the pretense is otherwise? If so then that is completely insincere and disingenuous. 
Am I being asked because you want me to explain it to you? Then you have the problem of your own standard: you believe the Bible, not me. 

Are you getting the picture? You cannot start a conversation this way and expect to be respected or taken seriously. And according to you "God is in control of everything" which means He is making you write all the logical fallacies and moral inconsistencies you've just posted and He is making me confront them. That is the logically necessary conclusion of strict determinism. 

How about we try something different? Anyone can have that non-conversation. 
 

No, sin is not such a thing! This is where the theology of strict determinism breaks down, Don. God did not make sin. In order for God to make sin the Law Maker would have to act lawlessly. That's gonna make God a god who calls evil good. That's gonna reduce humanity's individual and corporate culpability. That makes God and His plan dependent on the existence of sin (which instantly compromises His omnipotence). That's gonna run into a variety of other conflict and piles of scripture. 

There's a much easier solution firmly rooted in scripture: God made humans perishable, not already-perished (1 Cor. 15). God made the world full of unrealized or yet-to-be-realized potential. Any god can make a world of action figures that say and do only what they are made to say and do. It takes a much, much bigger God to create and remain omni-attributed over a creation full of dialectics (like good and evil, flesh and spirit, sin and righteousness). God made us perishABLE, not already-perishED. We became perished by our own doing and God remained sovereign and omni-attributed anyway. That event did not in any way compromise a single fraction of a sliver of His divinity in any way.

Strict determinism and/or autonomy do, though. 

The poles or extremes are rarely ever correct. 

False dichotomies are never correct.

 Fallacy of ambiguity. Not a very good way to begin the conversation. 

Failed exegesis, too. Why? How?

Because Romans 8:6 was written by a post-fall person to a post-fall audience about post-fall conditions. The natural body of flesh had not sinned until Genesis 3:7. Prior to that the human body did not sin, had not sinned, did not know sin in any way. Paul makes this quite clear when in Romans 5 he states unequivocally sin entered the world through one man's disobedience. Centuries after Genesis 3:7 Paul explained how it was a consequence of a human action, not a God action. God certainly knew it would happen because He made humans corruptIBLE and He had already designed creation for a purpose that would cover ALL the inevitabilities. Jesus' sacrifice is not a contingency plan. God is not dependent on contingencies. That is a bad theology. 

Removing Romans 6 from Romans 5 is bad practice. 
 

Yep, and the nakedness was good (Gen. 1:31). Everything God made in the first six days was declared by Him to be good. Even Adam and Eve's nakedness. Nowhere did God say their nakedness was shameful; that was their reaction, not God's - that was their sinfully-corrupted reaction, not God's view. Yes, they knew they were sinners when they had sinned. They did not know they were sinners prior to sinning because they were not sinners prior to sinning. There was no sin in the world prior to their acting disobediently. None! God did not make it. Everything God made He made in six days and then He rested. Sin came about as a consequence of disobedience because God designed creation with a gazillion cause-and-effect conditions. One of them is if you sin then you die. That is the correct determinism, not "God made me do it."

Ps. 22:6? Job 25:6? Again, you are applying post-disobedient conditions upon pre-disobedient conditions. It is a false equivalency. 

Which means the argument for "God controls everything" now contains four or five logical fallacies in addition to several exegetical errors. It is a bad theology built on bad techniques reading scripture. 

And yet God Himself implicitly called the pre-disobedient Adam and Eve good. Genesis 3:7 is the dividing line, Don. Prior to that event everything was good, including Adam and Eve. After Genesis 3:7 nothing was good, including all of humanity. That which was good but made perishABLE/corruptIBLE had become corruptED. 

Nothing has been the same since. 

It is due to one man's disobedience, not the Law Maker's own lawlessness.
 

lol. Adam was not born of a woman. Another example of bad exegesis. 
 

 

Yes, we do. 

Absolutely no dispute with you whatsoever on that point and NOTHING I ever post should EVER be construed in any way to say otherwise. You got that? So whatever else you read in this conversation stow any dross whereby my posts might be filtered to say anything different. We are not God and we fall short.

Prior to Genesis 3:7 Adam and Eve were good... unashamed... and sinless. THAT is how God made them. 

Yep. That is how God sent him but it was a likeness, not an actuality. Jesus knew NO sin. Jesus was sent in the actuality of sinless flesh and in the appearence of sinful flesh. Huge difference and very important to understanding the question of divine determinism. 

 

 

 

31 minutes ago, Josheb said:

So let me now make a pair of observations. First, I have answered every single one of your concerns but the actual op-relevant substance of my post was ignored, and it was ignored in favor several logical fallacies and exegetical errors including a very selective use  of scripture that failed to consider the truths of Genesis 1:31 and 3:7; Rom. 5:12-19; and 1 Cor. 15:42 by way of 1 Pet. 1:20 (and many other scriptures that taken as a whole provide a much different explanation than strict determinism and a God of action figures that can and do only what they are made to do. Second, How about we reset the conversation? If you're not actually interested in understanding how scripture might say something different than what you now already believe then just say so. "Josh, I'm gonna have to agree to disagree." No problem. Our posts can stand here for all to read and compare as individual testimonies and the reader can decide who has rendered scripture best. But, if we're going to have the conversation we could be having then I'm going to ask for as much openness to understanding as you can must because you know I will back up everything I post with scripture AND I will do so surveying whole scripture from beginning to end. I do not mind an objective critique of what I actually post but criticisms of what is imagined I post are straw men. I will provide and expect parity. I assume the one common standard to which you and I both aspire is...

 

a polite and respectful, reasonable and rational, cogent and coherent topical case of well-rendered scripture. 

 

If we can agree to that then comment as you like, or ask me what you want. Anything and everything else will be noted as subterfuge and treated accordingly. Three failures and I'll move on. 

Yes?

We've been through this debate before and gotten nowhere. It's frustrating, but I have persisted because I do count you as a brother. You should be able to hear what I'm saying. I know the truth and I need no man to teach me. To me, it is so obvious what the lesson from the Garden of Eden is. To talk about mankind having "unrealized or yet-to-be-realized potential" is destructive talk. The corruption is in the world through lust, and that's a statement that is lusting after the things of this world. It's lust to do "good works." That's the lesson. It's lust to be like God. It's the same thing all over again. All world religions are about this, except the religion of Jesus Christ. There are only 2 religions: the religion which is of this body of death, and the religion which is of the body of Christ. We must be born again: dead to the law by the body of Christ (Rom 7:1-4).

So once they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they died spiritually, because God told Adam he would die the very same day he ate of the fruit. That death is the sense of condemnation, which caused them to hide from God, and sew fig leaves. Before that, they were naked and unashamed. Death is used in the same exact sense in the New Testament as to what the law produces: e.g., Rom 7:9-11.

Everything was good - yes. That in no way means they matched the glory of God; in other words, they were sinners by nature. Sin is to miss the mark - and God is the standard of righteousness. But sin was constrained due to lack of knowledge of good and evil, so all was good. Law is the strength of sin (1 Cor 15:56).

Likewise, we do "good" (John 5:29) or bear "good fruit" when we walk in Jesus Christ. And in order to do so, we must have our conscience washed by His blood (Heb 10:1-2). Conscience = with knowledge. The knowledge of that of good and evil. Jesus said we will do the very works He did, and greater (John 14:12). But that is by walking in Him, not by the flesh and the righteousness of this flesh, which our own hands have made. So how to we bear good fruit? We rest in Him, knowing that He has irrevocably bound us up and given us eternal life, and that there is nothing we can ever do to lose it. So we're dead to sin, but alive to God. There are no conditions that must be met to have fellowship and intimacy with God.

 

[popsthebuilder]

On 1/28/2021 at 7:18 AM, Don19 said:

Anyone who says that you can lose your salvation (even voluntarily, if you wanted to give it up) speaks against the Holy Spirit, and you know what Jesus says about those who speak against or blaspheme the Holy Spirit. When you're born again, you're sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph 1:13-14). This sealing or earnest of the Spirit is specifically in your heart (2 Cor 1:21-22). Get that? This is the circumcision of the heart. Sealed. Shut up, enclosed. You are cut off from your body of sin, just as He was cut off (Isaiah 53:8). You are crucified with Christ (Gal 2:20).

Daniel 12:9: "And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end."

Song 4:12: "A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed."

Neh 3:3: "But the fish gate did the sons of Hassenaah build, who also laid the beams thereof, and set up the doors thereof, the locks thereof, and the bars thereof."

Philemon 1:1: "Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlabourer,"

Heb 13:3: "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body."

Col 4:18: "The salutation by the hand of me Paul. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you. Amen."

Job 14:5: "Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;"

Rev 3:7:" And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;"

Exodus 21:1-16:

"1 Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.

² If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.

³ If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.

⁴ If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.

⁵ And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:

⁶ Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever."

 

You're not your own but a purchased possession. You're a slave of a loving Master. You are a prisoner of Jesus Christ. So, no, you absolutely cannot lose your salvation for any reason whatsoever. If you are His, He owns you, and He is never letting you go! His name is Jealous.

But if you are His bond servant then wouldn't you seek to do His will? If circumcised in spirit then the old things of the flesh are cut away; and not part of you it seems.

[Don19]

25 minutes ago, popsthebuilder said:

But if you are His bond servant then wouldn't you seek to do His will? If circumcised in spirit then the old things of the flesh are cut away; and not part of you it seems.

His will is to believe in Him (John 6:40). What's cut off are the deeds of the flesh - that is, not only the deeds that men regard as wicked but also the so-called "good works" of the flesh, which man in his natural state lusts to do. One is doing good as long as he's mortifying the deeds of the flesh (which are all his "good works" and all his efforts of the flesh to keep God's laws - which are an unclean thing - Isa 64:6) by the body of Christ. And one who is in Christ is cut off from the works of the flesh, dead to the law. There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. God cannot lie, and he has promised His people eternal life, and His promises are not conditioned on our performance in any way.

Edited February 11, 2021 by Don19

[popsthebuilder]

37 minutes ago, Don19 said:

His will is to believe in Him (John 6:40). What's cut off are the deeds of the flesh - that is, not only the deeds that men regard as wicked but also the so-called "good works" of the flesh, which man in his natural state lusts to do. One is doing good as long as he's mortifying the deeds of the flesh (which are all his "good works" and all his efforts of the flesh to keep God's laws - which are an unclean thing - Isa 64:6) by the body of Christ. And one who is in Christ is cut off from the works of the flesh, dead to the law. There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. God cannot lie, and he has promised His people eternal life, and His promises are not conditioned on our performance in any way.

Im sorry but i dont think the law of GOD is synonymous with the law of sin and death.

Nor do i consider the fruit of the Spirit to be the works of men to be seen of, and esteemed by men.

[Don19]

7 hours ago, Josheb said:

 The implication, the logically NECESSARY implication of their "dying spiritually" (a term nowhere found in the Bible, btw)

Do you deny the concept?

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Rom 8:13

If you live after the flesh, you will die. This true statement is spoken to born again, eternally secure believers. We will die. If we sow to the flesh, we will reap corruption (Gal 6:7-8). If one converts an erring brother, he will save a soul from death (Jas 5:19-20).

Spiritual death is separation from God. That's the sense in which this term is used in Scripture. This revelation informs our interpretation of God's warning to Adam.

 

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is that they were not spiritually dead beforehand. This drives some believers nuts because if A&E didn't have the Spirit then they had only the flesh. Yes, that is true but it is true in a manner after Genesis 3:7 differently than it was prior to Genesis 3:7. Genesis 3:7 is the deterministic point, not God. 

We who are in Christ have eaten of the tree of life and shall live forever. Yet, there's a "death" that's possible in this life (loss of intimacy with God) if we walk after that flesh (that is, by doing works of the law instead of mortifying the deeds of the body of death by Jesus Christ). The Garden of Eden narrative is there for our edification. As to what sense in which they were "alive" beforehand, is really missing the point. The point is we see what happens due to the knowledge of good and evil. We see what happens when we try to be like God and have our own righteousness, after the law. We see ourselves as sinners. We can only be be alive to God if we're clothed with Christ's righteousness.

Likewise, Saul had the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit was taken from him. The manner in which he had the Spirit (removable) is unknown to us in the New Testament. God said He would not take the Spirit, as He took the Spirit from Saul. So, similarly, the manner in which Adam was "alive" to God is unknown to us today. We know good and evil, after our natural man; but we also know the sealing of the Spirit. Thus, Adam's state, where he didn't know good and evil but was subject to death due to his sin, is not a possible disposition any longer. You are either subject to the law of sin and death, or the law of Christ.

So the Old Testament is shadowy and didactic. The Bible only makes full sense after the full revelation of the gospel.

 

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God is the Cause of the rule that says "If you disobey Me then you will die," but prior to Genesis 3:7 Adam and Eve were not dead. They were alive physically and they were alive spiritually. They were not alive spiritually like you and I, regenerated believers in the resurrected  Tree of Life that is Jesus God's Anointed One but the fact remains they were not the same as everyone else after Genesis 3:7, either....... 

What changed is they acquired the knowledge of good and evil. There was no change in the flesh. They did not have the condemnation that law brings, the death that it brings, because they didn't know good from evil. They were alive to God because there was no barrier. But our natural wickedness--which we know, because we know good and evil--is a barrier to God, apart from Christ.

 

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.....and scripture itself assigns the causality of sin to the human, not God. 

No conflict here. The Scripture both says that Pharaoh hardened his heart, and that God hardened it. It says that God moved David to take the census of Israel, and elsewhere it says that Satan did it. These are what you'd call "secondary causes" (Pharaoh's self-hardening and Satan's activities). Yet the Scripture also points us not merely to God's sovereignty over both, but God's active ordination of both.

 

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And I mean no disrespect toward you Don but anyone who ignores the explicitly report before-and-after of Genesis 3:7 does not know the truth and does in fact need to learn it.

Even if you were right, that's not what I meant. I meant, Jesus Christ is the truth. I know all things, because I know Him and am known of Him.

 

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It's a simple, often-occurring mistake but because it is such a simple error the solution is also just as simple and easy. Just simply note that Genesis 3:7 is a critical moment in what we call history that occurs after God has finished creating AND a critical moment in which causality is assigned to the human, not God. This not the case with Pharaoh or Judas. Scripture is just as explicitly clear in the completely opposite direction: they didn't really have much choice and no matter what choices they made those two guys were always going to be the guys God had made them to be. They were always gonna be bad guys. The same is true in the opposite direction of people like Moses and Paul. Moses was the infant God picked before he ever made a human choice to be the guy who'd lead the Hebrews out of Egypt. Saul was always gonna be the guy who took the gospel to the Gentiles and be prepared from birth to write the single greatest theological work known to humanity.

Like I said before, the Scripture attributes causality both to Pharaoh and to God. There's no conflict. It's very clear that God planned redemption before the foundation of the world, as that's when He elected His people. He did not merely "foresee" the fall, and decree redemption on the basis thereof. Redemption of sinners was His plan from the very beginning. It magnifies the glory of His grace, and the wonder of His love. He predestined us to be His love-slaves: both to serve as objects on which He will pour out His love forever, apart from our own will or merits, bound up as prisoners in His kingdom--and so that we will praise, love, and worship Him forever for His grace, mercy, and loving-kindness. The creation of this present evil world, the reprobation of the much greater segment of mankind, and our redemption in Jesus Christ are all simply means to this end.

I stress this because I think it is profitable (and biblical). I think it is profitable to see this whole world as a means to an end. Otherwise, you run the risk of loving this world too much. But I count it all as dung. If I can see that God made me a sinner, then I can see His designs behind it, and I can appropriate the promises of the gospel all the more fully, and see myself all the more wormy and utterly destitute of any merits on my own, so that He is my everything. I can appreciate how and why He sees me in Christ, and is not displeased at me for my sins, but is perfectly pleased with me because I am in Christ. He is perfectly pleased with me, and loves me with an everlasting and unshakable love, because I am His son. But if you have a picture of God as basically wanting you to keep the law, as though law weren't merely a means to His ends, notwithstanding that you are counted righteous in Christ, then it is harder to bear fruit for God. You will probably tend towards legalism, fruitlessness, and misery.

This is why Paul tells the Galatians that they are fallen from grace, and Christ is become of no effect to them. He's not insinuating that they may be unsaved, because he is clearly talking to people who had received the Spirit (Gal 3:2). But if they want to keep the law as a rule of life (a la preachers today who call the law the believer's rule of life), then such a thing is a fall from grace and unprofitable.

Case in your, you speak highly of Paul for his writings. But Paul spoke otherwise. Paul, writing under inspiration, called himself the chief of sinners. And why? He wrote more of the New Testament Scriptures than anyone else, and was a prolific preacher and apostle of the gospel. He's the proverbial role model for Christians. Yet, that is the fruit of his labor. He said, it is better to die and to be with Christ - but that if he lives in the flesh, this is the fruit of his labor. The fruit of his labor is of the flesh. Phil 1:22. He was the chief of sinners, because he did the most labor in the flesh. A corrupt tree cannot bear good fruit, which is why all the deeds of this body of death are sin. But we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit (Rom 8:9) - being baptized by one Spirit into one body (the body of Christ).

Edited February 12, 2021 by Don19

[popsthebuilder]

12 hours ago, Josheb said:

????? 

Do please clarify that. Is there another who makes laws that govern all of humanity? Do yo mean "the law of God" as in all general commands, commandments, laws and precepts, or do you mean the "aw of God" as in the Law of Moses? 

The law by which sin brings death is a law of God. It may not be explixitly stated in the Law of Moses but the Mosaic code is simply and solely an elaboration of one single simple Law: if you disobey me then you will die, or the law of sin... and then death. 

 

So do please clarify that first statement, please.

The law of sin and death is not the same as the law of the Spirit. 

Blessed St. Paul speaks of a law that wars with the law of thw Spirit, this law is not the same as the law of GOD. It is descriptive of human nature and stems from greed. No one abides ny the law of GOD while being simultaneously greedy.

Hope that helps. If more clarification is needed then just ask more questions. 

peace