Do You Believe in "Once Saved, Always Saved"

[TomPJr]

NO. Stop putting words in my mouth--if you believe that, then put your name to it. I can speak for myself.

I'm merely providing you with the logical conclusion for your belief.

Your question implies that one of us is wrong, when in fact we are both right.

No Tom, we hold mutually exclusive views. Two opposites cannot both be true.

The scripture does say that he will complete his work in us...key words "his work".

I believe that this means he will completely exaust all of his efforts to try to bring about conversion in our lives. Some people just will not change. That doesn't mean that God never tried, or that he failed....he will say that he did everything that he could.

Believe it all you want, it doesn't fit the context. You're using an exegetical error - you're reading your interpretation into the passage. The context shows salvation, fellowship, and endurance.

Likewise, how can He complete something if it is not, in fact, complete? The idea presented by the two Greek words is key - it shows He begins our faith, stays with our faith, and will complete our faith. If He is in control of it, how can we leave it?

God does complete what he started...his effort to save us. His effort, or work is complete in its fullness. It doesn't say that he will complete our faith...it says he will complete his WORK.

God will exhaust all his resources to get us to convert. When the people who are saved in heaven wondering why so and so isn't there, God will be able to say "I did everything I could".

If what you say is true, then all the people who are going to be thrown in the lake of fire never had a chance because God never started his work in them....because like you said, if he starts it he will finish it and they cannot be lost. Therefor anyone who is lost never had God working in their heart. Thats just plain stupid!

[apothanein kerdos]

God does complete what he started...his effort to save us. His effort, or work is complete in its fullness. It doesn't say that he will complete our faith...it says he will complete his WORK.

Where is this in the context. What exegetical principles did you use in interpretation this passage to reach the conclusion you have?

Again, and you are ignoring this principle because it is quite damaging to your view - God says He will complete, that is, make whole His WORK. Work and effort are not the same in the Greek and do not even share the same idea. If Paul meant to say effort, he could have used zeteo or even worded the context in a different way.

Instead, show me, from the context, how this is meant that "God is going to try...but can fail."

[AMB]

I do believe you can walk away, or are you a robot now, without free will? OR is it once you've made your free will choice to be saved, you all of the sudden now lose your ability to choose life or death?

You don't understand how salvation works, this is why you think that. When you "accept" Christ, you give up your ability to choose. This is quite clear in scripture.

Again, how is your belief not based on works? It's it a bit uncanny how EVERYONE avoided that once I brought it up? Could it be *gasp* because there is no way to avoid that conclusion?

[/quot]

Are you saying when we accept Christ we give up our ability to choose? Where is that scriptually?

Salvation is not based on works, it is a free gift (thanks for the reply). Why do you keep going back there, we are all in agreement on how we get saved, it is by faith we receive the free gift of Christ, as Lord and Savior. I am not saying it is even the works (sin) that causes you to lose your salvation. It is the condition of the heart . . . it is the issue of not enduring or wandering away from the heart, sin cannot seperate you from Christ, but the hardening or turning away of the heart from Christ can.

Why do you think Jesues said "remain in me" Otherwise he would have said, you are saved, just do what I say and you can never walk away because if I see you walking away I'll take you before you would actually go that far. (I am not sure if you indiated this earlier or not, if not disregard, my apologies.)

John 15

The Vine and the Branches

1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5"I am the vine; you are the branches. "If" a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6"If" anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7"If" you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit

[Eliyahuw]

You are interpreting incorrectly. It seems as though you think that we have nothing to do with or in our Christianity and that after we are saved that God does all these things within us that we have no control over.

Really? Am I supposed to take you seriously after this? That's how you respond to a contextual interpretation? How are you valid, in any way? You used absolutely no hermeneutics and didn't even try to explain the scripture. How is anyone supposed to take you seriously?

Oh, and I'm not going to let you forget about your little misadventure in not providing any evidence for your scriptures.

You can't expect to tell people "Thus spake the Lord" when your entire reasoning is as follows:

Cardcaptor - Your interpretation is wrong!

AK - Why? I provided you with Greek, contextual analysis, and even a bit of the historical analysis.

Cardcaptor - It's wrong because it I say so!

AK - Uh...okay, what about your scriptures?

Cardpactor - You don't understand the scriptures, my interpretation is right!

you do the same thing...

and your big words (hermeneutics?) is unimpressive.

How do I do the same thing? I used Greek, history, context, etc to bring about a proper interpretation. That's much different than saying, "No, you're wrong" and then failing to verify how a person is wrong. At least when I make a truth statement about something, I attempt to validate it.

Again, do you have anything to add, or did you just want to criticize me that way you could avoid my argument?

Hmmm notice what you said you use, The holy spirit interprets for me. Lets see whos interpretaiton carrys more weight? Yours or the Holy Spirits?

[apothanein kerdos]

Are you saying when we accept Christ we give up our ability to choose? Where is that scriptually?

I already gave it. We will work from that, and interpret all other scriptures from this base. Unless you really want to look at the one you just brought up.

Hmmm notice what you said you use, The holy spirit interprets for me. Lets see whos interpretaiton carrys more weight? Yours or the Holy Spirits?

Funny, you sure didn't rely on the Holy Spirit to interpret a Greek passage you sent to me in a PM.

[AMB]

And notice how you fail to use exegetical rules to give us an interpretation of those scriptures. Instead, you take a prima facie approach...which 90% of the time will lead to bad doctrine. Care to extrapolate each and every one of those scriptures, giving us the context, the historical context and how this influenced what was being said, and how the Greek furthers the support of your idea?

Do you have that much time? Wouldn't it be better for you yourself to take each of those verses and read them so that you can see how they fit? This is why we are told to study.

There are many, many fatihs that base their religion on just John 3:16 and Eph 2:8,9 and nobody tells them the same things you just required from me.

I study the bible and use ALL of the scriptures that were given to mankind and inspired by God for doctrine, reproof, and instruction in righteousness. If anybody really wants to know what those scriptures mean then they can look them up themselves.

A lot of those verses are self explanitory anyway and need no profound expounding.

No, I want you to use proper hermeneutics on every passage. I'm not going to let you get away with posting a bunch of one liner scriptures. I've already done it with most of those scriptures, specifically the ones in Hebrews, for my benefit. Your turn. You want to tout that you've studied and understand the Bible, prove it.

Can you please provide scripture supporting this?

Philippians 1:6-7 - For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me.

The Book of Philippians is addressing the persecution faced by the intended audience. Paul is stating that though he had to leave them early, he is sure that God will continue a good work in them, and that He will be faithful to complete it. The structure of this sentence places the power in God's hands for the completion, and takes it out of the hands of the audience. The two key Greek words here are enarksamenos and epitelesei. The former, in its grammatical construct, means "to create" or "to begin." In other words, this "good work" (faith) was created by God, not by their own actions. It was given to them by God. The latter Greek word solidifies that salvation is not our own in that it literally means, "completed." In other words, Paul is saying, "God created and initiated the faith you have, and He will complete that faith you have on the day you are with Christ." If we can leave the faith, this allows us more power than God, since He is the author and finisher of our faith.

This is just one passage - but as you can see, there is no alternative interpretation. From this, we must look at other passages and compare your interpretation of the passages to this one.

I think you are reading way more into it than it says. The work of Christ will be completed, His plans cannot be stopped, they come to past, but we have to choose to come into agreement with the work He started in us. We all know God will follow through with His part of the agreement, but we must endure, and if we do wander we need to be brought back into repentance before death.

This says nothing to one not having the inability to fall away from Christ once we are in Him. Christ's abiltiy to complete something, does not stop me from walking away from His ability. I have a part in it.

[AMB]

What you just said contradicts the passage. The passage says that God will complete, this means work about and bring us to a completion, a finishing, of our salvation. Repentance is part of salvation. Who's right, you or Paul?

Your question implies that one of us is wrong, when in fact we are both right.

The scripture does say that he will complete his work in us...key words "his work".

I believe that this means he will completely exaust all of his efforts to try to bring about conversion in our lives. Some people just will not change. That doesn't mean that God never tried, or that he failed....he will say that he did everything that he could.

I believe that God works in all of our hearts. But we know that it will be the minority who are saved. That doesn't mean thet he never began a good work in the others....it just means that they were stubborn or that their hearts were hardened and they could not be converted no matter what God did. The only thing that he will not do to get us to convert is take away our free will. If he did take away our free will then all who claim to be Christians would be saved, but we know that there will be many so-called Christians thrown into the lake of fire.

Exactly!!

[apothanein kerdos]

I think you are reading way more into it than it says. The work of Christ will be completed, His plans cannot be stopped, they come to past, but we have to choose to come into agreement with the work He started in us. We all know God will follow through with His part of the agreement, but we must endure, and if we do wander we need to be brought back into repentance before death.

Where is this in the passage? Keep in mind that salvation is a covenant relationship. Salvation is not saying a prayer and then from then on we're thrown into the pool and by God we better learn to swim. By entering into this covenant we are allowing God to sanctify us (bring us back into the complete image of God). This passage states that He is faithful to begin a good work that HE STARTED in us. In other words, your theory is off the moment you think this covenant is two way. It's not - we respond, and God takes over from there. If our works have anything to do with us losing our salvation, then we believe in a works based salvation.

[TomPJr]

I think you are reading way more into it than it says. The work of Christ will be completed, His plans cannot be stopped, they come to past, but we have to choose to come into agreement with the work He started in us. We all know God will follow through with His part of the agreement, but we must endure, and if we do wander we need to be brought back into repentance before death.

Where is this in the passage? Keep in mind that salvation is a covenant relationship. Salvation is not saying a prayer and then from then on we're thrown into the pool and by God we better learn to swim. By entering into this covenant we are allowing God to sanctify us (bring us back into the complete image of God). This passage states that He is faithful to begin a good work that HE STARTED in us. In other words, your theory is off the moment you think this covenant is two way. It's not - we respond, and God takes over from there. If our works have anything to do with us losing our salvation, then we believe in a works based salvation.

as you stated above...We must allow him...

and....

All covenants are two sided...both sides agree to something as in a contract or a marriage. Both sides agree to the terms. If one side fails to meet their part, they may have consequences. Gods promises come with a big "IF"

IF we confess and repent, he is faithfull and just to forgive us.

[AMB]

I think you are reading way more into it than it says. The work of Christ will be completed, His plans cannot be stopped, they come to past, but we have to choose to come into agreement with the work He started in us. We all know God will follow through with His part of the agreement, but we must endure, and if we do wander we need to be brought back into repentance before death.

Where is this in the passage? Keep in mind that salvation is a covenant relationship. Salvation is not saying a prayer and then from then on we're thrown into the pool and by God we better learn to swim. By entering into this covenant we are allowing God to sanctify us (bring us back into the complete image of God). This passage states that He is faithful to begin a good work that HE STARTED in us. In other words, your theory is off the moment you think this covenant is two way. It's not - we respond, and God takes over from there. If our works have anything to do with us losing our salvation, then we believe in a works based salvation.

I've looking at the greek of covenant and it says nothing about it being one way . . . most definitions indicate it is a two way agreement.