Do You Believe in "Once Saved, Always Saved"

[EricH]

I hate to keep saying this, but OSAS and Losing ones salvation are positions that tend to use one set of proof texts to support their positions at the expense of others. For me the Perseverance of the Saints best explains both the texts that speak to the security of the believer, and those that speak to the need to press on in obedience and faith. Any position that claims to be biblical must be able to explain the both types of passages.

[apothanein kerdos]

I hate to keep saying this, but OSAS and Losing ones salvation are positions that tend to use one set of proof texts to support their positions at the expense of others. For me the Perseverance of the Saints best explains both the texts that speak to the security of the believer, and those that speak to the need to press on in obedience and faith. Any position that claims to be biblical must be able to explain the both types of passages.

As for me, if maintaining my salvation is of my own doing, then I'm going to hell.

[Guest shiloh357]

I know people who have considered themelves Christians for a very long time and still lie, drink, smoke, swear, drink, live in fornication, etc. They follow this doctrine because it is considered "Once saved always saved". I have even heard it taught so much as that now since I have reached the blood of Christ that God does not see my sins anymore each time I committ them.

That proves nothing because I have known former Pentecostals and others who were anti-OSAS, and still lived in adultery, fornication, fell into Homosexuality and became drunks and they, according their own words, KNEW they were going to Hell, because that is what their denom. taught. To say that a particular doctrine is to blame for someone living in sin is perhaps one of the lamest arguments you can present. You simply cannot lump everyone in the same category. People fall into sin, and stay there, for a variety of reasons.

What people are missing is that along with being saved by grace and faith it is also centered around repentance. Many, many faiths are foundationed around the fact that all I have to do is believe in Christ and let faith and grace do all the work. By all means we don't work for our salvation, but we do have to maintain it. By this I mean that if I get saved and never repent of any of my sins then how can I stay saved with sin on my soul?

This is a contradiction. If it is up to YOU to maintain it, then it Jesus does not get the glory. From this position ultimately, YOU saved yourself. You get the credit for maintaining your salvation, and you are responsible for the salvation that only God was supposed to get the glory for.

Anybody and can string a bunch of verses together and make the Bible say whatever they want it to say. It takes skill to actually use proper interpretation principles, which you obviously lack.

Read about the rest of the churches and you will see that they were all commanded to repent of their sins or they would have their candlesticks take away. There is a recompense to Christians who do backslide and don't repent.

Yes their candlesticks would be removed. If you knew how to interpret Scripture, you would know that, that phrase does not mean "lose salvation." Paul was talking to a general body. The "candlestick" refers to the congregation as a light in that area which we now know as Turkey. It does not mean, and Jesus did accuse them of not being Christians, nor did he promise them eternal damnation. They were simply dissolved as a congregation. I have been through church splits and I have seen churches who no longer exist. That does not mean that people ceased to be Christians.

[Guest shiloh357]

I don't understand how I am not when I am directly talking about works which is corresponding actions that are demonstrated by us. A dead faith would be to chose the wrong over the right and when we choose we will go and "do" what we have chosen in the matter. We will chose to either obey God and do the right and walk in the Spirit having an alive faith or we will chose to disobey God and choose to do the wrong fulfilling the desires of our flesh and therefore our "works" are of the flesh being from a dead faith. Because when we do this it puts us back up under the Law and during these times our faith is dead towards God until we repent and do righteousness again then our faith is alive and our works of faith is not dead but alive as we are walking in the Spirit.

NO.

A dead faith, according to the book of James is an empty profession. James makes the point that like love, true faith is operative in nature. Love means nothing if it is only wrapped up in words. You may not mistreat your loved one, but if they see no tangiable signs, no deeds, then your profession of love is suspect. Love without works is dead. It is the same with faith. Dead faith does not mean "living in sin." Dead faith simply means that your life offers nothing to back up your profession. You may not be a fornicator, or a liar, or an adulterer, or a thief, but neither might you be a light for the Lord either. You may go to church, and live a decent life, but there is nothing that sets you apart, that reveals Jesus in your life. It is much harder to witness your faith verbally, if there is nothing practical in your life, nothing that anyone can point to, as being evidence of such a profession. THAT is "dead faith."

You are also wrong that works of the flesh put us back under the law. The Bible does not say that. You are still, like so many seeing salvation as a reward for service, and this completely wrong. Your works do not help you get to heaven, and they do not send you to hell. It is not about your works. If we believe that we can, by our deeds, effect our eternal destiny, we are calling God a liar, because He says that salvation is by grace, through faith, apart from works.

[Kabowd]

Why do people think their works prove anything to God? As if He doesn't already know those who are His?

People, our works/fruit is our evidence to others and to ourselves that we belong to God. God doesn't need to see our fruit before He can decide if we are truly His. He knows our hearts.

[apothanein kerdos]

Guess I'm going to hell

[Guest shiloh357]

What you are not understanding is that all our works are is our obedience to the Gospel of Christ which we are commanded to follow. Every time I obey a commandment I commit a work and everytime I repent from a sin I commit a work. What you are saying is that these things don't save you. You are practically stating that my obedience does not save me. You are very wrong.

If your obedience is what you are relying on, you are on a greased pole and sliding straight into Hell. The truth is, we are not worth saving, but God in His mercy saves us anyway. WE have nothing to offer the Lord. Our works are nothing but filthy rags in His sight. They could not get us saved, and certainly don't keep us saved. It is the height of arrogance to believe that anything you do, would be deemed good enough to add to God's grace.

Salvation is a gift of grace not a reward for service. The reason is because people will gloryin their works, and not in Christ. They will say, "look at what I have done." Their pride causes them to boast in their perception of their own holiness, and not in the work of Christ on the cross. Their salvation becomes a merit badge, and that is exactly what God does not want.

Hebrews 5:9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;

He is author salavation for those who obey him. It does not say that their obedience makes him the author of their salvation. Obedience is the mark of a Christian. Christians do not obey to get saved, that amounts to contradictory logic; they obey because He is the author of their salvation. Obedience is a response to salvation, not the means of procuring it, or maintaining it.

I do know a lot of the scriptures and I use ALL of them.

No, you misuse them and twist them to fit your misrable, false doctrines.

If I Christ has done everything for me and I don't have to do anything for fear of being labeled as "taking the glory away from Christ", then why is it up to me to hold fast to my profession?

Why do we hold fast our to our profession? Well, the answer is given to us in the verses that follow that admonition. It is because we do not have a High Priest who is cruel, but is merciful, and because he is touched the feelings of our infirmities and was tempted like we are, yet sinless. We can hold fast to our proefssion because we have a high priest who sympathizes with us, and knows afflicition and persecution, and because of this we have access to the throne of grace.We have access to the throne of grace to hind help in time of weakness and affliction because we have a great High Priest, Jesus Christ, who makes intercession for us, who pleads for us before the face of His Father. We come to the throne of grace solely upon the merits of Christ. We do not dare approach the throne of grace upon our own merits, thinking that our works have made us worthy.

Where I can go off is when I believe only in the origninal salvation and never repent of my sins.

If you are truly saved, repentance is a natural thing. That is the problem, you really don't understand what salvation is, and you have a bunch of messed up ideas about how it works.

[Guest shiloh357]

So what exactly does an empty profession entail. Wouldn't that be a hearer of the word but not a doer in the faith dead works no action of faith cause the person has none in God therefore their works are from the old nature instead of the new nature. Hence they have a dead faith toward God unless they follow the Spirit as Abraham did and obey God.

An empty profession amounts to mental assent. There are many people who intellectually agree with the words of Scripture, but they have no works to back up that profession. That is really all it means. You seem to be wanting expand the defintion to suit what you believe rather than just letting the Bible speak for itself.

Faith is something you have or you don't. If God is leading you to do something and you trust God and go and do the things he told you to do like Abraham he was told to offer up his own son Isaac here. Now it took faith in God to obey and go put his hands on his son and bind him up and put him on the altar. that is something Abraham had to do that was a work of obedience to the will of God. If Abraham did not believe in God he would not have acted toward God because he had no faith in God to start with and act upon it would have been dead faith.

Abraham would not have obeyed the leading of the Lord and did nothing because he didn't believe God to start with. So works follow the faith that Abraham had in God and he acted accordingly.

Abraham had faith because of the blood covenant God cut with him in Gen. 15. Abraham knew that Isaac was to be his heir, and that if Isaac died He would be resurrected from the ashes because God had to keep His Word. God made the most soloemn promise He could make and He swore it in blood. It was the Word of God, and the blood that gave Abraham that amazing faith.

So did Rahab if she had no faith in the God of Israel she would have disobeyed and did (works) nothing but her faith was alive toward God as she acted on it and hid the spies and showed them how to get out her works followed her faith and brought about obedience.

Works follow faith. They are not the means of acquiring it. Works are an illumination of the heart. They show what is really inside you.

You say that true faith is operative in nature. I take it that you are saying that true faith operates in the divine nature side of us the new creature side that we have been made in Christ Jesus. If so it would thus be true that no faith in God would also be operative in nature as when and that would be the old nature the flesh that we contend with still yet. No faith is to live and walk apart from God and his ways to have faith in God means to obey God and walk in accordance to his will. Both will be seen in the individuals life as to what they do or don't do in relationship to God. You either walk in the flesh or you walk in the Spirit as these two fight against one another inside of us.

What I am saying is that true faith produces actions that correspond. You will always live what you believe. You cannot help it. If your profession of faith in Christ is real, it will be evident in what you do.

This is not true for I do not see salvation as a reward for service, that is just to say that I am saying that salvation is by works in another way and it is not true for I don't believe that at all.

Your words in Post #76 would seem to indicate otherwise. That post was a host of contradictions, to be honest. No offense but it did not come across as if you are very sure of your salvation at all.

I have made that very clear in other posts. And for the record I will say it again here a person works will not bring you salvation you cannot earn salvation for it is a gift of God through faith by grace.

Now I am talking about works of faith and not works to earn our salvation. Please don't misinterpret what I am trying to say or twist it in anyway.

Well if you are not talking about works that earn salvation, then you are in the wrong thread. Ihis is an OSAS debate, not a debate about what constitutes works of faith. If I misinterpreted you, it is because I was assuming that you were somehow tying all of this to the subject matter of the thread. If you have decided to abandon the subject of this thread, it would behoove you to start another thread.

[Guest shiloh357]

Abraham has faith "before" the covenant of promise was ever made to him. Abraham when God visited him the very first time and told him to leave his kindred. What did Abraham do he obeyed and got up and went in faith. So Abraham had faith in God way before the blood covenant as you say. Abraham had faith before the amazing blood.

The faith of Abraham needed to take Isaac to the altar and sacrifice Him was based upon the blood covenant. Had that covenant not been cut, it is unlikely that Abraham would have had the faith to be as obedient as we was.

No I am not if I wanted to do that then I wouldn't be asking questions about it all. I simply want to gain understanding of the Bible. I have alot of views but they are not within this post only questions and thoughts I have towards OSAS beliefs.

So far, it is really unclear where you stand on OSAS beliefs. Dead faith is what it is, and you are trying to expand it beyond the parameters set in the book of James, which only renders it as an empty profession.

I really don't think that me asking questions in order for me to learn is showing contradictions at all. perhaps you don't like the way I learn. And I am sure of my salvation no matter what I sound like to others or what others assume about me.

Asking questions is one thing. But telling us that you really don't know what is going to become of you after you die, and telling us that you don't know if God will accept you or not, shows that you are not as sure as you claim to be. You say you are sure, but you have also said a lot that demonstrates that you really don't have much assurance.

I am very aware of the thread that I am in. I have been talking about works of our faith after salvation how we perservere in our obedience to God how we are overcomers in our faith. OSAS is like EricH said it teaches perserverance of the Saints. We perservere through our faith or do you disagree with that? It is our faith that is put on trial in this life as the book of James has said for to us to count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations and when our faith is being tried. In this life I understand that our faith will be tried and tested do you not belief that?

EricH did not say that. He draws a distinction between OSAS and perseverance of the saints. They are different. Perseverance of the Saints is the final point in Calvinism and it is generally believed that those who are truly saved inexorably, and necessarily proceed on to sanctification. In other words, a truly saved person has no other desire but please the Lord. Serving the Lord and doing His Will become the "new" natural desire for the Christian under this doctrine. This is of course, linked to the belief that the person was irresistibly called and unconditionally chosen or elected by God to be saved. This, in part, shows why the notion that such a doctrine as Perseverance of the Saints does not lead to "free grace" nor does it provide a license to live in carnality, given the complete transformation of the heart.

The other view of OSAS is similar, but not identical. It is simply the belief that God keeps those who are His; they do not keep themselves. Salvation is God holding on to you, not you holding on to God. We also believe that salvation is evidenced by a transformed heart, a transforming experience with Jesus, and that as new creations we have a new set of desires and truly desire to serve the Lord. We also reject the notion that Eternal Security causes people to live in carnality. It is a false charge. While there may be a few who have perverted the doctrine in that way, they are the exception and not the rule.

I think it best not to ask you any more questions from here on out as I see that you are flustrated at this point with me or so it seems to me at least anyway whether that is true or not I do not know. But I have enjoyed conversing with you very much on the subject and did learn a couple of things from you so I am grateful for those things I was able to glean from you but I do believe it has come time for me to move on as I do not wish to trouble you with my learning.

You are not troubling me, but when I look at your own words, and relate them back to you, you are claiming that I am misinterpreting you. My problem is that your position appears contradictory from your initial posts on this subject. It may purely semantical, I don't know. I am a bit confused about your position because you say you don't know if God will accept you, but yet you say you have assurance of salvation. You need to decide what you believe. You cannot hold both as being true. You may continue to ask questions, but I am still trying to understand where these questions are coming from so that I can answer them in a way that speaks to your need. It has been hard to do thus far.

[Guest NanaofAlex]

we are saved by faith through grace not by works lest any man should boast

I do not and as long as I read the Bible I CAN NOT believe in Lordship salvation the bible makes it very plain once saved always saved

Lot was a saved man

david was a saved man

both sinned after salvation and just in case any one thinks Psam 51 is being saved again had better reread the verse "Restore unto me the JOY of my salvation" no where does King David say restore unto me salvation

read Romans 7 and see for yourself