Featured Genuine Salvation is Forever

It goes to the numerous texts interpreted to mean those God saves cannot become lost. Like John 6:37 etc.

 

I agree

It is the exact same salvation that each believer has when they trust in Christ Jesus.

Yes, that is what the bible says

You base this on what. Salvation is salvation. There are not different types. Each person is saved when they believe, one maintains they belief and another latter denies that belief. In both cases the belief was true and the person was saved.

Are you suggesting that a person does not have the free will to change their mind? Remember everyone that is saved had to make the choice to trust the gospel message.

 

@MrW you are trying to conflate two different books and situations.

Heb 6:4-6 is speaking of those that have been enlightened G5461 {to enlighten, spiritually, imbue with saving knowledge}. They are partakers G3353 of the Holy Spirit {of the salvation procured by him}
"if they fall away" The warning is meaningless if it were not possible for one to fall away from the salvation that they now had. So we can know that these are Christians.

Mat 7:23 is speaking of those that have professed faith in Christ but it was not a real faith just a spoken one. Note Christ's words ""Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven,..."

So you are correct, God cannot lie. And He has not.

 

Joh 6:37 "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.

This does not say that what you need it to say.

On the other hand we do see that God does cut off some.
Rom 11:20 Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.
Rom 11:21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.
Rom 11:22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.

So while they were saved they could still be cut off.

 

All those saved even those that latter fall away

All those saved even those that latter fall away

But that does not stop a person from walking away.

Yes head faith and heart faith, but that still does not stop a person from turning away does it?

Those that continue to believe that is why the warnings

Why the need to test your faith if you can not loose it?

Yes it is abandoned, thus the warnings we see in scripture and that you just referred to

 

We do not agree.

Titus 1:2, . . . In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; . . .

I cannot cause you to understand my view.

God solely does the saving. And God solely does the keeping of whom He saves.

Without those two concepts being absolutely true, no one can actually know one is saved because no one knows how one's self will change one's mind.

 

Jon, let me clarify some things for you.

1] I agree that only those that hold fast to their faith will have eternal life
2] The fact that one believes now does not guarantee that they will always believe, thus the warnings
3] The bible is clear that those that believe are partakers in Christ. To deny that is to deny scripture.
4] I accept the bible as the Holy Spirit inspired it which includes the warnings.

I have no problem believing that some will place their trust in Christ Jesus only latter to reject Him for various reasons. The bible is clear on that and so is real life. I understand that you struggle with this but that does not change the facts.

It seems you have to hold to the OSAS view which is just another way of stating Calvin's Evanescent faith.

What we can both agree on is that those that do continue in faith will be with Christ in heaven

 

I agree with this comment 'God solely does the saving. And God solely does the keeping of whom He saves.'

And they are true. What you still will not deal with is the warning passages that the Holy Spirit inspired. Do you not trust that they are there for a reason?

God saves those and only those that believe in Him.

I can not cause you to understand my view but I can ask that you trust what the bible says.

 

I have not exhausted all the Biblical arguments.

 

I just take the words "in Christ" to mean we are in Christ. But perhaps you have a different take on those words. If one is "in Christ" are they not a partaker of Christ? That is where the difference is Jon. You see it happening only in the future and I see it in the present.

 

I trust in Christ Jesus that I have eternal life just as anyone that trusts in Him has. Eternal life is in the present not at some future date. But as the warning passages make clear even those that presently have eternal life can forfeit it if they turn away.

 

It says, they “escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” That is a distinctly Christian experience!

I feel for Apostle Peter because I have experienced the same gut wrenching agony that he felt when he saw his dear and precious brothers in Christ once again become entangled in the defilements of the world. However, for me there was the additional agony caused by my friends telling me that “Ken” was never saved! They had never prayed with Ken or worshipped Christ with him. They had never rejoiced or lamented with him. They had never laughed or cried with him. They had never shared a meal with him. They never knew anything at all about him, and yet they had the audacity to say that he was never saved—all because their deeply flawed 16th century doctrine says that he could not have been saved because he fell away from his exemplary Christian life style of twenty-four years. This judgmental behavior on the part of my “friends” was totally unjustified, inexcusable, and cruel. Moreover, Ken and millions like him are proof that the 16th century doctrine should be flushed down the toilet.

 

Heb. 6:4. For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
5. and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,
6. and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.
7. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God;
8. but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.
9. But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. (NASB, 1995)

Up until the 16th century, this passage was universally interpreted as teaching that a Christian could lose his salvation, and the large majority of Bible scholars today still hold to that position. Indeed, this passage of Scripture gives us the most detailed description of what it means to be saved that we find anywhere in the Bible, and the end of these saved persons who subsequently fall away from the Christian faith is eternal damnation in the fires of hell. This was also the doctrine of our earliest Baptist forefathers before some Baptists heard a brand new doctrine that had been recently conceived by some men in Europe, and spread this new doctrine among their Baptist brothers causing it to take over like a firestorm.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews wrote his Epistle using the terminology and phraseology of the very early Church. Therefore, in order to accurately interpret the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is essential to have a solid background in the writings of the very early Church and the terminology and phraseology that they used.

The phrase in verse 4, “those who have once been enlightened,” is a reference to water baptism. Indeed, Justin Martyr (died in 165 A.D.) wrote that the term “enlightenment” was used as a synonym for water baptism of converts to Christianity and he uses the term “the enlightened one” for a person who has been baptized. And the Peshitta, an ancient Syriac translation of the Greek New Testament, renders (when translated into English) the phrase in verse 4, “who have gone down into baptism.”

The phrase in verse 4, “have tasted of the heavenly gift,” was variously interpreted during the first 1500 years, but it was ALWAYS interpreted as describing a born-again Christian. Some, for example, saw it to be a reference to the Eucharist; others saw it to be a reference to the teaching of Christ in John 6:31-58. Still others saw it to be a reference to the forgiveness of sins; others saw it to be a reference to the blessings conferred upon the Christian believer.

The phrase in verse 4, “and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,” is an obvious reference to receiving the Holy Spirit, something that, in the New Testament, happens EXCLUSIVELY to those who have been saved.

The phrase in verse 5, “and have tasted the good word of God,” is a clear reference to the Christian’s experience of hearing the word of God preached and taught and the consequential experience of it in his life as a believer.

The phrase in verse 5, “and the powers of the age to come,” is a reference to the miracles that were performed by the Apostles and other Christians as a foreshadowing of the kingdom to come, and to the other blessings that Christians experience now in part but shall experience in their fullness in the future kingdom.

The phrase in verse 6, “and then have fallen away,” can be properly interpreted only to be speaking of falling from grace and the Christian faith, something that can NOT happen until AFTER a person is saved.

The phrases in verse 6, “it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame,” tell us of the absolutely horrendous consequence of a Christian falling from grace, making the death of Christ on the cross for his sins to be of no effect. This passage expressly speaks of a person who has heard the Gospel, believed it, was saved and baptized, repented of his sins, and enjoyed the blessing of being a born-again Christian—but who subsequently chose to reject Christ and return to his sins. And the fate of such a person could not possibly be any worse—it is “impossible to renew them again to repentance.” Most obviously it is not impossible to renew an unsaved person to repentance if they have repented but not been born again and then fall back into sin. Therefore, the person spoken of has necessarily been born again but has fallen away from the Christian faith. And the born-again Christian who, of his own free will, chooses to reject the Christ who redeemed him is beyond redemption and damned to the fires of hell for eternity.

Verses 7 & 8 are an analogy used to support the author’s statements. Just as the ground which once brought forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled received a blessing from God, and the ground that now yields thorns and thistles is worthless and ends up being burned, so the Christian which once brought forth good fruit unto God but who now brings forth bad fruit ends up being burned in the fires of hell.

Verse 9 tells us that the author has been warning his Christian readers about things that do not accompany salvation, things that happen to Christians who fall away from the faith. Nonetheless, he is reassuring them that that he does not expect them to fall away, as some others had done, but is convinced of better things concerning them, and things that, in their case, accompany salvation, even though he felt that he needed to warn them of the horrendous consequences of apostasy from the Christian faith.