Did Paul not get it?

Bob, your theology is a mess. It's a free gift that you have to work for. You have to run to recieve the prize, but if you don't win the free gift you were never really in the race. When will you realize that dead people don't run?

 

You can not bend the Bible "enough" to insert OSAS into every text no matter how much wrenching of the text it takes. It will simply wear you out.

As you already noticed in 1Cor 9, the same holds true in Matt 18, in Matt 7, in Romans 2, in Romans 11, in Ezek 18, in 2Tim 2 .. the list just keeps going and going and going.

Better to just accept the Bible as it reads and dump OSAS.

Once you do that - it all fits.

In Christ,

Bob

 

I suppose it is "fun" to pretend that "Bob wrote 1 Cor 9" instead of actually responding to the "detailed exegetically sound review" on 1Cor 9 already posted here.

I don't blame you for taking that approach - since as I already said - it is far too time consiuming and exhuasting to have to "undo all of scripture just to make OSAS FIT".

In the mean time - I prefer the "lazy way" - the one that does NOT need to bend-wrench-and-twist text after text trying to get "OSAS to fit".

Paul does not say "I must run AND THEN after running I WILL be born again WILL have assurance" - HE STARTS with the born again, saved experience BUT THEN he says in 1Cor 9 what your OSAS view will not allow!!

And that is the "obvious" point being raised in the OP!

In Christ,

Bob

 

1 Corinthians 9:24-27
24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.
25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.
26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:
27 But I keepunder my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

Do you really suppose the Apostle Paul is speaking of losing his salvation? You would have a better argument if you did think that, but you say that if a person is not working, they were never saved to begin with. Could an unsaved man get direct revelation from the Lord, and yet find himself to be a false believer?

Perhaps what he is working for is a crown. That is what he said isn't it. An incorruptible crown. Lest he should be a castaway.

Matthew 13:47-48
47 Again,the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:
48 Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.

But they shall still be saved, yet so as by fire.

 

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, (ticket) and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me.
--It is in the Bible. Jesus is the only way to Heaven. He is the ticket. It is not the Sabbath; not the Ten Commandments, not any specific religion, but Christ alone. He is our ticket to Heaven. Once one trusts Christ as Saviour he promises him eternal life.

John 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

Christ is my ticket to eternal life. It cannot be taken away. If it could it would not be eternal life and Christ would be a liar. For eternal life would no longer be eternal it would only be temporary, which is not what Christ promised. Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, today, and forever; is immutable. He cannot lie. He is my Saviour. Is He yours?
He is the only one that one can have a relationoship with. For when one is born again, he is born again into the family of God, and becomes a child of God. I have personal relationship with Jesus Christ because of the fact that I have been born again. And for that same reason, Christ, by the power of His Holy Spirit, changes me day by day. Salvation is never a ticket to do evil. Whoever makes such a naive accusation about Biblical Christianity does not understand what salvation is all about. Biblical salvation is not based on fear and works; but on love and grace.
DHK

 

Marcia let's just take a look at the verses and see if you are right.

Hebrews 4:12 - For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Well it looks like the Bible in fact does say that the soul and the spirit are divided.

Hebrews 10:39 - But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

The Bible in fact says our soul is being saved, not already saved. And this is if we believe, not a guarantee.

James 1:21 - Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

This verse is written to believers. So if we do the things listed our souls will be saved. Why? Becuase they aren't saved as of yet.

I Peter 1:9 - Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.

This is talking about the goal or the end of our faith, which is the salvation of the soul. This means that we have to wait for this. Salvation by grace through faith is a gift that is received at the moment of faith.

As you say sanctification is a process whereby we must cooperate with the Holy Spirit. If we do then our soul will be saved. If we do not then we will lose our soul.

This is the message of the Gospels.

Marcia this message is given throughout the Bible in the NT.

 

xdisciplex the reason you are having trouble getting these verses to mesh with other verses is because they don't. Don't get sucked into this false teaching that you can lose your salvation.

What has happened is folks are not rightly diving the Word and trying to make all of the NT speak to salvation by grace through faith. What happens when that takes place is that some folks think that you can lose your salvation, which is not true.

But if we would recognize there is salvation by grace through faith, which is not of works and is a free gift and then there is the salvation of the soul we could keep the Scriptures in the proper perspective.

The salvation of the soul is something that is not guaranteed to happen. It is something that can be grasped and then can be lost as per Hebrews 6:4. Most people say look you can loose your eternal salvation, but that's not what Hebrews 6:4 is talking about. Hebrews is talking about the salvation of the soul, and that is something that you can lose.

As to your other question, what does it matter...the salvation of the soul has to do with whether or not you are found as a worthy servant or a wicked servant. It has to do with whether or not you are an overcomer or whether you are overcome by the flesh, the world and/or Satan. It has to do with whether or not you are a member of the bride of Christ and whether or not you will rule and reign with Him during the 1,000-year reign of Christ.

Hope that helps.

 

To fully appreciate the doctrinal error of OSAS and the "need" it has to avoid "inconvenient texts" like the one in the OP -- we need to first understand the RIGHT view of Salvation.

To understand that OSAS (Once Saved Always Saved) is error not taught in scripture we must first see what the Bible defines as “salvation” condition for the saints.

I consider that the Bible definition of one who is saved is the following.

#1. Reconciled to Christ - in fellowship with Christ.
#2. At peace with God in the light of His grace to us. (Rom 5:1
#3. Forgiven of sins (1John 1:9)
#4. Christ as our Mediator confessing us as His own before the courts of heaven. (1John 2:1)
#5. Faith that is alive and growing James 2:14-26, Heb 11:1-4
#6. Partaking of the Holy Spirit and the heavenly blessings of the age to come.
#7. Freedom from slavery to sin - escape from the tyranny of being forced to sin.
Walking in the Spirit and putting to death the deeds of the flesh. Walking as Christ walked rather than lying about our relationship to Christ.
(1John 2:2-5, Romans 8:3-9, Romans 6 all, Romans 2 all)


Yet all this is still WITH the sinful nature such that we in fact may sin - but will always find in Christ "A mediator with the Father" 1John 2:1 rather than the loss of salvation.

These are the basics in my view of salvation.

 

Next we must carefully review the following texts as they fully and completely disabuse all on the subject of the myths of OSAS.

For they are "consisten" with the "relationship" view of Salvation given above - regarding perseverance --

Saved walk “Contrasted” to the enslaved-to-sin walk defined in Romans 2

 

Finally we contrast those statements about walking with Christ and persevering - to the ones showing us failing cases of those who "fall from Grace" Gal 5, a term that indicates a past action whereby the saved person is actively "Severed from Christ" (Gal 5 terms not mine).

Therefore the “loss of salvation” is seen whenever that state of salvation is explicitly seen to be revoked, when our acceptance and peace with God is denied by God.

#1. Turned over to Satan 1 Tim 1
#2. A certain terrifying expectation of Judgment to come – Heb 10
#3. Forgiveness revoked Matt 18 – old massive debt is now put back on us.
#4. Christ denying us 2Tim 2
#5. The shipwreck of faith 1 Tim 1
#6. Impossible to be renewed again having been partakers of the Holy Spirit Heb 6
Bound up to be burned – John 15, Heb 6
#7. Enslaved to sin again – as a dog that returns to its vomit


Turned over to Satan – in the shipwreck of faith

Denied by Christ instead of His “confessing us before God and His angels” –

Soul bound by sin and under the condemnation of death

Forgiveness revoked –

Severed FROM Christ and Fallen from grace

 

Now as it turns out - the foibles and failings of a man-made-tradition will often "blame the one who READS the text" when confronted with disconfirming - texts that fully and completely refute a man-made-tradition as in the list of texts above.

That is not "surprising" nor is it "new".

But those who engage in such tactics end up with a "bad bible" section and a "good Bible section".

They complain and gripe whenever they see someone quoting from the "bad bible" texts saying "Don't be fooled into believing those texts". But then they have to go through complex girations and gloss-over tricks and tactics trying to "fix" all the "bad bible texts"

In Christ,

Bob

 

Bob I would agree that folks that don't understand the difference between the salvation of the spirit and the salvation of the soul tend to do exactly what you are talking about, but you fail to separate the two distinct subjects and come up with a false idea that one can lose their salvation, which is a free gift.

First of all you include a lot of things in your definition that the Bible does not include in It's definition.

Ephesians 2:8-9 and Acts 16:30-31 are EXTREMELY clear on what salvation by grace is and what it takes. It is God's grace given as a gift that must be received by faith and has nothing at all to do with man's works, but the works of Christ on the cross and His shed blood.

So outside of faith on the death and shed blood of the Lamb of God everything else in your definition is outside of the Biblical defintion of eternal salvation.

Salvation is something that God gives you. You don't earn it, so why would you think you could do something to unearn it when you didn't earn it in the first place.

Man is so concerned with having to do something for salvation or do soemthing to keep salvation that they turn God's grace into a worker's wages. Those two things don't mesh. They never have and they never will. If man comes into the picture at all then it is no longer grace, but a wage, becuase it is something you are due.

 

Well, when Jesus died, his body went in the grave, his spirit went to be with the Father, and his soul went to hell...

Unless the Father is in hell...

BobRyan, your theology sounds surprisingly similar to a professor I had in college who gave us a test on the 17 steps to being saved. I gave the correct answer of one step: "Believe (punctiliar) on the Lord Jesus and you will (indicative; no doubt about it!) be saved", but he didn't appreciate the truth of Scripture either.

We should serve the Lord because we love him, but many don't. Thank God that our salvation doesn't depent on that! It depends upon the finished (and perfect) work of Jesus on the cross!

We should also esteem the things that the Lord esteems enough to offer to us. Just as there are wages for sin, we have been offered wages for righteous living. Those wages are not spiritual salvation, but are crowns and treasure that is laid up for us.

 

Running for the prize and the reference to crowns in 1 Cor 9 is rewards, not salvation. Either Col. 1. 13-14 and Jn. 5.24 are true, or they are not. Both say we are saved.

So have we been transferred from the kingdom of darkness or not? Have we passed out of death into life or not? If not, these words are meaningless.

 

I already addressed Heb. 4.12. It's a metaphorical statement - God's word is not literally a sword nor does it literally divide soul and spirit. If this is true, then why are spirit and soul used interchangeable in many passsages?

Soul sometimes means life and sometimes is used for spirit.

 

Marcia do you believe the Bible is living and active as is able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart?

 

I must interpret all of the above passages in light of passages such as Col 1.13-14, Jn 5.24, and others which state unequivocally that we are saved. Period. To say our spirits are saved and not our souls is really bizarre -- did you get this from Watchman Nee? He was fond of dividing up the soul and spirit and adding his quirky teachings to scripture.

I don't see where Heb 10.39 says we have to save our souls - it is talking about our our souls are saved. In context of preceding verses, he is saying we are among those who are saved.

James 1.21 is in context of putting aside bad speech and being preserved in "an impure age" as one commentator puts it. Being saved here could refer to this. Also, the word "save" refers back to God's word, which is able to save. Another view:

1 Pet 1.9 is just saying that faith results in salvation.

Sanctification is a process, yes, but sanctification is not justification (as in salvation). The justification that is salvation is not a process! We are justified at the moment of fatih - declared righteous in God's eyes, saved for eternity. But sanctification, the conforming to the image of Chirst, is a process.

If you think being saved is a process, this is a Roman Catholic teaching. This is counter to everything taught in Baptist theology, though you list yourself as a Baptist. So it's strange to see a Baptist say this.

 

Of course. I suggest you do research on the soul and spirit thing and on parallelism.

Did you read what I posted on the Greek words for soul and spirit? Have you read commentaries on this issue?

I am not going to continue to debate this -- I've already delved into this topic several times on the BB before. Do a search.

 

Okay this may take awhile, but here goes.

I don't want to deal with Colossians until we take care of the verse you used out of John. Let me ask you this. Do you believe once a person is saved that they are eternally saved (once saved always saved). In other words when I am saved by grace through faith that is something that I can not lose. Would you agree to that statement?

If so you are going to have real problems trying to reconcile the OSAS stance with this verse, because it is a present tense. Meaning if you are not in the same state tomorrow this will not be true. Again eternal salvation is always in the past and not a present/continuing thing. It's a done deal.

Next let's take a look at the verses that I gave you.

Hebrews 10:39 makes it plain and simple. The author and the audience are not ones that have sunk back, but they are believers to the saving of their soul. A couple of problems with your view. One the verse states that there are those that haven't shrunk back and there are those that have. These were believers whose souls were being saved, and the ones that shrunk back were not.

Two this is present tense verb meaning this is something that they are right now. Eternal salvation is a past act never referred to in the present tense.

James 1:21 doesn't have anything to do with being preserved through a bad generation of folks. It says if you do these things and receive the word which is ABLE to save your soul. It doesn't say it does. It says it's able. Why is it only able? Becuase the believer must continue to cooperate and believe. If they don't then even though they have the word their soul will not be saved.

I Peter 1:9 is not saying that salvation results from faith. It says the END of your faith or the goal of your faith...the OUTCOME of your faith. Does your faith end at salvation? Does your faith reach it's goal at salvation? No you are to continually live by faith. So at the end of your faith (when your life is complete) hopefully your soul will be saved.