I understand those verses very well. They are in reference to those that are saved by God through faith.
Are you coming form a calvinist point of view re salvation? Do you think faith is a work? Do you think one is saved and then God gives them faith to believe?
The only control that anyone has over their salvation is whether they believe or not. Their faith does not save anyone but it is the condition God has set that He will save them.
I am surprised at you comments as you have read and agreed with enough of my post that you should know my position on salvation.
Where it seems you are having a problem is whether a person can loose or turn away from God once they are saved.
Rom 11:19 You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in."
Rom 11:20 Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear;
Rom 11:21 for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either.
What is Paul saying here? The Jews were cutoff due to UNBELIEF. He is warning the Gentile believers that the same could happen to them if they do not continue in belief.
Rom 11:22 Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God's kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.
No Calvinism. Faith is not a work. It is how God requires we receive His grace toward us—believing His Word and His Son. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, not by a mysterious gifting. One is convicted of sin and of being a sinner, Godly sorrow works repentance, one believes the Scripture and is converted, regenerated, saved.
Then everything changes. There’s a new creation. All is new. One’s spirit is made alive to God and made one with Christ’s Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17). He is known of God, made a partaker of the divine nature, one of Christ’s sheep. The Spirit of Christ in the believer will never let him go. He is in God’s hands. Christ loses no sheep. His never perish. Never means never. One has eternal life. Eternal means eternal, not temporary. What is joined to Christ will never go to hell.
The problem is people have a religious experience and think they’re saved. They look good for a time. Some even preach. But there’s no root, they’re not in Christ (think of the Parable of the Sower, only 25% actually brought forth fruit, and of Matthew 7:21-23—they claimed salvation by their great performance but were never born again; Christ NEVER knew them—they only had a religious experience of some kind).
I believe when a person is saved there IS performance, there is fruit (some thirty fold, some sixty, some a hundred) but the performance, the fruit, their perseverance, does not keep them saved. The ROOT is Who keeps them, preserves them; without Christ we can do nothing to save ourselves nor keep ourselves. What is born of flesh is still flesh and fleshly good works save no one, nor does dead faith. The Holy Spirit God puts into the saved person keeps the person forever, and brings forth fruit and manifests works pleasing to God, by the Spirit, not by flesh.
I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but CHRIST liveth IN ME, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith OF the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.
The Lord Jesus is in every saved person by the Holy Spirit and He is not going to die a second death, nor is the person He is in. The saved person is kept, preserved, by the power of God, not his own power. Apart from Him, we are weak, powerless, but through Christ in us we have His strength.
The broken off branches refers to Israel nationally. Israel nationally will be restored. They were broken off nationally nearly 2000 years but many individuals were saved by trusting Christ. Israel nationally will be restored eventually, meanwhile individuals are still being saved (Romans 1:16).
I have agreed with you because you have been right to oppose the errors of Calvinism. The point they almost had right (Eternal Security), they even got it wrong because of trusting their perseverance (human effort) instead of trusting the work of the Holy Spirit that preserves the believer, enabling him to persevere. When a person is saved, it’s all of Christ, as we walk in the Spirit.
Once saved, always saved, is true—but a person has to get the “once” before he can get the “always”. About 3 out of 4 of the “professors” have never been “possessors”, thus all the apostasy on the internet, TV preachers, false apostles and false prophets, and tares in the churches.
Make your calling and election SURE. Examine yourselves—know ye not that Christ is in you, except ye be reprobate? If He’s in you, it’s forever. Make sure He is. Don’t just take it for granted, and fool oneself.
VERY GOOD STUFF!