Charles Stanley faulty view of Eternal Security

You said:
Sticking with the text(s) without the help of any of the other data that God has blessed us with the knowledge of is, in my opinion, slapping God in the face.

==So you would put tradition (in one form or the other) on par with (or at least near to) Scripture? I hope not. Could you please clearify?

John 6:37-40??

Martin.

 

May God our Father bless you according to His riches in glory through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.


</font>[/QUOTE]Thank you, Brother for remembering me in prayer---and I pray to for you that

"Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God."--Ephesians 3:17-19

 

Martin wrote,

No, I do not.

The Scriptures are my final authority. When it comes to the INTERPRETATION of the Scriptures, however, I believe that it is prudent to take into account all of the information that one has, and that it is prudent to have in ones possession a substantial amount of information.

Nonetheless, I formulated my basic doctrinal views before I pursued an academic approach to the Bible. The large part of those views I still hold to today. However, after I had been saved for about five months, a young gentleman challenged one of my doctrinal views and I went to my study Bible to find Scriptures to prove to him that my view was correct. I used the outlines and the notes and cross references in my study Bible because the editor of my study Bible held to the same view as I did. However, the more that I took advantage of the outlines and the notes and cross references, the less I found support for my view. Indeed, it began to appear to me that my view was incorrect. I prayed for the help of the Holy Spirit to guide me in my study of the matter, and it became even clearer to me that my view was wrong. I became discourage because my church and my pastor also shared that view, as did all of my Christian friends at the time, and I prayed in earnest for the Holy Spirit to help me. The consequence was that the Holy Spirit opened up for me the word of God in such a manner that He never had before, and it became crystal clear to me that my view was incorrect.

I had at the time only one theology book—an analysis of the statement of faith of my denomination at the time, the Assemblies of God. I read all that it said on the general subject, but it did not deal specifically with the doctrinal point I was studying. I became frustrated and prayed some more, and then I noticed an asterisk in the chapter that I had just read. I read the footnote at the bottom of the page and it directed me to an appendix in the back of the book that addressed my particular doctrinal point. It said very clearly that the pastors in Assemblies of God do not agree on that particular doctrinal point, but that the General Counsel of the Assemblies of God encourages its pastors to teach the view that I had abandoned only moments before. The Holy Spirit comforted me and assured me that He had led me to the truth in the Scriptures as He has others, but that my denomination’s preferred view was incorrect.

Two and a half years later I was teaching a Bible study on Romans and as I got well into chapter six, I began to doubt that my view of Romans 7 was correct. I prayed in earnest for the Holy Spirit to open up the Scriptures for me and to teach me the truths in Romans 7. And once again, for the second time, He did so and chapter 7 became for me as clear as crystal. I had by then 13 commentaries on Romans and I carefully and prayerfully read what all of them had to say about Romans 7, and much to my dismay, 12 of the 13 took the position that I had abandoned only moments before, and the 13th commentary did not favor one view over the other. I became discouraged and thought that perhaps I only imagined that the Holy Spirit had made Romans 7 clear as crystal and I prayed again for God to teach me His truths in Romans 7. Immediately, the Holy Spirit “spoke” to me in a very firm and authoritative manner and told me that He had already taught me the truths in Romans 7 and not to doubt Him.

Therefore, during the next few weeks I taught Romans 7 according to the view that the Holy Spirit instructed me. Nonetheless, I became very curious as to why all those commentators believed in an incorrect view, and for the second time in my life I found myself immersed in the academic world where I began reading and studying the views of hundreds of scholar as well as the history of the interpretation of Romans 7. And today I have in my personal library 233 of the commentaries on Romans that I have studied, including many who teach the same thing that the Holy Spirit taught me, plus numerous other books on Paul and his theology, and about 120 commentaries on Paul’s other epistles.

I also ambitiously studied the other doctrinal view that the Holy Spirit led me away from two and a half years earlier, and I learned in detail the history of that view and the hermeneutics that make the view appear to many to be the correct view. I also examined in detail my other doctrinal beliefs and found them all to be Biblically sound and well represented in the teachings of the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers and other Christians throughout the history of the Church. I also became aware of very many doctrinal details that I had previously overlooked.

I also prayed in earnest for the Holy Spirit to open up for me the Scriptures regarding the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and the Baptism in water, but thus far I have had no supernatural experiences regarding either of those two doctrines.

As for the various doctrines of eternal security, I grew up in an agnostic household and had no knowledge at all of any religion or doctrine. As a young adult I began going to a Baptist coffee house where Bible studies were taught five nights a week. I also began visiting two Assembly of God Churches, and I was thus surrounded by Christians seven nights a week, although I myself was definitely not a believer in either Jesus or any part of the Christian faith. After several months, however, I answered an alter call at an Assembly of God church, not because I believed the message—but because I promised a friend the night before that I would. This was the Assembly of God church that I had been going to for several months every Sunday night. The congregation had held a special prayer meeting that lasted till midnight a few Sunday nights before for my salvation, and when I finally answered the alter call, they were ecstatic, but I felt no different at all.

Indeed, I continued to deny Jesus and the truth of the Christian faith for another three weeks until I was walking alone down the main street in the large city where I lived at the time, and the Holy Spirit came over me, and in a matter of five minutes radically transformed me into a child of God with an absolute faith in Christ and the Bible. I continued for a time going to both the Assembly of God Church and the Baptist coffee house and they each taught the opposite end of the spectrum regarding conditional and eternal security, but it was very clear to me at once that the Bible explicitly taught conditional security. In my academic pursuits, I have also studied the history of the various doctrines of both conditional and eternal security and the hermeneutics behind all of the various views.

The Scriptures are my final authority, but the Holy Spirit very often uses other men to help us understand the Scriptures more perfectly.

 

I'm not as up on this subject as some of you seem to be. I believe once saved always saved. I believe the parable concerning the seed being sown doesn't show that some lost their salvation. To me it speaks to the fact that the only person who was truly saved was the one where the seed was planted in the good soil. The others were simply never truly saved.
Also, help me out here I seriously want to hear opinions. I'm not trying to make a point. If you believe in conditional security then where do you or how do you incorporate the doctrine of Justification into your theology. Is Christ's righteousness imputed upon believers and then unimputed. If we are considered justified judiciously before a righteous and holy God because Christ's righteousness was imputed upon us as beleivers in His salvation work. Is that imputation retracted based upon our lack to perservere? If so then is Christ's work on the cross is not finished? So I supose my question is this: IF you believe in conditional security what is your interpretion of the Doctrine of Justificaton? Thanks. Look foward to some discussion.

 

When we believed upon Christ and His atonement for our sins, we were “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;” and our continuous faith continues to justify us. However, if “if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
27. but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES.
28. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
29. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
30. For we know Him who said, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY." And again, "THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE."
31. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Heb. 10:26-31; NASB, 1995)

One may ask, then, what happened to our justification? The answer is that true faith in Christ is inseparable from obedience to Him. Willful disobedience is a consequence of the abandonment of faith. Works of the Law have nothing to do with our justification, but works of righteousness in obedience to Christ are essential for our justification. Without them, we are not justified of the sin that will result.

James 2:-14. What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?
15. If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food,
16. and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?
17. Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
18. But someone may well say, "You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works."
19. You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.
20. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?
21. Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?
22. You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected;
23. and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS," and he was called the friend of God.
24. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
25. In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
26. For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

 

Gal 3:2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
Gal 3:3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?

"our continuous faith" is impossible. You have merely substituted an inferior law for the Law of Moses. If there had been a law that was good enough then the Law of Moses would have been the right one but Paul concludes in Galatians that there is no law that could make you good enough in the sight of God. The Law or any law was not good enough to get you saved and the Law or any law is not good enough to keep you saved.