I had previously written:
BB, I want to apologize to you if I come across as being disrespectful to you. I’ve read enough of your posts in the past to convince me that you are a sincere, devoted Christian and student of His word, and you do indeed have my respect for that.
I doubt we’re going to come to agreement on some of these points. I admit, I’m a ‘hyper’. I’m a ‘hyper-Monergist’ in my soteriology, and a ‘hyper-originalist’ in my initial approach to scripture, i.e., what was the original intent of the writer? As Hodge worded it, “The Scriptures are to be taken in the sense attached to them in the age and by the people to whom they were addressed".
Moreover, if we claim that these people are true believers….
If they’ve ‘made shipwreck of the faith’ they can no longer be considered as ‘true believers’, now can they? But that doesn’t change their eternal status as ‘redeemed’.
… who somehow work their way out of God's transforming work which contradicts all kinds of teaching about the perseverance of the saints.
I hold to ‘preservation’ of the saints as demonstrated in 1 Cor 5:5.
Beyond all of the teachings of Jesus that deal with believers demonstrating that they are followers of Jesus by being persons of transformed character by bearing good fruit, being productive, and living a life of compassion for others, we can look past the gospels to see this principle laid out specifically:
You’ve just given a description of what we all should aspire to be.
“It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all those who are descended from Israel are truly Israel, nor are all the children Abraham’s true descendants; rather “through Isaac will your descendants be counted.” This means it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God; rather, the children of promise are counted as descendants.” Romans 9:6-8
Amen!
“Notice therefore the kindness and harshness of God—harshness toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. And even they—if they do not continue in their unbelief—will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.” Romans 11:22-23
Amen!
“For we have become partners with Christ, if in fact we hold our initial confidence firm until the end.” Hebrews 3:14
And this is where we’ll part ways. I assume you consider becoming ‘partners with Christ’ as an absolute necessity in order to go to heaven, whereas I consider it to be the grandest of privileges His children could ever have in this temporal realm. To be ‘partners with Christ’ is to have life and to have it abundantly, here on earth.
14 for we are become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end:
15 while it is said, To-day if ye shall hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
16
For who, when they heard, did provoke? nay, did not all they that came out of Egypt by Moses?
17 And
with whom was he displeased forty years? was it not with them that sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that
were disobedient?
19 And we see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief. Heb 3
Were not all these that hardened their hearts, provoked Him, displeased Him, disobeyed Him, and believed not Him, also redeemded by Him with a mighty hand from the House of Bondage?
1 For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant, that our fathers were
all under the cloud, and
all passed through the sea;
2 and were
all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
3 and did
all eat the same spiritual food;
4 and did
all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them: and
the rock was Christ.
5 Howbeit
with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
6 Now these things were
our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
7
Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
8
Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
9
Neither let us make trial of the Lord, as some of them made trial, and perished by the serpents.
10
Neither murmur ye, as some of them murmured, and perished by the destroyer.
11 Now these things happened unto them by way of example; and
they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come.
12 Wherefore
let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. 1 Cor 10
The exhortation to us here is to NOT do as they did. Is it hard thing for you to accept that God’s redeemed, born from above children are capable of doing everything they’re told not to do in the book?
“If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us.” 2 Timothy 2:12
Here, I’ll go on with the next verse for you
:
13
if we are faithless, he abideth faithful; for he cannot deny himself.
What a wonderful, magnificent, faithful God that we have!:
3 For
what if some were without faith? shall their want of faith make of none effect the faithfulness of God?
4
God forbid: yea, let God be found true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy words, And mightest prevail when thou comest into judgment. Ro 3
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Ro 8
“For if after they have escaped the filthy things of the world through the rich knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again get entangled in them and succumb to them, their last state has become worse for them than their first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment that had been delivered to them.” 2 Peter 2:20-21
No doubt Peter, as an apostle to the circumcision, is addressing exactly the ‘falling away’ that was occurring in Hebrews. Do you believe that ‘after they have escaped the filthy things of the world through the rich knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’ they can become eternally damned? I assume you’re reading eternal consequences for these that have ‘turned back’.
“They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us, because if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But they went out from us to demonstrate that all of them do not belong to us.” 1 John 2:19
This is often misapplied to any ‘backsliding’ Christian. These are antichrists, false teachers, seeking to lead others astray:
18 Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that antichrist cometh,
even now have there arisen many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour.
19
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they all are not of us. 1 Jn 2
In the same vein as:
28 Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops, to feed the church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood.
29 I know that after my departing
grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock;
30 and
from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Acts 20
A distinction needs to be made between those that are leading astray and those that are being led astray.
