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So often those who believe one can lose his salvation believe that salvation is obtained by faith and lost by works.
Scoff, maybe?
How many times did Jesus ask Matthew to come follow Him? At what point do you obtain salvation then? It may be one of more small decisions and then the final decision. However one does not become a follower of Jesus Christ until he makes that final decision. It does not matter how many times I would like to hit a home run it will never happen until I step into the batters box.
That has nothing to do with salvation but rewards in heaven. You have gotten them mixed up. Your theology does not seem to agree with 1 Cor. 3:15.
You do not understand faith nor what it means to know in the NT usage. To know is to know intimately with an absolute certainty that is unwavering. It comes out of a historical Jewish background. Sometime look up the Hebrew word for know. Salvation in Christ is not a hope so salvation. As John writes it is an absolute assurance and you can know without a doubt. As Peter writes it is an absolute assurance from the past to the future.
Stating a faith is nothing more than a creedal faith which is utterly useless and nothing more than words on a page. In the book of James the Jews had a creedal faith and were not followers of Jesus Christ.
HP: Mattew once. Myself? Several times before I followed. How about you? Did you follow the first time the Spirit spoke to your heart of your need?
HP: In its initial stage, or its final culmination? We accept salvation by faith when we first repent and believe, but there is a time of testing, a time of probation so to speak, where there is a proving out of our faith. Then we stand before the Final Judge to either be finally and forever judged in Christ eternally or not. In salvations initial act of faith, we enter into the hope of our final standing before Go and receive the ‘earnest’ of our salvation, but all is not written in stone from any perspective God allows for us to view it by, until we stand in judgment after leaving this present world. Now we stand by faith in possession of the earnest or sure hope of eternal life, IF we hold fast our profession without wavering until the end. Heb 3:6 “But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, IF WE HOLD FAST the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.”
Once. Yes
Remember who Hebrews is written to.
Was Peter saved even though he denied Jesus three times?
A perfect participle puts the emphasis on the existing result. In the nature of the case the act described by a perfect participle will be antecedent to the time of the leading verb, but the state that has resulted from the past action will be contemporaneous with the leading verb. The inheritance was reserved in past tense and continues in the present tense.
Not really. One who does not have salvation has no hope. Once he has received Christ he has hope and salvation at the same time.
I do not agree with your understanding of salvation. If you believe that then how would you interpret 1 Cor 3:15, "If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire."
I agree but would contend that he never had salvation because one who claims to know God and then turns around and says he never knew God is a liar. The problem you present is the problem we have in America of poorly presenting what Christ commands before people make their decision when all they got was a fraudulent message and swindled into something they knew nothing about. Often those people leave because they realize they were defrauded into believing a lie.
We cannot judge those people because God's timetable is not ours. If you study history you realize that there were those in the early church who left the faith and then repented and followed Christ.
I would disagree simply because of the basic definition of faith and the assurance we have of salvation. Salvation is secured by Christ and reserved in heaven for those who are His.
I would question your view of the Holy Spirit then.
To have absolute knowledge would be to suggest that one can understand beyond comprehension. Man's knowledge is finite and limited to what God wants him to know.
James talks about a genuine saving faith and a faith from dead works which is a creedal faith that the Jews held onto.
I would contend that they may have had a faith that was dead and appeared as thought they knew God but did not and were found shipwrecked. If one confessed Christ as Lord he had to have realized that he could have been executed. Just as there are today in countries where the Christians are under persecution there were also imposters then. I would ask the question how could one who claims to know God turn around and claim to not know God and that He never existed.
HP: When one receives Christ we enter into the hope of eternal life, that which Scriptures say we have the ‘earnest’ of now held by faith. Yes, it can be said that we are in possession of salvation now, BY FAITH. We will remain in that state of faith in our eternal inheritance if we remain obedient, firm unto the end. Again, play close attention to the conditional statement made conditional by the little word ‘IF.’ It does not take an English major to understand such a conditional statement, just an open and honest heart for the truth. Heb 3:6 But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, IF we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
HP: You make no sense to me. One can certainly have known God and turned away from his relationship with God. Scripture clearly warns us in many places of that possibility. When one turns away from the light his light becomes darkness and oh how great that darkness. From that darkened position the enemy of our souls certainly can and will try to deceive the individual into believing that he never had anything to begin with. Happens all the time, even in many Churches. We hear it in testimonies that claim, “Well I know that I have been in the Church today for 30 years and taught Sunday School classes or preached etc, but today I realized that I never know God.” I certainly would not lay any money(if I was a betting man) that such in reality was the case. I would rather believe that they started out right but fell into condemnation and they are forced to give such a testimony due to the doctrinal prejudice OSAS has forced upon them.
Well I have never heard it used once so it is a first for me. To prooftext and have no idea of who a book is written to is about as useless as using the words of an atheist to prove that God does not exist. The most basic fundamental rule of hermeneutics is that you cannot interpret a text apart from its historical context. There are texts which appear difficult to interpret and understand but there are others which are quite easy. If you knew who Hebrews was written to and for what purpose you would know why the writer of Hebrews wrote what he did.
Again I ask you was Peter saved? He had one act of faith without a continuance. That is until he repented. In the interim did he lose his salvation and then gain it when he repented? Imagine if every time you did something wrong when you were in your parents home, and every time you did something wrong you were removed from the home and your inheritance was conditioned on your being sinless would you have an inheritance? Of course not? God’s love for us is not conditional and our salvation is not conditioned on our being sinless. So our salvation being reserved in heaven is not conditioned upon our sinlessness. It is conditioned upon one thing—our relationship with God, not our sinlessness.
My salvation is secure in Christ and reserved in heaven. Knowing that why do you think Paul addressed the issue in Romans 6? He addressed the very issue you are dealing with.