Bob takes Scripture out of context every chance he can. Whether it be in Ezekiel 18, Matthew 18, 1Cor.6, 1Cor.7, he loves to quote these scriptures especially in defense of:I thought you believed a saint "keeps the commandments of God"? How then is this man righteous when he is a habitual sinner breaking the commandments of God?
1. keeping the commandments of God--all of them.
2. demonstrating that one can lose their salvation and thus OSAS is false.
That is one of his main purposes.
On this thread he has been concentrating here in Ezekiel 18:
Ezekiel 18:26 When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die.
--Bob believes that he has everyone over a barrel here for the "righteous man turns from his righteousness ...and dies" (or according to Bob loses his salvation).
In my view, and in H.A. Ironside's esteemed view the entire passage is speaking of temporal punishment and not spiritual punishment. Thus his entire argument is rendered moot. The context is rendered right from the beginning in the first three verses when a Hebrew idiom is introduced known commonly as a "generational curse." The Lord says plainly, "I am not going to listen to you anymore; your excuses have run out (especially that one)." Every man must pay for his own sin. We are accountable and responsible for the actions and sins we commit.
Now that is how I view it. I look at the context.
Others see it differently. Especially when they get down to the verse where Bob thinks he has one a victory. There is a case for a spiritual application here.
Robert Hawker, D.D. was an evangelical Anglican pastor in England that lived between 1753 and 1827. He wrote voluminously.
Here is what he says on this passage:
When the Lord puts the question, Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, and not that he should return from his ways and live? We cannot suppose that the sense is, the Lord hath no pleasure in securing the honour and glory of His holy name, by the destruction of sin and evil. This cannot be the case, for all the parts of scripture prove the reverse. But the sense is, that while sinners, whose hearts are savingly turned by grace to the Lord, are his glory and delight, the incorrigible and unreclaimed, when punished, are fearful monuments of his justice. So, in like manner, when it is said, when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them, for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die. This cannot be said of a righteous man in Christ; and, strictly and properly speaking, there can be none righteous but in Christ; and from this righteousness he cannot turn, neither can it he lost, for the Lord hath said, My salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. Isaiah 51:6. Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation; ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end. Isaiah 45:17. But the sense is, when the moral man and one that counteth himself righteous, turneth from it, as that he will sooner or later, and lose all his vain confidence and proud boasting, when such an one falls into trespasses, he hath no resource in Christ, no hope of salvation in his blood and righteousness; and therefore dies in his iniquity, unwashed, unregenerated, unrenewed in the spirit of his mind. This point is more plainly shown in the parallel passage, Ezekiel 33:13 where the Lord denotes this self-righteousness a trusting to it; so that, by comparing both together, the reader may be able, under divine teaching, to discern the poor, imperfect, law-righteousness of men, which never did, nor ever will save a soul, and that rich and all-perfect gospel righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, which becomes the believer's most complete and justifying robe of salvation before the Lord Jehovah, in grace here, and glory forever. Isaiah 45:24-25.
Notice again Ez.33:13,
Ezekiel 33:13 When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it.
--The same sense here is what is written in chapter 18. Ezekiel does not contradict himself. "IF he trust in his OWN righteousness." That is he never had the righteousness of Christ, or God's righteousness to begin with. One cannot lose what he does not have. He was not saved.
Even if the passage has a spiritual application it is not talking about a saved person losing his salvation. The Bible never speaks of such a scenario.