Salvation: A Possession or an Event?

I believe that there’s no state of grace one can reach where one could not of our own free will decide to reject God and finally lose one’s salvation.

Salvation is a process and our relationship with God is ongoing and dynamic, not just a legal covenant established long ago. Like those of us that are married our security in our marriage from failing is not just in the initiating event: the wedding, rather it’s a growing loving relationship with our spouse and the same can be said about our salvation. Our relationship with God is just as important as the initiating event.

I believe as well that a Christian can “backslide” in sin and still be saved, but in order for a Christian to lose one’s salvation is IMO, a process as well; by a continual pattern of purposeful premeditated disobedience which will eventually harden into an attitude of rebellion and defiance that can break off a two-way relationship with God. Then again, as long as the Christian is developing his or her walk with God DAILY, the chance of this is slim.

Blessings

 

As James Newman has pointed out on another thread, there is more than one salvation. The event that most people call "being saved" occurs the moment you believe on the Lord Jesus as your savior. It's punctiliar action. You cannot fall short. You either believe, or you don't. You can stop believing later, but the Bible says, "Believe (punctiliar, not durative) and you will (definitely, not maybe) be saved".

You cannot undo an event. God is faithful, even though we're not. And I thank God for that, because we all fall short to varying degrees, and none of us would be saved.

But, there is also being saved in the present tense, and that is what you can fall short of, and that can cause you to lose out on your inheritance; it can cause you to lose out on entrance into the Kingdom. It's the salvation of the soul.

Falling short of that doesn't mean you end up in the lake of fire. God is faithful. But, you could be cast into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Once you are born from above, you're in the family. You cannot be unborn. Even if you're cut out of the will, you're still in the family. Nothing can change that.

 

Cross Man,

bmerr here. riverm makes a good point in comparing the Christian's relationship to Christ with the husband/wife relationship. In fact, he's not the first to do it.

In Eph 5:21-31, 33, Paul describes the attitudes that husbands and wives are to have toward each other. Then, in 6:1-9, Paul gives instruction regarding relationships between children/parents, salves/masters, and masters/slaves.

Between these two sections, and referring back to Paul's instruction to husbands/wives, is 5:32, which reads,

"This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church".

Often an illustration like this is used to teach OSAS,

"If your child disobeys you, you don't kick him out of the family, do you? What if he rebels against you and leaves home to do and live as he pleases, committing fornication and doing drugs? He's still you child, isn't he? Well, if you got saved, then you're God's child, and He's a better father than any of us could be, so He'd never kick you out of His family because you were disobedient to His Word, and lived like a heathen. Why, if you're saved, you couldn't go to hell if you wanted to!"

Of course, this is given with big, sad, puppy dog eyes, and maybe even a crocodile tear or two, just for effect, and the audience goes away, feeling better about themselves, yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah.......

But the Bible doesn't portray Christ's relationship with His church like this, does it? No, the Bible portrays Christ as the Husband, and the church as the Bride of Christ, Christians composing the church.

This being the case, we can look at Matt 19:9 to see what cause is sufficient to end the marriage relationship. Fornication is the cause, and I might add, the ONLY cause for which a divorce is sanctioned by God.

A Christian is one who has been espoused to one Husband (2 Cor 11:2), having heard the gospel of Christ (Rom 10:17), believed on Christ as the Son of God (Mark 16:16), repented of sins (Luke 3:3, 5), confessed Christ as the Son of God (Rom 10:9), and been baptized (immersed in water) for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38). In short, by obeying the gospel.

For such a one to then deliberately and unrepentantly live in defiance and opposition to the NT, is for that one to commit spiritual fornication, or adultery against Jesus Christ.

If such a one were to die in this condition, they would be lost for all eternity.

After every wedding comes a marriage.

After every baptism comes a Christian life.

Faithfulness is required to make either one work.

In Christ,

bmerr

 

The bible talks about what parents are supposed to do when their children are rebellious.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21
18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

This is a picture surely of how God Himself will deal with rebellious children. It has no mention of disowning the son, rather it is declared 'This our son is stubborn and rebellious'. We can be stubborn and rebellious children of God, and we may be taken outside the city and stoned for it.

 

This quote is a good example of teaching a license to sin, though. They fail to mention things such as what James is pointing out. James is right on the money.

 

Salvation is an event and a relationship.

Let me tell a story:

A few years a go my wife, my brother-in-law, and I was boating in the Chesapeake Bay. We were returning to the dock when we saw two heads and four arms waving at us from the water. We went over to find two teenage girls that had been swept out by the tide. No life jackets or floats! We gathered them into the boat and they were very shaken up. They told us that they went walking in the water while the tide was out, and when they tried to get back to land when the tide had came in and now it was over their head. Well, they tried to get back but it was impossible for them to swim back. By the time we got there they were exhausted and were going under, sinking to the bottom and pushing themselves back to the surface for air. They stated " you saved our lives". They were almost to the channel. If they'd drifted into that, they'd been gone for sure.

This is a perfect picture of a lost soul sinking in sin. The truth of the matter is that we did save those girls, and that will be an absolute throughout the rest of their lives, but I haven't seen or spoken to those two since and probably never will on this planet. This still doesn't change the fact that we saved their lives.

This is the way I see our salvation. God saves us once and once only. This event birthed us into God's family as His children. We now have a relationship with Him, but this isn't the only thing we wants out of it. He wants to have fellowship. Therefore, salvation is a one - time event, but fellowship should be an everyday event.

I know that I don't have a father/child relationship with those girls we saved, but I do have a saviour/savee relationship with them and that will never change even if they'd jumped out of the boat. Who in their right mind would jump out of the boat. It seems like they would've just refused the help to begin with.

 

Salvation is described in the Bible as both past present and future. We are saved once, as we are forgiven, given the holy Spirit, and transfered into the kingdom of God's Son. We are in the process of being saved from our old nature, as daily we are taught to trust in God and transformed more into the image of Christ. And we will be ultimatly saved when we escape God's wrath on judgement day and then are made perfect. In systematic theology terms, we like to label these justification, santification, and glorification, though the Bible is not always so strict with its language. The fact that the process is both once and for all and ongoing may be a paradox to us, but it is the reality the Bible teaches as we relay both on the now and the not yet in our relationship with Jesus.

The fact that we can't lose our salvation is not an issue of whether it is singular or not but that God Himself has promised that we will not let us. I neither trust OSAS or myself but rest perfectly in God's promise.

 

The failure to understand this distinction is what leads to this argument.

 

God set a standard of whome his family is based on their commitment to obey HIM.

Please don't make him like us. He has always planned to building in himself a Holy people joined by Jesus blood. This defines true family for God. Can we love more than Him? We can only do what we think is best, but God discipline for our good. Meaning also he kicks us out the house or allows us to leave, those becoming dead, in hopes that we will come to our senses and return to living again WITH HIM. DEATH IS LIVING WITHOUT HIM. If we live with him now till the end we will live with him For ever.

 

Care to back this up with Scripture?

When you believe on the Lord Jesus as your savior, you're born from above. You're in the family. The Bible doesn't say, "Believe on the Lord Jesus and make a commitment to obey him and you will be saved". A lost person cannot obey him.

 

Matt 7 "Not everyone who SAYS Lord Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven - but he who DOES the will of My Father".

Romans 2:11-13 "For it is not the hearers of the Law that are just but the doers of the Law will be justified"

1John 2:4-6 "He who says He KNOWS Christ should walk as He walked" in fact if they do not - John claims they are "a liar".

This does not mean that God looks for obedience and THEN saves - but it means that we are "Saved by Grace through faith created unto Good works that God has created beforehand that we should WALK in them" Eph 2:8-10

This relationship between salvation and obedience vs damnation and rebellion is seen in Romans 3:31 "Do we then make VOID the Law of God by our faith? God forbid!! In fact we ESTABLISH the Law of God"

 

Hope,

bmerr here. Would you agree that to be saved is to be in God's family? If so, then we should know that Jesus is the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him (Heb 5:8-9).

To believe, or have faith, is to obey. Faith and obedience are "two sides of the same coin", if you will. Look at 1 Pet 2:7, which reads,

"Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is become the head of the corner".

Can you see how "believe" and "disobedient" are used as opposites?

Believe is the opposite of disbelieve.

Obedient is the opposite of disobedient.

Peter uses "believe" as the opposite of "disobedient".

Therefore, "disobedient" = "disbelieve", and "obey" = "believe".

Follow that?

In Christ,

bmerr