What does it mean to be lost?

there are people in this forum who believe you can lose your salvation. just a side note before the discussion begins.

 

An elect sinner is lost even before he is saved. Apart from divine intervention, he will die and go to hell. A non elect sinner is lost and apart from divine intervention, he will die and go to hell. John 3:18 makes this clear.

The difference between the elect and non-elect sinner, however, is that God has chosen to create in him a new heart, and redeem him from that lost condition. In one sense, that lost sinner died with Christ from the foundation of the world (and is saved in the eternal perspective), but in the temporal perspective he is still a lost sinner.

In short, the answer is yes.

 

"What does it mean to be lost?" Good question, comparable to why is the Church commanded to "wait" for the Lord and the Jews are commanded to "watch" for their Messiah.

I've always thought lost sheep were Israelites, as Jesus said "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel" (Mt.10:6; 15:24). This was said in connection with a Gentile woman asking for mercy from Jesus to heal her demon-possessed daughter. Apparently at first Jesus rejected her plea for help because his priority was saving Jews first, but because of the woman's "great faith" he changed his mind and healed the daughter.

Jesus as the "good shepherd" knows who his sheep are and the sheep know Him, they know his voice and follow him. The goats do not recognize Jesus as the good shepherd and do not follow him, instead they follow their own instincts that leads them down the wide path to destruction.

Before the Church began at Pentecost Jesus said: "I have other sheep that are not of this (Jewish) sheep pen. I must bring them also. They (the Church) too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd."

Thanks be to God, Jesus "bore our sins, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness." Before God changed our hearts we "were like sheep going astray," now that we are born of the Holy Spirit we "have returned to the Shepherd" (1 Pet. 2:24-25).

Being "lost" or going "astray" only applies to the elect before they receive Christ as Savior and not the goats who never will. Being lost is not the opposite of being saved, it is the state of the believer before becoming saved by the blood of the Lamb. The elect wander until they are taken into the sheep pen. Before Pentecost the elect were lost, after it the elect have gone astray, same condition but different dispensations.

 

Being lost is not the same as being unsaved, the goats will never find their way to the Shepherd because they have not been predestined as sheep who recognize his voice and obey Him.

Unsaved is without Christ in your heart, not being born again with the Holy Spirit, your sins not forgiven through the blood of Christ shed at Calvery etc. Hopefully other posters will add to this.

 

Yes. Lost is unsaved.

Matthew 18:11 For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.

Luke 19: 9 And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; 10 for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."

 

The notion of Hell is a recent development. Sometime after Kings and Chronicles. David and Solomon did not have a complex theology of the next world. It was a dark place where dead people went.

 

Romans 8:30

"And those he predestined (the elect determined beforehand), he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Before the foundation of the earth everything God does with the elect has been accomplished. They are not unsaved before they experience God's grace, being unsaved would negate God's sovereign choice and require God to call and justify the elect a second time.

In God's eyes the elect have already been glorified, they have already been saved.

The non-elect have already been destined for hell and remain unsaved.

Jesus came for the sheep who were wandering without a Shepherd, they were not in a state of rejection or were unsaved, they were just waiting for the Shepherd to lead them.

 

The sheep do not know they have a shepherd or who he is, but when he calls them they will recognize his voice and follow him.

 

agreed prophecynut.