Is it possible to say that we all agree that it is possible to have once been saved and then in the end to somehow lose that salvation, or have I gone too far with that statement? I am not talking about the method of losing it, just the fact that one could have once been born again and wind up being lost in the end. Some, like me, are somewhat convinced that the only way to lose out is if we turn from it ourselves. This seems to square with Hebrews as well as other verses pointing to the need to hold the profession of our faith fast to the end.

" 4For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,5And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. "

Others say that it is sin that causes you to lose out (many old time, holiness pentecostals were this way). Others may have other opinions.

But is it possible to agree that it could indeed be lost?

By the way, I am blessed by the tenor of the discussion of what is often a very charged topic. Krispy, maybe the snake has no fangs. :-)

_________________
Travis

Salvation

David F. Wells, The Search for Salvation,

"The whole comprehensive view of salvation which the Bible presents - past, present and future; subjective and objective; personal and societal, is not being maintained in its wholeness within modern theology."

Foerster, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, (Kittel's) - root words from which sozo and soterion are derived mean "to make safe."

Salvation. To make safe from what? Not to make safe from erroneous thinking by understanding your "erroneous zones". Not to make safe from economic and/or political oppressors (liberation theology).

Perhaps the most popular conception is that we are made safe from going to hell. And yet, the objective of Christian salvation is surely more than just an escapist incentive for the acquisition of an everlasting "fire insurance policy."

Salvation has to do with being made safe from misused humanity, dysfunctional humanity, in order to be restored to the functional humanity God intends by the presence of the functional dynamic of God in man by His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

We are being saved unto full participation in the risen, ascended Life of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the dynamic of God's Spirit.

We are being saved unto the purpose of our creation and existence in glorifying God. (Isa. 43:7)

We must be painfully honest in reappraising our popular misconceptions of salvation in evangelical theology today.

Several years ago. "I FOUND IT" campaign of Campus Crusade. What is the IT they were claiming to have found? Salvation? Eternal Life? The implication is that "salvation" is an IT; something, rather than Someone. Such is sloppy salvation terminology!

We need to understand a dynamic restorative and functional salvation process - Not just preventative salvation. Not just acquisitional salvation (the acquiring of spiritual benefits.) Salvation is not a "benefit" dispensed by a "benefactor." Yet Darrel L. Bock (Bibliotheca Sacra - Apr. June, 1986), "Jesus as Lord is the divine dispenser of salvation"..."Jesus is the dispenser of divine salvation and forgiveness." Such is a separated concept that separates salvation from the Savior, and creates a static view of salvation. Jesus does not dispense salvation like a bubble-gum dispenser; He does not dispense salvation like an airline ticket dispenser; Jesus is not like a medical dispensary dispensing the "gos-pill". Salvation is only in the dynamic activity of the Savior. Jesus Christ is salvation.

Salvation is not an entity, a commodity, a "package", a spiritual "goody"; Salvation is not a heavenly entrance pass, a ticket to heaven, an eternal life package. Salvation is not a "possession in my pocket'.

Evangelical theology has swung from a God-centered theology to a man-centered theology, and has wrenched "salvation" from the grace-activity of God, placing it into the hands of men, to be manipulated by men (or so they think).

When we use the phrase "got saved", it has static connotations of an event in time, a transaction, a static state of being.

Conrad Murrell, Salvation When?

"...it is extremely difficult to determine in the Bible where anyone "got saved." That is not Bible terminology. It is not early church terminology. The Puritans did not use it. It is peculiarly the language of modern evangelism. It is Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, but not Bible."

Salvation is the dynamic functioning of the Person of Jesus Christ within us, the restorative activity of the Savior.

Modern theology has reduced salvation to depersonalized formulas, static arguments of the length of one's ordo salutis.

J.S. Stewart - A Man in Christ ,

"There has been a tendency, on the part of Roman Catholics and Protestants alike, to systematize Paul's teaching into elaborate "plans of salvation," to the details and order of which the experience of believers has been required to conform - the tendency, in other words to stereotype the grace of God. To regularize salvation beyond a certain point is simply to revert from the freedom of the spirit to the bondage of the letter. ....endless misconceptions have been caused by isolating the various elements in the Christian experience from one another, and assigned each its place on a chronological chart."

W.L. Liefeld, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (revised)-

"In the Pauline corpus...salvation is...a dynamic act rather than a logical category or symbol. ..salvation, far from being a deus ex machine used to salvage an occasional bad situation, is God's eternal plan, extending through Christ to the entire range of human need."

Salvation is a process ­ not a process of accumulating "good works" as in the cultic sense of salvation process, but the process by which God's dynamic grace is continuously applied to our lives, in the "saving life of Christ." Salvation is the dynamic process of the work of the Savior in His people

This central reality of the functional dynamic of all things in the person and work of Jesus Christ, Himself, is the truth that is so often obliterated and obfuscated,...as the natural propensity of man is to reduce Christianity into a manageable religious belief-system.

Karl Paul Donfried - The Dynamic Word -

"The New Testament forbids us to treat it as a static document to be used as a set of proof-texts for instant solutions to complex and controversial contemporary problems. A static interpretation of the New Testament is dependent on a frozen Christology, one that views Jesus as limited to the first third of the first century; a dynamic interpretation of the New Testament is based on a Christology that views Jesus not only as the human manifestation of God in first-century Palestine, but also as the Risen Lord of the church present yesterday, today, and tomorrow, who calls His church to obedience until the completion of his salvific purposes on the last day. As the contemporary church remains obedient to the Risen Christ in her midst, the gospel can become a dynamic Word for us as well, and that is an opportunity of great hope and much rejoicing."

T.F. Torrance - Reality and Evangelical Theology -

"God Himself is the real content of His revelation...in His continuous self-revealing and self-giving through the Son and in the Spirit.

"Modern liberal theology like ancient Arianism continues to stumble at the identity between God and His revelation...(and) is thrown back upon the autonomous religious reason to provide the ground on which all that is claimed to be divine revelation is to be considered."

"Fundamentalism...rejects the fact that revelation must be continually given and received in a living relation with God....it substitutes a static for a dynamic view of revelation. ...fundamentalism operates with a rigid framework of beliefs which have a transcendent origin and which are certainly appropriated through encounter with God in His self revelation...but these beliefs are not applied in a manner consistent with their dynamic origin and nature. Instead of being open to the objective pole of their reference in the continual self-giving of God and therefore continually revisable under its control, they are given a finality and rigidity in themselves as evangelical beliefs..... They are endowed with a fixity at the back of the fundamentalist mind, where they are evidently secure from critical questioning. ..The Bible is treated as a self-contained corpus of divine truths in propositional form endowed with an infallibility of statement which provides the justification felt to be needed for the rigid framework of belief within which fundamentalism barricades itself.

"The practical and the epistemological effect of a fundamentalism of this kind is to give an infallible Bible and a set of rigid evangelical beliefs primacy over God's self-revelation which is mediated to us through the Bible.....reinforced by the regular fundamentalist identification of biblical statements about the truth with the truth itself to which they refer. The living reality of God's self-revelation through Jesus Christ and in the Spirit is in point of fact made secondary to the Scripture.

"...the decisive problem of fundamentalism is not so different after all from the problem of liberalism.

"...fundamentalists...appear to be trapped in a mental and theological inertia before the pain of justification by the grace of divine Reality alone, which threatens to wrench their minds free from inbuilt fixities and rigidities, so that they may be opened through the Spirit to the ultimate and creative Word and Truth of God Himself. Radical change at this point would surely involve acknowledgment of the transcendent Reality and Authority of the living Jesus Christ not only over the church and all its doctrinal formulations but over the Holy Scriptures themselves. (15-19)

The story is told that when Ghatama Buddha was dying (over four hundred years prior to the time of Christ), some of his disciples asked how they could best remember him. He told them not to bother; that it was his teaching, not his person, that mattered. Such is the basis of religion - ideological, philosophical, educative belief-systems. Such is not the case with Jesus Christ and Christianity. Everything centers in Him. Everything is inherent in Jesus, His Person and His continuing activity. Everything functions only by the dynamic of the risen and living Lord Jesus Christ.

http://www.christinyou.net/pages/dynamicxst.html

Just like Calvinist and Arminians (sp?), both sides argue their scriptures to the death when in fact BOTH sides are supported in the Bible! So arguing that topic (and eternal security as well) become altogether useless in the scheme of eternity. Because eternal security and falling away are both “IN” the Bible and even without being misapplied!!

Most of you know that I have argued adamantly on this forum for ‘falling away’ but through spending time with the Lord, He has shown me that arguing this point (as well as others) is A DISTRACTION OF THE ENEMY and that both sides are NOT 100% right and yet both do have truth in them. And a distraction keeps us arguing instead of being about the Father's business.

Finally, I do lean heavily that going into the jail is an excellent demonstration of the demonic teaching of OSAS and has led these men and women into a false sense of security and ultimately to hell. 99% of everyone in jail/prison believes that they are saved... even if they’ve not prayed one time since praying the sinner’s prayer when they were five, ten or fifteen years old.

Krispy and others state that they weren’t saved to begin with but yet no one instructed the precious souls that they might not be saved! No! They were told, "Say this prayer and you WILL GO to heaven," with no other instruction. So, I’m wondering how many “saved” people will stand in front of God with blood on their hands over teaching eternal security? You need to analyze exactly what it is that you are teaching innocent souls.

Krispy, I remember a few months back that you praised God for leading a man to Christ; you and a few other men in your church. Has he been back to church? Did anyone disciple that man? During that prayer time, did anyone instruct him that he might not be saved after that prayer you all lead him in? And did he walk away thinking he was saved or not?

So I will still go into the jails preaching “REPENTANCE IS A LIFESTYLE” and instruct them to repent every time they sin, to read their Bibles everyday, fear God and love His Son Christ Jesus with all their heart, mind, body and soul!!! Just like rbanks and others on here, I will NOT teach anyone the doctrine of eternal security.

I do trust God completely that He knows those who are His!

God bless us all,
Lisa

_________________
Lisa

Dear Lisa, I feel your passion in that reply, God bless you sister.........bro Frank

If the OSAS doctrine is true then please someone explain to me the parable of the ten virgins(matthew 25:1-13... Krispy my pastor who is S baptist said that the five foolish virigins got lesser rewards in heaven. so in light of this paprble please tell me how can Osas have any standing at all.

_________________
Brian

I find myself agreeing with Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel on this question of OSAS (perseverance of the saints):

On another spectrum, there are the hyper-Calvinists who teach that Jesus died only for His elect, that man has no free will, that one group is elect for heaven, another is elect for hell, and there's nothing you can do about it. Opposite them are the hyper-Arminians who forget the sovereignty of God altogether and believe a person must be born again again each time they sin. Again, Calvary Chapel is the balance between the two. As Pastor Chuck said, "I believe in once saved always saved, if you abide in Christ". The Bible teaches the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man; it teaches the security of the believer and the perseverance of the saints. We will never intellectually reconcile the two; we just need to accept the fact that God is bigger than we are and teach all that the Bible says.

I could not have expressed it better.

You can find more info on this third position between Calvinism and Arminianism here:

http://www.babylonfalls.org/forchristians/salvation.html

Salvation is a process ­not a process of accumulating "good works" as in the cultic sense of salvation process, but the process by which God's dynamic grace is continuously applied to our lives, in the "saving life of Christ." Salvation is the dynamic process of the work of the Savior in His people. (J.Fowler)

The reason that Christendom reduces the Christian life to a set of rules and regulations and a codified religious belief system is because it is much easier than maintaining a living, abiding relationship with Jesus Christ (which requires the cross and putting to death the deeds of the flesh).

The religious flesh is subtle and through it's deceptive codification process of turning God's Words into legalisms the flesh has found sophisticated ways to turn God's ways into a manageable belief system and avoid the Cross and thus, avoid abiding in Christ, yet be completely saved because of "faith".

Now, that is the epitome of deceptive religious flesh: Be saved (according to dogma) yet not having to abide in Christ in an ever present, living relationship.

If one is abiding in Christ, they will produce fruit, which is the result of that abiding.

What does it mean to "have the Son"? For he that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life (1 John 5:12).

2Jn 1:9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.

Part of the doctrine of Christ is John 15 - Abiding in Him.

In the following verse, Paul is talking to the BRETHREN!

Heb 3:12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.

When you depart from the living God you are saying goodbye. You are departing from eternal life because eternal life is in the Son (God).

1Jn 5:11 And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

Pilgrim

Hello TrueWitness, I took a look at the site you listed and this was the 1st point they mentioned as Arminian doctrine

The "Five Points of Arminianism" included the following:
1. FREE WILL
Arminius believed that the fall of man was not total, maintaining that there was enough good left in man for him to will to accept Jesus Christ unto salvation.


This is not Arminian.

Arminius himself, and the remonstrants believed the following. It ends with a Sproul quote


Arminius, as did Calvin, championed the cause of the wretchedness of sinners as taught in Scripture. He writes:

In the state of Primitive Innocence, man had a mind endued with a clear understanding of heavenly light and truth concerning God, and his works and will, as far as was sufficient for the salvation of man and the glory of God; he had a heart imbued with "righteousness and true holiness," and with a true and saving love of good; and powers abundantly qualified or furnished perfectly to fulfill the law which God had imposed on him. This admits easily of proof from the description of the image of God, after which man is said to have been created (Gen. 1:26-27), from the law divinely imposed on him, which had a promise and a threat appended to it (Gen 2:17), and lastly from the analogous restoration of the same image in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 4:24; Col. 3:10).

But man was not so confirmed in this state of innocence as to be incapable of being moved by the representation presented to him of some good (whether it was of an inferior kind and relating to this [natural] life, or of a superior kind and relating to spiritual life), inordinately and unlawfully to look upon it and to desire it, and of his own spontaneous as well as free motion, and through a preposterous desire for that good, to decline from the obedience which had been prescribed to him. Nay, having turned away from the light of his own mind and his Chief Good, which is God, or, at least, having turned towards that Chief Good not in the manner in which he ought to have done, and besides having turned in mind and heart towards an inferior good, he transgressed the command given to him for life. By this foul deed, he precipitated himself from that noble and elevated condition into a state of the deepest infelicity, which is under the Dominion of Sin. . . .

In this state, the Free Will of man towards the True Good is not only wounded, maimed, infirm, bent, and weakened; but it is also imprisoned, destroyed, and lost: And its powers are not only debilitated and useless unless they be assisted by grace, but it has no powers whatever except such as are excited by Divine grace.3

Calvinist R. C. Sproul comments:

"The above citation from one of Arminius's works demonstrates how seriously he regards the depths of the fall. He is not satisfied to declare that man's will was merely wounded or weakened. He insists that is was "imprisoned, destroyed, and lost." The language of Augustine, Martin Luther, or John Calvin is scarcely stronger than that of Arminius. . . .

Arminius not only affirms the bondage of the will, but insists that natural man, being dead in sin, exists in a state of moral inability or impotence. What more could an Augustinian or Calvinist hope for from a theologian? Arminius then declares that the only remedy for man's fallen condition is the gracious operation of God's Spirit. The will of man is not free to do any good unless it is made free or liberated by the Son of God through the Spirit of God.4"

With that being said, Arminians also hold to Libertarian Free Will, not to be confused with absolute free will.

Hope this helps. Russ