Can A Christian Lose Their Salvation?

[David777]

Yes, Rojoloco.

Yes, what a fantastic verse Philipians 1:6. Jesus promised to bring to completion that which He initiated. Thankyou.

That's what the verse promises, we can always trust Him. There is no other way to read the verse. Jesus stands and delivers on every promise.

Keep up the good work Rojoloco.

 

[rojoloco]

Yes, what a fantastic verse Philipians 1:6. Jesus promised to bring to completion that which He initiated. Thankyou.

That's what the verse promises, we can always trust Him. There is no other way to read the verse. Jesus stands and delivers on every promise.

Keep up the good work Rojoloco.

I must be confused as to what you are saying because it appears you are speaking out of both sides of your mouth here. We both agree that Philippians 1:6 tells us that God will complete what He has started in us. Not only complete but perfect! Because salvation is the active work of God, we can rest assured that a Christian will see Heaven and will be glorified with Jesus. To say otherwise is to either say God does not complete that which He starts or God has no part in salvation. Obviously, neither of those is correct. However, you said earlier that you believe a man can]/i] lose his salvation. How do you believe such when you also believe God is at work in the salvation of a man and that He will perfect it?

 

[BillyH]

I thank you for the wisdom God has given you.

The time and dedication i see in this original post makes me thank God for His Spirit! Keep yourself to prayer and study always, beware of the wolves that care nothing for the flock.

 

[David777]

Dear Mr Rojocolo

You said,

"I must be confused as to what you are saying because it appears you are speaking out of both sides of your mouth here. We both agree that Philippians 1:6 tells us that God will complete what He has started in us. Not only complete but perfect! Because salvation is the active work of God, we can rest assured that a Christian will see Heaven and will be glorified with Jesus. To say otherwise is to either say God does not complete that which He starts or God has no part in salvation. Obviously, neither of those is correct. However, you said earlier that you believe a man can]/i] lose his salvation. How do you believe such when you also believe God is at work in the salvation of a man and that He will perfect it?"

Yes, God will complete the work He started. But, your neglecting the continuous warnings throughout the New Testament. God will complete the work in an individuals life IF the individual lives by the spirit and not by the flesh Mr Rojocolo.

Do not be lukewarm in your dedication to Christ Mr Rojocolo.

You know as well as I do God is willing, but some resist, they return to wallow in the mud.

God is not a dictator, God leaves us a choice everyday concerning whom we will serve. We actively must pursue Christ everyday.

 

[spirit1st]

Some are Born of God right away! others are tested and tried!

1Pe 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

 

[Hekuran]

29 pages and no resolution?

One thing I would like to ask personally of Calvinists is how you respond to the charge that the once saved always saved doctrine is a dis-incentive to living a holiness and works of righteousness.

At its crudest, some people seem to believe that if they have prayed a prayer of salvation and meant it sincerely then they are saved no matter what they do from then on. Therefore, as your inheritance is guaranteed, what is the incentive for resisting theft, adultery, slander, greed...

How does your belief in the eternal security of your salvation affect your attitude to Christian living?

(I would be more interested in your experience than a continuation of text-tennis.)

 

[rojoloco]

Yes, God will complete the work He started. But, your neglecting the continuous warnings throughout the New Testament. God will complete the work in an individuals life IF the individual lives by the spirit and not by the flesh Mr Rojocolo.

This is one area where you can't have your cake and eat it too, so to speak. You are saying that God will perfect His work so long as we allow Him to. However, this is not what Scripture says. Scripture says He will perfect those whom He has called. There is no caveat to this claim. It is cut and dry. Those whom He has called will be perfected.

Do not be lukewarm in your dedication to Christ Mr Rojocolo.

Actually, it is only because I understand the doctrines of grace that I can truly remain dedicated. I know that nothing is of me and that it is all of God. This is a humbling fact that should make anyone desire to serve their Master wholeheartedly.

You know as well as I do God is willing, but some resist, they return to wallow in the mud.

These men were never saved. John even said they went out from the flock to show that they were never of Christ for, if they were of him, they would have remained with him.

I like how John MacArthur puts it in his book The Truth War:

"Can a genuine Christian fall away from the faith and become an apostate? No. Scripture is quite clear about that. Those who do depart from the faith, like Judas, simply demonstrate that they never had true faith to begin with. "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us." (1 John 2:19)......Ever since the time of Judas, there have been people who profess faith in Christ and identify themselves as disciples but who never genuinely embrace the truth. They may understand the truth. They may even seem to follow it enthusiastically for a while. They might identify with a church and therefore become an active and integral part of the earthly Christian community. Sometimes they even become leaders in a church. But they never really believe the truth with an undivided heart. Like tares among wheat, they have an appearance of authenticity for a while, but they are incapable of producing and useful fruit (Matthew 13:24-30).....An apostate is therefore a defector from the truth -- someone who has known the truth, given some show of affirmation to it, perhaps even proclaimed it for a while -- but they rejected it in the end......That is not to suggest they always know full well that they are apostates. Many of them are so blinded by their evil desires that they really imagine they are serving Christ when in fact they are opposing Him (John 16:2).

God is not a dictator, God leaves us a choice everyday concerning whom we will serve. We actively must pursue Christ everyday.

It has nothing to do with being a dictator. However, who are you to ask the potter, "Why have you made me thus?" (Romans 9:20).

So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

 

[rojoloco]

29 pages and no resolution?

More like hundreds of years and still no resolution.

One thing I would like to ask personally of Calvinists is how you respond to the charge that the once saved always saved doctrine is a dis-incentive to living a holiness and works of righteousness.

This is only the case for those who are either ignorant to what Calvinism teaches or one who is a hyper-Calvinist (which is very erroneous doctrine and not really a Calvinist at all). In fact, some of the most prominent evangelists over the years have been Calvinists. They strongly promote living for God. However, it is not living for Him because it might earn us something. It is living for Him because He alone chose to save us and we are His humble servants doing what He has commanded of us. We serve out of love. We do not attempt to perform works of righteousness. Instead, we attempt to grow closer to God so that He may work His works in us. Whenever we try, we always fail. The lesson to be learned is to let God work through us. This will only happen if we grow in our faith.

At its crudest, some people seem to believe that if they have prayed a prayer of salvation and meant it sincerely then they are saved no matter what they do from then on. Therefore, as your inheritance is guaranteed, what is the incentive for resisting theft, adultery, slander, greed...

Again, this is completely contrary to the doctrine of Eternal Security. In fact, because so many people have taken issue with terms such as Eternal Security and Perseverance of the Saints, many now choose to call it Preservation of the Saints. It is a hope that those who do not understand it will stop misinterpreting it. It isn't that we can live however we want and still be saved. It's that God will preserve, in faith, those whom He has called. He will keep us and perfect us as we grow in our sanctification.

How does your belief in the eternal security of your salvation affect your attitude to Christian living?

It makes me grateful. I am free of a wishy-washy feeling. I never have to wonder if I am doing enough good things. I never have to wonder if I forgot to confess something. I know that my faith is a gift from God through His grace and that He will keep me upright, even when I fail, because I am not my own. I was bought with a price and God has a plan for me. It isn't that I think about how I can never lose my salvation. It's that I think about how I am thankful that God will keep my heart inclined toward His.

 

[Jaareshiah]

It should be of great interest to any who call themselves "Christian" of what the apostle Peter wrote: "Accordingly, put away all badness and all deceitfulness and hypocrisy and envies and all sorts of backbiting, and, as newborn infants, form a longing for the unadulterated milk belonging to the word, that through it you may grow to salvation."(1 Pet 2:1, 2) The King James Bible, however, leaves this out at the end of verse 2 ("into salvation" Greek eis soteria), just saying: "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:"

Thus, a person is not "once saved always saved", but must first "form a longing for the unadulterated milk belonging to the word" of the Bible, carefully applying it divine counsel, in order to "grow to salvation." This correlates with Jesus words that "he that has endured to the end is the one that will be saved."(Matt 24:13)

The apostle Paul wrote to the Hebrews Christians in Judea, that "you have need of endurance, in order that, after you have done the will of God, you may receive the [fulfillment of the] promise."(Heb 10:36) He then says of a "righteous one", quoting from Habakkuk 2:4: "But my righteous one will live by reason of faith,” and, “if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” Now we are not the sort that shrink back to destruction, but the sort that have faith to the preserving alive of the soul."(Heb 10:38, 39)

Hence, a righteous person can "shrink back to destruction", and "if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." Anyone who has shown himself as righteous in Jehovah God eyes, but who "shrinks back" from being lovingly obedient, and continues in that way, will suffer destruction.

God told the nation of Israel: "Now when someone righteous turns back from his righteousness and actually does injustice; according to all the detestable things that the wicked one has done he keeps doing and he is living, none of all his righteous acts that he has done will be remembered. For his unfaithfulness that he has committed and for his sin with which he has sinned, for them he will die."(Eze 18:24)

Paul told Timothy that "that from infancy you have known the holy writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through the faith in connection with Christ Jesus."(2 Tim 3:15) Unswerving obedience to our Creator, Jehovah God, just as Jesus did (John 8:29), is what will bring salvation from this wicked "system of things."(Luke 21:28)

 

[David777]

Thanks for the reply,

Mr Rojocolo, you said,

"It is cut and dry. Those whom He has called will be perfected."

Would not the Christian life be a wonder if what you claimed was true.

I wish that was true! I could pursue any life style I wanted.
What difference would it make, God has already chosen.
Who am I to question God's choice. So easy. So simple.

But, alas, we are in a war. A spiritual war, the flesh versus the spirit.

Pray without ceasing Mr Rojocolo. Put to death the deeds of the flesh.

If you deny Jesus Christ he will deny you!

Set your mind on heaven, not on the World.

God's will for us is to follow Jesus no matter what it costs.

If we follow, in fact we will be perfected in love, in Christ.

 

[rojoloco]

Mr Rojocolo, you said,

"It is cut and dry. Those whom He has called will be perfected."

Would not the Christian life be a wonder if what you claimed was true.

I wish that was true! I could pursue any life style I wanted.
What difference would it make, God has already chosen.
Who am I to question God's choice. So easy. So simple.

But, alas, we are in a war. A spiritual war, the flesh versus the spirit.

Pray without ceasing Mr Rojocolo. Put to death the deeds of the flesh.

If you deny Jesus Christ he will deny you!

Set your mind on heaven, not on the World.

God's will for us is to follow Jesus no matter what it costs.

If we follow, in fact we will be perfected in love, in Christ.

I think one major problem is that you don't quite seem to understand the concept of preservation of the saints. It is not only salvation being preserved. It is also faith, works, and sanctification. God holds it all together and works it together for good according to His Will.

If one thinks he is saved and chooses to live however he wants, it is not evidence of a saved individual with erroneous views nor is it evidence of one who was once saved and has since lost it. It is evidence of an apostate; one who was never saved to begin with and, with full head knowledge of what the truth is, still rejects it in the end even if "believing" it for a time. True faith is everlasting and will never go away because God preserves it and perfects it.

 

[David777]

It is a wonder.

Mr Rojocolo, you have done it again.

"It is evidence of an apostate; one who was never saved to begin with"

Surely Mr Rojocolo you see what I see. This is your theology.

"Apostate" means to renounce. It certainly does not mean that the person was never a member of the group. This is your theology speaking.

Admit to me, that you can see both sides of argument.

 

[rojoloco]

Mr Rojocolo, you have done it again.

"It is evidence of an apostate; one who was never saved to begin with"

Surely Mr Rojocolo you see what I see. This is your theology.

"Apostate" means to renounce. It certainly does not mean that the person was never a member of the group. This is your theology speaking.

Admit to me, that you can see both sides of argument.

I understand why you believe an apostate could possibly be one who believed and fell away. If you just look at the word alone, it could easily mean this. However, we never look at single words or single verses and form theology out of it. Scripture should always interpret Scripture. The fact of the matter is that Scripture tells us repeatedly that one with true faith will remain in faith. As a result, we know that one who "turns away" never had true faith to begin with. They simply turned away from the Truth despite having a knowledge of Him.

 

[RJ]

If you are truly Born Again, there is no going back. As with your worldly physical birth from your parents, it's the same with your Spiritual birth by the Holy Spirit, God said he would never leave or forsake you and there is no such thing as being un-born!

Romans 8:1 " therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

 

[David777]

Hey buddy.

Hey Mr Rojocolo,

Funny that you said this:

"However, we never look at single words or single verses and form theology out of it. Scripture should always interpret Scripture."

This is exactly what I believe, line by line, scripture interprets scripture. Further, Iam rather obsessed with context.
There is a very good reason for this. You may or may not be
aware of just how much poor interpretation has occurred
throughout Christian history.

Sometimes I just shake my head and wonder how did that person
obtain that reading of that verse. It is most obvious with the Catholic interpretation of scripture. I suffer if I ever delve into Catholic doctrine, the same errors over and over.

 

[David777]

Back again.

Once again Mr Rojocolo you remarked that I did
not understand "Perseverance of the saints".

I checked one of your idols a John Piper sermon.
John Piper quoted the following verse.

1 Corinthians 15:1-2
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

Here is exactly what I have been talking about.
"if you hold fast the word" you and I both agree that
this is a necessity. For you it may not be as important
since the will of God cannot be resisted.
For me it is the active participation in the Word that
is essential. God has by His will given me His Son.
God has ensured that He will complete His work in me.
But, I have to be obedient and not RESIST as the Jews did.

 

[RJ]

Once again Mr Rojocolo you remarked that I did
not understand "Perseverance of the saints".

I checked one of your idols a John Piper sermon.
John Piper quoted the following verse.

1 Corinthians 15:1-2
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

Here is exactly what I have been talking about.
"if you hold fast the word" you and I both agree that
this is a necessity. For you it may not be as important
since the will of God cannot be resisted.
For me it is the active participation in the Word that
is essential. God has by His will given me His Son.
God has ensured that He will complete His work in me.
But, I have to be obedient and not RESIST as the Jews did.

You are saved through Faith and Faith grows through reading and hearing the Word.
Your obedience to the word will keep your connection with Christ cleaner with a more vivid relationship.
The " resistance" of a non-believer or one who is not "Born Again", as compared to a true Christian, is the same difference as dark and light!

You can't compare yourself to the resistant Jew, you are compared more to David. When Samuel choose David, the lesser of all his older brothers, the Holy Spirit ascended upon David when God choose him; the same as with a true Christian.

 

[rojoloco]

1 Corinthians 15:1-2
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

Here is exactly what I have been talking about.
"if you hold fast the word" you and I both agree that
this is a necessity. For you it may not be as important
since the will of God cannot be resisted.
For me it is the active participation in the Word that
is essential. God has by His will given me His Son.
God has ensured that He will complete His work in me.
But, I have to be obedient and not RESIST as the Jews did.

This is very true. However, the only reason we are even able to hold fast to the word is because God works in us to hold fast. Sure, we struggle with this day in and day out because we are still in our non-glorified state. However, God has promised we will persevere. Those who have been born again will inherit the kingdom of Heaven. God will preserve us and give us the required faith to ensure we lovingly obey and stay with Him for, without it, we would fail miserably.

Perhaps this gets more into the origin of faith.

 

[jiggyfly]

This is very true. However, the only reason we are even able to hold fast to the word is because God works in us to hold fast. Sure, we struggle with this day in and day out because we are still in our non-glorified state. However, God has promised we will persevere. Those who have been born again will inherit the kingdom of Heaven. God will preserve us and give us the required faith to ensure we lovingly obey and stay with Him for, without it, we would fail miserably.

Perhaps this gets more into the origin of faith.

What about the "if"?

 

[rojoloco]

What about the "if"?

It is a very true statement. If we cling to the faith. However, this should not be a fearful "if" because we are already told we will. If one does not persevere till the end, he simply was not saved because he did not.