.
by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
And we can read other translations and do some research:
GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
In addition, you are saved by this Good News if you hold on to the doctrine I taught you, unless you believed it without thinking it over.
New Living Translation (©2007)
It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you--unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place.
Be lets take an actual look and search for truth about this statement:
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
By which also ye are saved - On which your salvation depends; the belief of which is indispensable to your salvation; see the note on Mark 16:16. The apostle thus shows the "importance" of the doctrine. In every respect it demanded their attention. It was that which was first preached among them; that which they had solemnly professed; that by which they had been built up; and that which was connected with their salvation. It does not mean simply that by this they were brought into a salvable state (Clarke, Macknight, Whitby, Bloomfield, etc.), but it means that their hopes of eternal life rested on this; and by this they were then "in fact" saved from the condemnation of sin, and were in the possession of the hope of eternal life.
If ye keep in memory - Margin, as in the Greek, "if ye hold fast." The idea is, that they were saved by this, or would be, if they faithfully retained or held the doctrine as he delivered it;
if they observed it, and still believed it, notwithstanding all the efforts of their enemies, and all the arts of false teaching to wrest it from them. There is a doubt delicately suggested here, whether they did in fact still adhere to his doctrine, or whether they had not abandoned it in part for the opposite.
Unless ye have believed in vain -
You will be saved by it, if you adhere to it, unless it shall turn out that it was vain to believe, and that the doctrine was false. That it was "not" false, he proceeds to demonstrate.
Unless all your trials, discouragements, and hopes were to no purpose, and all have been the result of imposture (meaning the writers of the scripture); and unless all your profession is false and hollow, you will be saved by this great doctrine which I first preached to you.
So we should be more open minded and put things into context. Who the authors were, when they were written, what was their purpose. What was their motives. The scholars know this stuff already very well.
I think God wants you to continue your process to study and search for the will of God.
-We know that Jesus was here for real and was person (all historians, scholars, University tax funded agnostic Biblical Hisotrians, now agree he was a real person... I know a lot of people still think he was a fable to have faith in. No he was actually a real person like us).
-We know that he was a Jewish Rabbi.
-We know that he was trying to clean the corruption going on in the church
-We know that he was hung on the cross for real where all scholars and university agnostics agree unanimously in the legitimacy of this article:
The Arabic text of this passage is as follows:
At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And His conduct was good, and [He] was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became His disciples. Pilate condemned Him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become His disciples did not abandon His discipleship. They reported that He had appeared to them three days after His crucifixion and that He was alive; accordingly, He was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.
The above passage is found in the Arabic manuscript entitled: "Kitab Al-Unwan Al-Mukallal Bi-Fadail Al-Hikma Al-Mutawwaj Bi-Anwa Al-Falsafa Al-Manduh Bi-Haqaq Al-Marifa." The approximate translation would be: "Book of History Guided by All the Virtues of Wisdom. Crowned with Various Philosophies and Blessed by the Truth of Knowledge."
