Tree of Life said in post #1:
True Disciples Persevere
Note that Calvinism's mistaken doctrine of once-saved-always-saved through assured perseverance unwittingly ends up logically requiring that Christians are robots. For if Christians cannot choose to do evil to the point where they can ultimately lose their salvation, then they no longer have free will. Also, the mistaken doctrine of assured perseverance unwittingly ends up logically requiring that a Christian can have no present assurance that he is truly saved. For if a Christian who does not persevere to the end was never truly saved, then no Christian can presently have the assurance that he is truly saved because no Christian can know if he will persevere to the end. Down the road, he could fail to persevere, and so end up showing that he was all along only a fake Christian, a self-deceived hypocrite.
But under true, Biblical doctrine, every believer in the Gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4, John 20:31) can know that he is presently saved (1 John 5:13; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4), if, after he became a Christian, he repented from his sins (1 John 3:6), and confessed them to God (1 John 1:9). And he can be sure that as a saved person, he can never be separated from the love of God, so long as he loves God (Romans 8:28-39), which means to obey Him (1 John 5:3, John 14:21-24). And no matter how many tests a Christian fails during his lifetime, sometime subsequent to his initial repentance, even if he fails and commits sin seventy-times-seven times in a single day (Matthew 18:21-22, Luke 17:4), he can be sure that so long as he sincerely repents from every act of sin, and confesses it to God, he will be completely forgiven (1 John 1:9). He will lose his salvation ultimately only if he wrongly employs his free will to do something like committing a sin without repentance (Hebrews 10:26-29; 1 Corinthians 9:27, Luke 12:45-46), or becoming utterly lazy without repentance (Matthew 25:26,30, John 15:2a, Romans 2:6-8), or committing apostasy (Hebrews 6:4-8, John 15:6; 2 Timothy 2:12).
Tree of Life said in post #1:
True disciples cannot fall away from Jesus.
Note that they can. For Hebrews 6:4-8 shows that Christians, who have repented and become partakers of God's Holy Spirit, can ultimately lose their salvation because of subsequently wrongly employing their free will to "fall away", to commit apostasy, to stop believing (like in Luke 8:13, 1 Timothy 4:1, and 2 Thessalonians 2:3), just as other Bible verses show the same thing (John 15:6; 2 Timothy 2:12b, Mark 8:35-38, Hebrews 10:38-39, Matthew 24:9-13).
One way that a Christian could be brought to the point where he commits apostasy would be if he finds a particular sin to be very pleasurable, so pleasurable and so fulfilling (in the short term) that he continues in it over time until his heart becomes hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13), to where his love for God grows cold because of the abundance of iniquity (Matthew 24:12), to where he quenches the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19), to where he sears his conscience as with a hot iron (1 Timothy 4:2), to where he begins to listen to the lies of demons and latch onto them, to the point where he departs from the Christian faith (1 Timothy 4:1). In a wrong desire to continue in their lusts without repentance, Christians can reach the point where they are no longer able to endure the sound doctrine of the Bible, and instead seek out and latch onto other teachings which will help to support them in their lusts (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
Another way that a Christian could be brought to the point where he commits apostasy would be if he has a terror of being tortured and killed during a persecution against Christians, so that during such a persecution he renounces his faith in Jesus Christ and the Gospel to avoid being tortured and killed (Mark 8:35-38; 2 Timothy 2:12). Some Christians will fall away in this sense (2 Thessalonians 2:3) during the future Tribulation of Revelation chapters 6 to 18 and Matthew 24 (Matthew 24:9-13, cf. Matthew 13:21, Luke 8:13), when the future Antichrist will take power over the earth, make war against Biblical Christians (not in hiding), and physically overcome them in every nation (Revelation 13:7-10, Revelation 14:12-13, Revelation 20:4-6, Matthew 24:9-13).
There will be no way to repent from committing apostasy (Hebrews 6:4-8), and worshipping the future Antichrist and his image, and willingly receiving his mark on the forehead or right hand, even if this is done just to keep from getting killed (Revelation 13:15-18). Whoever does these things, even if he had been a Christian before, will end up suffering punishment from God in fire and brimstone forever (Revelation 14:9-12). So Christians must be willing to be killed, even by getting beheaded (Revelation 20:4-6), before they would ever do any of these things (Revelation 14:12-13).
This ties in with the fact that a Christian can ultimately have his name blotted out of the Book of Life, if he does not overcome to the end (Revelation 3:5, Revelation 2:26). An example of Christians ultimately "overcoming" (Greek: nikao, G3528), or "getting the victory" (nikao) (Revelation 15:2), is found later in the book of Revelation, in Revelation 15:2, which refers to those Christians who will be willing to be killed by the future Antichrist instead of worshipping him to save their mortal lives during the future, worldwide persecution against Biblical Christians (Revelation 13:7-10, Revelation 14:12-13, Revelation 20:4-6, Matthew 24:9-13). Christians will be able to spiritually "overcome" the Antichrist and Satan by not loving their lives to the death (Revelation 12:11).
Tree of Life said in post #1:
"If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)
This would imply that those who do not abide in his word were not truly his disciples, even though they may appear to be for a time. To abide in Jesus' word in John's gospel means to continue in the faith.
John 8:31 . . . If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed . . .
Note that John 8:31 does not say or require "continue
unto the end", for Christians can continue in Jesus Christ's Word for awhile, but then later fall away (Hebrews 6:4-8).
Compare the sower parable (Luke 8:4-15), in which the last three types of people all received God's Word and came into true Christian faith. But the one who came into faith on stony ground believed for awhile, but subsequently committed apostasy (Luke 8:13; cf. 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Thessalonians 2:3), which ultimately results in the loss of salvation (Hebrews 6:4-8, John 15:6; 2 Timothy 2:12b). The one who came into faith on weed-choked ground subsequently neglected to patiently continue in good works, neglected to bear fruit to perfection (Luke 8:14, Colossians 1:10, Revelation 3:1b-2). And the one who came into faith on good ground subsequently brought forth fruit with patience (Luke 8:15), which is required for Christians to obtain ultimate salvation (Romans 2:6-8, Matthew 7:21, James 2:24), and not to ultimately lose their salvation (John 15:2a,6, Matthew 25:26,30).
Matthew 13:23 and Mark 4:8 mean that the thirty, sixty, and hundredfold fruit applies only to that fruit brought forth by the Christians on good ground.