Derek1933
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- Jun 8, 2019
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It is a hard topic to get right without sounding like works-based legalism (which is equally disqualifying).
Maybe they're afraid of teaching false doctrine, like you can lose your salvation.
Losing salvation doesn't even make logical sense. How can someone say that such and such a person has been saved from the wrath to come, they have eternal life and are guaranteed an eternal inheritance. Such is not the case if there's the possibility of it being lost.
Those who believe salvation can be lost can't say that they "have been saved". They can only say that such a person only has the possibility of being saved in the future, but no guarantee. Yet the rhetoric the Bible uses is inconsistent with the "you can lose your salvation" crowd.
"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." John 5:24
"it is by grace you have been saved, through faith" Eph 2:5,8
As I see it, and as I've debated with their kind, the reason why people believe salvation can be lost is because they don't believe the gospel.
Argument about which is the most important, faith or good works, is facile for we must not only have faith in Christ but we must also do His will. We are instructed by Christ to engage with both. First and foremost to believe in Him and in the one who sent Him and also to love our neighbour as ourselves as epitomised by the parable of the Good Samaritan. As James 2.14-26 explains, “ What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”
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