Once saved always saved...Biblical?

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JKnappGirl

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But what if they were somehow convinced otherwise? Does that mean they were never Christians?
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Josephus

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I believe we have defined "saved" to be something it really isn't. It's like the cake without the icing:

we take salvation to mean simply accepting what Jesus did for us as payment for our sin. But I also believe we are forgetting the most important aspect of it: making Jesus Lord of our lives.

If Jesus isn't the Lord of your life, then you have something else in His place - and that's sadly the sin of idolatry and pride. Until you have sought to make Jesus Lord of your life, your salvation can only rest on the mere hope that you have said the right prayer. God isn't looking for symantics or how you say something, or whether or not you believe in your heart. Belief is only half of the equation of Faith. Abraham wasn't credited righteousness until God saw in his heart the "will" for obedience backed by a promise. It is about relationship - not words. Works also without the faith God is looking for is also hopeless.

God requires in us a birthing of something in our heart that can only be described as "the new man" - the righteous person of the "born again" experience which the bible clarifies as someone who has both made Jesus Savior AND Lord of their lives.

So, can you lose your salvation? Jesus said it himself: no one can serve two masters. Either you will serve the one and hate the other.

If you make something else in your life replace Jesus on the throne of your heart, and you die with that still there, then whoever is Master on the throne of your heart will be the one that represents you before God at Judgement Day. I want my Master and representative to be Jesus.
 
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PrincessTracy

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Yes once saved always saved is biblical.

John 6:40
"For my Father's will is that everyne who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

John 10:28-29
"I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one."

Do you think that if a rock had fell on Peter right after denying Jesus that he would have went to hell? Do you think that the most loyal of the Lord's followers, if he/she were to slip up and say a curse word as they wreck and die that they will go to hell after their loyalty to the Lord all their reborn life?

I believe people that claim to have been a Christian that now claim not to be are one of two things: 1. Either they never really knew the Lord to begin with, or 2. They are a wayward child of God.

I honestly don't believe that you can turn your salvation on and off like a light switch. There are so many Christians that I know (particularly new Christians) that are afraid they will "loose" their salvation. The bible says to be saved is to be dead to the old man and raise a new creature, does that mean we can choose to resurrect the old creature? Christians aren't sinless, we sin less, that's from walking with the Lord. But all have sinned and fallen short. None of use can be what Jesus was and is. If we were able to live perfect lives Jesus would not have had to live a perfect sinless life and die a torturous death for us.

I think the whole idea of "loosing ones salvation" is a tool of the enemy to keep us chasing our tails instead of doing the work the Lord would have us to be doing. The Lord is strong even when we are weak. How can we tell others about His strength and greatness if we don't believe Him even strong enough to keep us as His, after we have freely given ourselves to Him?

Do you believe in absolute truths? If not, maybe you should be reconsidering if you honestly believe in the Lord. If so, how can you question God's greatest gift and truth?

Ummm I get little passionate about this ;)

In Christ's Love,
Tracy
 
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LouisBooth

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Exactly tracy, we don't loose and regain our salvation. That was the verse I was eluding to, the one from John chapter 10. What we do see in the bible though is we can be "neutralized" as a "fighter" in God's spiritual army and become a "useless" Christian. Just thinking about this logically....Okay can we loose our salvation, loosing it means we don't have the power to keep it by whatever means it is "kept" so that implies either 1. lack of power on our part or 2. lack of power on God's part. Okay, its not 2 :lol: since God is omnipotent. So it would have to be number 1, but since salvation is God given then we don't control us keeping it or loosing it since it is God's to give. Hence, once salvation is given it cannot be lost, that would limit God, and he has no limits.
 
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Josephus

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God is the perfect judge of our hearts.

We hear some people making the argument that OSAS gives people the right to do whatever they want after they are saved. But why is it the bible, Jesus, and the apostle warn believers not to sin?

Would a saved person have the free will to reject their salvation if they no longer wanted God or to ever be with God?

Now, I don't believe you have to work for your salvation, but I do believe that if you freely choose to reject Him, you are putting yourself out of the salvation boat and back into the ocean that will one day be swallowed up to eternal death - and I do believe God is the perfect judge of this (which is why if you don't want to lose your salvation - you won't because you are in effect still desiring to be with God, which is not rejection of Him and is in fact a desire to make Him Lord of your life, even if you do slip up.) But I'm talking about the possibility of losing your salvation due to a lack of making Jesus Lord of your life. :)

Remember Paul gave up certain members of the church to Satan - even though they were believers. Judas was a follower and no doubt a believer in Jesus, but his fate is worse than what we could ever see. You see, it was Peter that repented that night, while Judas hung on a tree.

One still had Jesus as Lord of their life; the other went down though in remorse, but not in repentence: and it was that cry of unrighteous sinful pride in that Jesus was no longer Lord of his life that turned that man's fate completely around to where it could have gone. There was nothing on the throne of that man's heart that any more resembled the One true God. It was indeed, himself that sat on it.

Tell me what you think.
 
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LouisBooth

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"But why is it the bible, Jesus, and the apostle warn believers not to sin?"

I think Paul said that quite nicely in I think it was galatians...should we sin more that grace abounds more..nope....we can't loose it but if we sin more then that destroies our witness and what love is all about. Love CANNOT be show in sin. :)

"Remember Paul gave up certain members of the church to Satan - even though they were believers. Judas was a follower and no doubt a believer in Jesus, but his fate is worse than what we could ever see. "

But where they really christians should be the question.....;)
 
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Schrack

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Hello all,

I am new to this forum but I'm going to jump right on in instead of just wade in the water.

The simple answer to the question of this thread is, yes, once a person has been saved by God he is eternally the child of God. There are various biblical texts that adequately support this but the one I believe is most convincing can be found in Romans 6:6-11.

It is clear from these verses that the apostle was teaching 1) the old man is dead in Christ; 2) the purpose of this death is a deliverance (salvation) from the old man, i.e. from serving sin; 3) if one is dead with Christ, he is told by the apostle that he should also believe that he will live with Christ; 4) Christ died unto sin once and cannot die again, as he is raised from the dead and alive unto God, and thus the believer is told to think of himself in the same way.

Consequently, if one is alive from the dead through Christ, it is impossible for him to die again inasmuch as it is impossible for Jesus to die a second time. "Because I live, ye shall live also," was the promise of Jesus. And his promise stands despite any who might wish to believe to the contrary.

Now Josephus above wrote: "I don't believe you have to work for your salvation, but I do believe that if you freely choose to reject Him, you are putting yourself out of the salvation boat and back into the ocean that will one day be swallowed up to eternal death."

Although I would concur with Josephus' statement that salvation is not by works, I would have to disagree with his theory that one can somehow jump out of the Good Shepherd's hands for the simple reason that Jesus said "No man can pluck them out of my hand," and I take "no man" to mean not even one's self.

But even if this were to be argued, then I would appeal to the fact that this can be answered in another way by virtue of the example where Jesus already had certain "disciples" who turned back from following him. And of these so-called disciples the Lord clearly labeled them as unbelievers (Jn. 6:64) and not believers. Jesus even validated this by saying "Therefore said I unto you that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him by the Father" (6:65). It is not hard to see in John's Gospel that although many followed Christ, they did not always do so because they actually accepted him as their Messiah. Many times there were alterior motives (6:26). Even so it is today, and they are not hard to recognize.

I believe that the apostle John learned very well from this experience, and applied the same truth to those who had abandoned the faith later on during his ministry (1 Jn. 2:19). And so for me the argument that one can jump ship and therefore lose his salvation really becomes a case of one never having salvation to begin with.

SchracktheBaptist
 
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Josephus

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"And so for me the argument that one can jump ship and therefore lose his salvation really becomes a case of one never having salvation to begin with."

Which is precisely why I began with defining what salvation is as apparently those people whom are "never having salvation to begin with" don't know what it really means to be saved. :) Salvation is recieving what Jesus did for you at the cross, but this humble and repentent submission to that mercy is proved by the fact you make Jesus Lord of your life, as James talked about working out your faith: in essence seeing fruit produced in your life as evidence of your faith. This is the full definition of salvation (saved by what Jesus did, proved by what we do) not only making Jesus Savior of your life, but also Lord of it. If Jesus was the Lord of Judas' life, he would have repented, like Peter. But since Judas could only claim salvation, but didn't make Jesus Lord of his life, he in a sense was one "never having salvation to begin with." I hope this is a little more clear to others on where I was comming from. :) I believe that once you've made Jesus Lord of your life, "losing" your salvation becomes impossible and never an issue.

The other point I raised was an unstated question I will state here: is it possible for someone to no longer make Jesus the Lord of their life - or when you make Jesus the Lord of your life, does he forever claim you as His own, never giving up that throne in your heart - even though you may stray away from that throne? I'd be interested to hear a biblical perspective on this. :)
 
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Schrack

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Josephus,

My response here deals mainly with the semantics of your post, but I am wondering if the semantics are the result of a bit of confusion on your part as to what the Bible teaches about the Lordship of Christ.

I believe the Scriptures are clear that no one, not even you or me, "makes" Jesus Lord of our lives. In Acts 2 Peter tells us that "God hath made him both Lord and Christ". So Jesus is Lord not because we make him or even confess him to be, but because that is already who he is. Jesus is, as Paul said, "Lord of all," and as John said, "King of kings, and Lord of lords." Thus, when a person repents and believes on Christ, he is merely confessing that which he had not acknowledged before; namely, that Jesus is the Lord. Remember Paul's conversion? "Who art thou, Lord?...Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Consequently, in salvation the Lordship of Jesus Christ is acknowledged and accepted, but if there is no salvation then neither will a person acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. And it will show, as you stated, in their works.

The reason I say all this is because it seems to me that in your post you are trying to distinguish between a person who gets saved and a person who accepts that Jesus is Lord, when in fact the two are mutally the same thing. Perhaps I misread the intent of your post and you can clarify that for me, but are you trying to say, for instance, that Judas was saved but Jesus was not Lord of his life, and consequently he failed to repent and ended up in eternal perdition?

SchracktheBaptist
 
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Josephus

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The reason I say all this is because it seems to me that in your post you are trying to distinguish between a person who gets saved and a person who accepts that Jesus is Lord, when in fact the two are mutally the same thing. Perhaps I misread the intent of your post and you can clarify that for me, but are you trying to say, for instance, that Judas was saved but Jesus was not Lord of his life, and consequently he failed to repent and ended up in eternal perdition?
Sorry about the confusion:

The simplicity of it is this:

That there is no distinction between being saved and making Jesus Lord of your life - and there shouldn't be. :) I am saying that being saved means making Jesus Lord of your life, and that because Judas hadn't - he wasn't saved to begin with. Therefore, one is correct in saying "once saved, always saved" but also correct in saying "once saved by any other definition than making Jesus Lord of your life, is not always saved."

<><
Josephus

Something to ponder about.
 
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Schrack

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Thanks, Josephus, that seems to clarify your position for me. So, let me see if I have you correct now: you don't believe that once a person has been saved that he can become unsaved, but you do believe that a person may lose salvation, or more properly, forfeit it, under the condition that he rejects accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior?

SchracktheBaptist
 
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PrincessTracy

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Ok now I'm confused on your opinion Josephus? hehe

Ok you don't believe that people can loose their salvation, but they can choose to give it up after they have been saved?

If that is what your saying I would have to say I disagree. I believe if someone "gives up their salvation" after being saved then they were either 1. Never really saved to begin with or 2. Are still saved and a wayward child of God.

OR

are you saying that if a person "gives up their salvation" and turns away from the Lord after they claim to have been saved they were never really saved to begin with?

And I noticed somewhere else you mentioned that the meaning of being "saved" may mean different things to different people. But there is only one thing that it means. Some may be confused of the meaning, but it doesn't change the meaning. Being "saved" means coming to the understanding that you are a sinner and that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God and that He is the only one that has lived a perfect sinless life and is the complete payment for your sins and that he was raised again after dieing for our sins and that through His death and resurection you are forgiven by asking Him into your heart and life as your Savior and Lord. It's a relationship not just knowing, but letting Him in your heart and life. Even the enemy KNOWS who Jesus is and what He did.

Sorry if I misunderstood :rollin:

In Christ,
Tracy
 
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