- Jul 22, 2014
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1 John 3:10 brings to mind Matthew 7:21-23, which shows that both faith and obedience to God are required for Christians to enter ultimate salvation (Romans 2:6-8, Hebrews 5:9, James 2:24; 1 John 2:4). But, because of free will, there is no assurance that Christians will choose to obey (Matthew 25:26,30, Luke 12:45-46).
Matthew 7:23a could be hyperbole, like Matthew 23:24b is hyperbole. For Matthew 7:22 could refer to Christians, believers in the Gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4, John 20:31), who had repented from their sins (1 John 3:6) and performed many wonderful works for Jesus to the end (John 15:4-5). But at some point subsequent to their initial repentance, they had fallen back into some unrepentant sin (Matthew 7:23b; 2 Peter 2:20-22), so that they had to be rejected by Jesus in the end despite their continued faith and good works (1 Corinthians 9:27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Hebrews 10:26-29).
Regarding the ability to cast out demons (Matthew 7:22), that is one of the signs that people are true Christians, true believers in the Gospel (Mark 16:17). People must be careful not to fall into the unforgivable presumption of Mark 3:22-30.
Note that Hebrews 10:26 refers to sanctified people (Hebrews 10:29). Similarly, 2 Peter 2:20-22 refers to Christians who had truly escaped the pollutions of the world (2 Peter 2:20, cf. 2 Peter 1:4b), they had truly been washed (2 Peter 2:22b, cf. 1 Corinthians 6:11, Hebrews 10:22) through knowing Jesus Christ (2 Peter 2:20, cf. 2 Peter 1:3b, John 17:3,17). But they nonetheless at some subsequent point wrongly employed their free will to return back to sinning without repentance, so that their ultimate fate will be worse than if they had never been saved at all (2 Peter 2:20b-21, cf. Hebrews 10:26-29).
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).
Well, Ananias and Sapphira died for lying to the Holy Spirit and I do not believe there was a second chance for them. I believed they were condemned because a great fear fell upon the church and not peace or comfort or sadness that they lost their friends. Fear. That is the emotion they had. Because they knew that such a thing could happen to them if they were not careful to guard their souls against such sins.
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