aiki
Regular Member
How does this teach a saved-and-lost works-salvation doctrine? Jesus did not mention salvation, the second birth, entering into God's kingdom, etc. when he taught this lesson on forgiveness. He said to them nothing of his atoning work on Calvary yet to come and how, through him, they would be able to obtain God's forgiveness of all their sin. No, instead, Jesus spoke to them in a very Old Testament way of obligation and threat.
Old Covenant dynamics do not hold under New Covenant ones.
Is belief a work? Not in the sense in which Ephesians 2:8-9 or Titus 3:5 speak of works. Did the thief on the cross next to Christ work to be saved? No, he was nailed to a cross. He could do nothing to warrant salvation - except believe. Such belief is of a kind with that of the man with a brain tumor who believes his brain surgeon can remove his tumor. The tumorous man trusts his surgeon to save his life but can do nothing to assist the surgeon's efforts to remove his tumor and save him. All he can do is have faith in the surgeon and receive the surgeon's saving work. So, too, the person who would be saved from their sin. They must simply trust the "divine surgeon," Jesus Christ, to save them from the eternal torment of their sin. They can do nothing themselves to effect their own salvation - except believe.
This is what Paul wrote concerning the branches grafted into the olive tree. It would require faith in order for the wild branches, the Gentiles, to be grafted in. Only so long as they trusted in Christ could they enjoy the "fatness of the olive tree." But if they ceased to believe in him, to trust in his saving work for them, they would be cut off from the "goodness of God" and the benefits of being supported by the "root" of the olive tree.
Is such a cutting off actually possible? Paul seems to suggest not:
"...remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you." (verse 18)
"...the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." (verse 29)
Paul is mainly occupied in chapter 11 with urging the Gentile believers not to become arrogant, boastful, of their relationship with God, of having been "grafted" into the "olive tree." He emphasizes just how much their inclusion into God's family is dependent upon God, not them, and how God is not done with the nation of Israel but will one day bring the nation into right relationship with Himself again.
God takes the same responsibility with each of His children, promising to support and bring to completion the work He has begun in them:
Philippians 1:6
6 being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.
Hebrews 12:2
2 looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith...
The "cutting off" spoken of in Romans 11, then, is, I think, theoretical: God could and would cut off those whom He has grafted into Himself if they could cease to believe in the Gospel of Christ. But truly born-again believers are so by dint of God's efforts and are supported by Him as His children, irrevocably called to salvation and so forever preserved by God as His own. See Ephesians 1:1-13. They cannot, then, cease to believe and they cannot, therefore, actually be un-grafted. Paul's purpose in Romans 11 wasn't to threaten the Roman believers but to remind them of just how dependent they were upon God for their salvation, for their grafted-in status.
Paul here is talking of what is required to win an "imperishable crown," an eternal reward. Salvation is not in view but the reward one may gain for "running the race" well. The disqualification, then, that Paul mentions is not from salvation, but from the achievement of an eternal reward.
None of the "ground" that receives "seed" but the last represents a person who is truly saved. This is the point of the parable. It distinguishes between false converts and true, between those who have merely been exposed to the truth and those who actually have been saved by it. The first "ground" is said to be a person in whom the seed of truth had not set down a root. Doesn't sound like a saved person to me...All the others except the last are described in ways that indicate they were not truly saved.
I'm assuming you think verse 2 and verse 6 indicate lost salvation. They don't. Verse 2 is badly translated (it should read "lifts/bears up" rather than "takes away") and verse 6 doesn't have a saved person in view at all but describes one who is not saved and what their end is.
Galatians 5:1-4
1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
2 Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.
3 And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law.
4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
Verse 2 clarifies Paul's meaning in verse 4. A believer's freedom from the condemnation of the law, from having to keep the letter of the law perfectly, is lost the moment he acts to be justified through his keeping of God's commands. Such a man has made himself a "debtor to the law," to keeping all of it without fail, which is impossible. In Christ, every believer finds their justification, sanctification, adoption and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30; Romans 8:15), not in their performance, in their keeping of God's commands. A man who seeks to be justified by his obedience, rather than by his trusting in Christ, cuts himself off from the grace in which he stands in Christ. Such a believer cannot profit from all of the things that are his in Christ (verse 2).
Does this mean such a man has lost his salvation? No. Does a man who owns a lawnmower but who chooses to trim his lawn with a pair of eyebrow tweezers lose the possession of his lawnmower as a result? Of course not. His resorting to tweezers does not mean he no longer possesses a mower; it only means he will not profit, he will not benefit, from his mower. So, too, the believer who resorts to law-keeping rather than to Christ in his walk with God. He doesn't lose his salvation, only the spiritual benefits of being in Christ. He still possesses salvation, though he does not profit spiritually from being saved.
I am not a five-point Calvinist any longer and yet I can hold quite reasonably to OSAS. See above.
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