• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

  • CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.
  • We hope the site problems here are now solved, however, if you still have any issues, please start a ticket in Contact Us

When does God consider that we are His child?

Mark Quayle

Monergist; and by reputation, Reformed Calvinist
Site Supporter
May 28, 2018
14,442
6,438
70
Pennsylvania
✟1,010,723.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Reformed
Marital Status
Widowed
I did not say any of them lost salvation. The point is Paul stated that "God disciplines us so that we mayl not be judged with the world". No saved person is judfged with the world. Therefore God is saving that if He did not discipline us there is a chance the our behavior might causae us to love the world more than we love Jesus. We do not lose salvation for our behavior.
My bad. I must have confused you with another who did say that a believer can lose their salvation.
Matthew 7:26"But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall." NKJV

If we are unwise and do things afainst the law, we are not building our house on solid ground. We do not have to obey the law to be saved, We do it out of love for Jesus. However, as Jesus states above, our house could fall. Jesus did not give idel warnings. We are saved by believing in Him, but loving worldly pleasures could lead to loss of love for what Jesus offers and more love for worldly pleasures.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.
NKJV


If the substance of a person's hope is more worldly pleasures and not Jessu or what Jesus offers, they no longer have saving faith. Without saving faith they no longer are in Jesus.
.
BUT, "If the substance of a person's hope is more worldly pleasures and not Jessu or what Jesus offers, they no longer have saving faith. Without saving faith they no longer are in Jesus.", they never were in Jesus. They never had saving faith. Salvific faith is generated by God himself, within us by the Spirit. It is of the ONLY worthy source. It cannot be lost. Nor do any have it that God had not chosen from the foundation of the earth for that purpose. Not because of themselves they are any different from anyone else, but because God chose.

That faith is the only way that a person truly is IN CHRIST. And God is the one who keeps that person there, sealed by the Spirit of God.
 
Upvote 0

Mark Quayle

Monergist; and by reputation, Reformed Calvinist
Site Supporter
May 28, 2018
14,442
6,438
70
Pennsylvania
✟1,010,723.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Reformed
Marital Status
Widowed
If God disciplines us to keep us from being judged with the world means that salvation can be lost. Christians have been judged for sin when Jesus died. The only other judgment for them is on the Bema seat for any rewards. If a person loses salvation they would then be judged with the world for sin.
That's simply poor logic. Your statement is circular: "If a person loses salvation they would then be judged with the world for sin." Of course, but a person who is saved does not lose salvation. Your statement there depends on the premise that a person loses salvation, and that, on the assumption that a person CAN lose salvation. I'm not saying that a person who CLAIMS or even THINKS himself to be a believer, who believes in the truth (but that is not itself salvific faith) as the devils also do, will not be judged with the rest of the world. I'm saying that such a person is of the world, and not IN CHRIST.
 
Upvote 0

Mark Quayle

Monergist; and by reputation, Reformed Calvinist
Site Supporter
May 28, 2018
14,442
6,438
70
Pennsylvania
✟1,010,723.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Reformed
Marital Status
Widowed
Thank you for taking the time to address this, you saved me a lot of writing.

I fear for those who insist that one must maintain some standard of good works, or attain some level of personal purity to "obtain" salvation. They never define this standard of course. But they are clearly convinced of their own success in achieving it.

Christ's words, "that by the same measure you use to judge, you shall be judged", ought to scare the crap out of them.
I remember from the "Sound of Music", the line, "Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could; so somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must've done something good." That is a load of bologna. Truly good does beget good, but even that is by the grace of God. We don't control God, nor our even own fate. "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do according to his good purposes."
 
Upvote 0

fli

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Jun 13, 2005
565
93
83
missouri
✟505,582.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Republican
That's simply poor logic. Your statement is circular: "If a person loses salvation they would then be judged with the world for sin." Of course, but a person who is saved does not lose salvation. Your statement there depends on the premise that a person loses salvation, and that, on the assumption that a person CAN lose salvation. I'm not saying that a person who CLAIMS or even THINKS himself to be a believer, who believes in the truth (but that is not itself salvific faith) as the devils also do, will not be judged with the rest of the world. I'm saying that such a person is of the world, and not IN CHRIST.
Does Paul say in 1Corinthians 11:23 that we are disciplined that we may not be condemned with the world? Is Paul saved and included in the we? Is He writing to a Church not unbelievers.
 
Upvote 0

Mark Quayle

Monergist; and by reputation, Reformed Calvinist
Site Supporter
May 28, 2018
14,442
6,438
70
Pennsylvania
✟1,010,723.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Reformed
Marital Status
Widowed
Does Paul say in 1Corinthians 11:23 that we are disciplined that we may not be condemned with the world? Is Paul saved and included in the we? Is He writing to a Church not unbelievers.
There are several logical premises here to be brought to bear.

1) Paul is writing to the group who includes both true and false believers, as if they are indeed all IN CHRIST.
2) His context is that of the differences of behavior concerning the Lord's Supper. The context is about one's exalting of oneself above another. This does not of itself designate who is and who is not saved.
3) As I say below, our salvation is sure —not automatic. Those who are IN CHRIST will demonstrate the fact of to whom they belong. If they, for example, continue in sin, and eat and drink 'the body of Christ' unworthily, yes, they will be judged with the unsaved, because they themselves are not saved. They have not lost their salvation, unless it means that they have lost the salvation they supposed themselves to have had.
4) The idea of, "Once saved-always saved", as seems to be what you are objecting to here, from an external view is accurate enough, but misleading. One's salvation, if indeed they are IN CHRIST, is sure —but not automatic. It is kept, as scripture says, by God himself, by the Spirit's sealing one in, by the strength and faithfulness of the source of one's faith, and by several other things. Not at all by one's behavior. From its inception, one's salvation is the work of God alone. That includes even one's faithfulness: On the scale of causation, our decisions do matter, but are no match for God's purposes. We cannot oppose his decree, his plan, no matter how we set out to do so. Even our rebellion works for HIS purposes. He uses us for his ends.
4) Nobody can come to Christ but by God's enabling. This is grace. And nobody that comes to Christ, will he [ever] drive away, nor will he lose even one, but will raise them up on the last day.
 
Upvote 0

Luke81718

Active Member
Jan 17, 2026
67
24
Jefferson
✟1,050.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Protestant
Marital Status
Single
I remember from the "Sound of Music", the line, "Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could; so somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must've done something good." That is a load of bologna. Truly good does beget good, but even that is by the grace of God. We don't control God, nor our even own fate. "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do according to his good purposes."
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled."

Where would this hunger come from,
if I saw myself as even capable of having some righteousness of my own? And without this hunger, how then could I expect to be filled with true righteousness, which can only be found in the person of Jesus Christ?
 
  • Winner
Reactions: Mark Quayle
Upvote 0

Luke81718

Active Member
Jan 17, 2026
67
24
Jefferson
✟1,050.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Protestant
Marital Status
Single
Hello Luke

As you already suggested, on another thread, may be some prayers, for them to pray in the like manner the publican does, wouldn't be useless
We must pray for them, absolutely.
 
Upvote 0

peter2

Ordinary life contemplative
Oct 10, 2015
1,090
418
56
✟105,702.00
Country
France
Gender
Male
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Hello Luke
We must pray for them, absolutely.
Father, with Luke's intentions, i also pray you to inspire every pharisee's prayer through the example of the publican prayer

Our Father ]in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us day by day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”
Amen
 
Upvote 0