Hello, Asaph George, I am also very pleased to meet you.
Hello Exinanition,
I really appreciated your approach brother. I wish we all would stay calm like this and discuss without getting defensive. This is not about egos and winning arguments, it is about the truth of God's Word. Thank you for being like this. I always say I would rather lose an argument and learn the truth, instead of winning an argument and stay in error.
Before I answer I just want to mention something, notice how much we agree on:
- we both agree that true Christians must abide in Christ and continue in the faith until the end
- we both agree that a lifestyle of sin after being born again does not fit with True genuine Christianity but that true Christianity means living in repentance
- we both agree that the works done after being born again/saved do not earn us salvation but are a
result of salvation. In other words, we are saved
UNTO good works not BY good works.
- we both agree that these good works after being saved are not our own, they are the works of the Spirit in us. They are His works that we bring forth and not our own.
That is huge.
Now I think what we don't agree on is whether this
abiding (after one is saved/born again) is something that we do out of
free will or is it because it is decreed by God without any part whatsoever on the part of man. In other words, is our free will engaged in the process of God saving us or is
even our will something decreed by God.
Do you agree with what I said so far? (just to see where we are at)
"Respectfully, Asaph George, I do not consider this a verse “for Calvinism” but a verse for Christianity. That being stated, how do you reconcile this verse with the verses you see as saying a Christian can continue in sin after having received salvation? You have stated that we must look at all scripture to arrive at correct doctrine. This verse is scripture and cannot be ignored if we are to be doctrinally correct. Do you agree?"
I agree with you that no scripture can be ignored. Of course, it is a verse for Christianity but that is as long as the verse is understood in its proper context in the book or letter in which it was written. No scriptures can be ignored, they are all there for a reason and they all fit together in the big puzzle of God's truth.
My point was this: I find this verse (1 John 3:9) to be the best one that can be used in support of the doctrine of "Once Saved Always Saved" which I don't believe in. That doesn't mean I agree with how Calvinists use it.
Btw, I decided to switch and discuss with you (if you allow it of course) because I hardly find people who are willing to follow the flow of thought with an honest and open mind. I always strive to stay teachable also to learn more and more especially with the help of the Spirit who guides us into all truth as Jesus said.
Now about your post, I wish we can set some ground rules or foundations for our discussions if we are going to dig a bit deeper into the verses and discuss this subject. The worse things we can do I believe is to throw verses left and right from different places and books in support of a doctrine. I find this is the worse way to deal with context because each verse's truth and meaning is contained in its proper context within the book/letter. The post you wrote has some good points but also has a lot of verses taken from different books. Also you spoke about Galatians at the end. I think it would be best to take one book at a time. So that we make this constructive.
So I humbly ask you to tell me if you agree with the foundations I am laying here as ground for our discussions:
- Scriptures in their proper context do (and should) not contradict each other all through the Bible
- When it comes to a certain doctrine (like OSAS), there are always two positions (one for the doctrine and one against it). Let's say I am against this doctrine and Mr. X for it.
I will use a set A of verses against the doctrine.
Mr. X will use set B of verses in support of the doctrine.
Now there is something I realized that many people do: if I mention a verse from set A against the doctrine, Mr. X can always tell me that I have to take the WHOLE counsel of scriptures and starts mentioning verses from his set of verses B. Vice Versa is true, if Mr. X mentions a verse from set B, I can always tell him that he is not taking the WHOLE counsel of scriptures and start mentioning verses from my set of verses A. This always causes discussions to diverge and causes all kinds of misunderstandings and confusion (without mentioning personal insults).
- So in order to approach a doctrine and seek truth, the best way is therefore to gather ALL passages FOR and AGAINST the doctrine. Then each passage has to be taken on its own and properly understood in its proper context without jumping to other books. The context of a passage or a verse is contained within the book or the letter itself, so it is good to go back and forth in the same book or letter to search out the truth. Why do I say that? Because originally the Bible means library which means a collection of books. There were no chapters and verse numbers, a letter or a book was a complete text. It was after the 10th century that chapter and verse numbers were added. Imagine someone sending you a letter today and you just jump to the middle of the letter, select a phrase and think that this is what the sender meant just by looking at that phrase. I have learned to follow the train of thought of the author and understand his message as he himself
intended it. That way we can understand verses in their proper context:
As intended.
- After analyzing each passage (for and against) in its proper context. After exhausting all passages for and against, then the passages that are harder to understand should be understood
in light of the other CLEARER passages. This is extremely important.
- I also discovered that if Mr. X is wrong about his position, what will normally happen is that he will have to either
ignore the verses from set A or
twist words in them to make them fit with the doctrine.
So what I propose for our discussion:
- we take turns
- you can start with 1 John 3 and we discuss the passage in the context of the whole letter without jumping to other verses from other books and so we don't diverge jumping left and right. If we can get to a point where we are seeing things differently in the context of the same book and the discussion become repetitive, stagnates on a certain point, then we can agree to disagree on the intended meaning of the passage and move on to another passage. All with preserving peace and love among us as you
are my brother as I already said
- I can then choose another passage and we do the same with the same context of the book of that passage.
- then you start again with another passage. etc.. etc..
- If we exhaust the list of passages, then we can look at the conclusions we attained for each passage and draw a summary to edify the body of Christ.
Please let me know if this is good for you. I can only engage with one person at a time here on a forum.
I really hope we can discuss this in a constructive way brother.
May the Lord bless you!
