Hello,
I don't feel very motivated in life because I just don't know what could happen in the future. Right now, I do believe and love God, but because of my great sin, I feel that in the future I might fall away from God. I'd just like to know what any of you people have to say about the questions below. If any of you could answer these for me, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you!
1. God says in Ephesians 2:8-9: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. God is saying that it is not our doing that earns us salvation, but only Jesus' doing. But God says several times in the Bible that I must believe in the Lord, Jesus to be saved. Isn't believing in Jesus my doing? And I'm a sinner, so I don't trust my own doing. What if, because I'm a sinner, I don't believe in Jesus in the future?
In
Eph 2:8 the gift is salvation, by grace and through faith. The process of salvation is taken as a whole in regards to source, reason, and mechanism. Paul contrasts salvation by grace and through faith with 'works', for man cannot achieve salvation by his own merit. 'Faith' and 'grace' are in the feminine gender in the Greek, but the gift of God is in the neuter gender. In Greek, this then applies the 'gift' to the entire clause. You are correct that we must repent and believe in Jesus, but the actual saving comes from God. Faith itself does not save on it's own - rather God gives us the salvation Christ brings and justification through Christ's blood through that faith.
http://ebible.com/answers/24715?ori=167400
http://ebible.com/answers/14614?ori=167400
But once we believe, we die to the law and God raises us with Christ (Rom :4, Col 2:12-14, Gal 3:26-27, etc.) We are given the indwelling Holy Spirit to help us. While we struggle with the flesh, we are no longer counted as 'sinners' before God as we died to the law and He views us through the blood of Christ. We have far more resources, including the very power of God working in us, then we had as unbelievers.
If you were to deliberately reject faith in the future this would not be a matter of you struggling with sin - but deliberately returning to slavery to sin. There is no need to fear such a thing 'accidentally' occurring - the rejection of faith is deliberate. (Heb 10:26-27, I Tim 1:18-19, Heb 6:4-8, John 15:1-7, Rom 11:21-23, etc.)
And to clarify, continuing in faith has NOTHING to do with good works, excepting that a continuing faith will show good works. (I.E. you don't do good works to keep faith, but continuing faith bears fruit) Faith is belief in Christ and Christ's work - that He is the Messiah who brings salvation. It's trust in His work, not trying to please God with our own works. In fact, if we are still trying to please God with our own works and think that is what keeps us saved that is directly contrary to faith, and no man can be justified by trying to please God by works (The book of Galatians gets into this in depth.)
2. Based on question 1 above, is there anything in the Bible that could give me confidence that I won't lose salvation in the future?
You can have every confidence that you will be saved if you believe. We receive salvation from the first moment of faith, hold it as we continue in faith (Jn 3:16, etc.) and receive the final promises at the judgement. But these promises are only to believers. Someone who rejects faith doesn't 'lose' salvation so much as they deliberately give it back, returning to their former state before believing, and reject the claim to any future inheritance.
But salvation is only given through faith. There is no confidence in scripture that someone who rejects faith will be saved - quite the opposite. There are many warnings that they will be burned, destroyed, and are indeed in a worse state than unbelievers who never believed even temporarily. (Heb 6:4-8, II Pet 2:20-22, Jn 15:1-6, etc)
This is why there are so many exhortations in scripture to abide/remain in Christ, stand firm in faith, don't turn back, hold firmly to the gospel we have received, etc. And why Jesus warns that we 'count the cost' before we follow Him to begin with (Lk 6:92, Lk 14:28-29, etc.) and to endure to the end (Matt 10:22, etc.) A prior, long past faith will not save us at the judgement.
http://ebible.com/answers/7716?ori=167400
"So
do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For, “In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.” And, “But
my righteous one will live by faith. And
I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” But
we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved." Heb 10:35-39
"For if we go on sinning deliberately [return to a state of willful slavery to sin] after receiving the true knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled down the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?" Heb 6:26-29
3. What do you all think about "once saved, always saved"? If I am saved now, will I always be saved? Can my salvation be taken away from me? Below are two links regarding this topic, one from
gotquestions.org and
wels.net .
gotquestions.org (a very popular online Christian FAQ) says that once you are saved, you are always saved. The link provides a lot of Bible references too. But
wels.net , also providing a lot of Bible references, says that a Christian can fall from the faith. The links are right below:
https://www.gotquestions.org/once-saved-always-saved.html
https://wels.net/faq/position-on-once-saved-always-saved/
Could you give a biblical answer on which of the links, if any of them, is correct?
The GotQuestions link does not stand up under scrutiny.
The Gotquestions.org answer contains some good information as to how salvation works and correctly places being born again AFTER belief, but it's ultimate claim of proof for eternal security isn't any of the scriptures it presents, but philosophy. Namely,
"Believers are born again (regenerated) when they believe (
John 3:3;
Titus 3:5). For a Christian to lose his salvation, he would have to be un-regenerated.
The Bible gives no evidence that the new birth can be taken away. (d) The Holy Spirit indwells all believers (
John 14:17;
Romans 8:9) and baptizes all believers into the Body of Christ (
1 Corinthians 12:13).
For a believer to become unsaved, he would have to be "un-indwelt" and detached from the Body of Christ." (e)
John 3:15 states that whoever believes in Jesus Christ will "have eternal life."
If you believe in Christ today and have eternal life, but lose it tomorrow, then it was never "eternal" at all. Hence, if you lose your salvation, the promises of eternal life in the Bible would be in error."
Note the shift from explicit scriptures showing what God does (raise us to new life, give indwelling spirit, etc.) to philosophical claims about what God doing those 'must' also indicate. Yet does scripture actually back up any of those philosophical follow-up claims? No.
Jn 3:16, which He uses to claim eternal life cannot be lost, doesn't show that at all.
The Greek says whoever believes (active, present, ongoing) will not perish (future) and holds (active, present, ongoing) eternal life. Holding eternal life is conditional on faith. There is nothing in the Greek of the phrase 'eternal life' to imply that if one could hold it temporarily but later give it up that would make it less eternal, despite English connotations one might read in. We hold eternal life because we have the life of Christ in us now as we continue in faith and will later get new Spiritual, immortal bodies at the judgement.
Scripture doesn't treat someone who rejects faith as becoming unborn, but rather as dying a second time or somehow being destroyed (Jd 1:12, Lk 8:13, I Tim 1:18-20, Heb 10:38-39, James 5:19, etc.). Just as a person physically born can later physically die, so a person spiritually born again can later choose death if they reject faith. Gotquestions attempts an argument from silence, that scripture never specifically says the exact phrase 'and lose the new birth,' while simultaneously rejecting all the clear and unambiguous cases in scripture where someone is shown as falling away from faith and subsequently being destroyed.
http://ebible.com/answers/14123?ori=167400
http://ebible.com/answers/28836?ori=167400
http://ebible.com/answers/7716?ori=167400
And there is plenty of scriptural support for someone becoming detached from the body of Christ if they reject faith! Jn 15:4-6, Rom 11:17-24, Lk 12:42-46, Heb 3:12, etc.) What else would one call it to be cut out of Christ and cut out of the people of God?
Lastly, the Gotquestions link attempts to use
Romans 8:38–39 which states 'nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord' to mean we cannot reject faith. But not only is this contextually unsupported (the passage is about God protecting us from outside powers) but it is not supported even within the text. Where is the love of God? "Inside Christ Jesus our Lord." If we reject faith, then we reject this love as we are no longer inside Christ! That isn't God divorcing/separating us from His love - it's us divorcing Christ. (Much how in Isa 50:1 God shows that He did not divorce/send Israel away first - rather Israel was sent away for first rejecting Him.)
------
To be honest, I'm kind of in panic mode. I don't want to do good works my entire life just to be confident that God would be pleased with me. I know God loves me. But with the unanswered questions above, I don't know if I will love God in the future. I ask that you take the time to answer these questions when you get the chance. Thank you again!
Pleasing God by good works is *not* continuing in Christ by faith. Trying to please God by works cannot save anyone. I recommend reading Galatians. Faith is in every way contrasted with works of the law and boasting. And I would recommend turning your fear of not loving God in future into a positive - use it to rely on God more, trust Him more, ask Him for help, etc. Because if you are trusting in God and not yourself, and relying on His power and not your own, and continuing to grow in Christ, then you aren't in danger of deliberately rejecting faith,