I've grown up in a Christian home that believes Once Saved Always Saved (OSAS), and I, myself, have doubts about it but am for it. With the debates that circle it on many occasions, what is your viewpoint and reasoning behind it; whether it is supposedly fact or suplosedly fiction?
EDIT*
There are basically two brands of OSAS: one which teaches that as long as you believe the promise of Christ to save you if you believe in Him then you will be saved, regardless of how you live, and the classic Calvinist position of the Persevrance of the saints, the P in TULIP, that holds that saving faith must one which evidences "things that accompany salvation," (Heb. 6:9) and that the elect will die with that faith.
The first brand of OSAS should be dismissed out of hand, as it effectively construes faith to be in a promise-giver, abstract from all that He is and what the cross fully represents, as all that we do is a manifestation of what we really believe, even if at that moment, and one cannot believe in the Lord Jesus as being the Lord Jesus without that faith effecting obedience correspondent with His will. And according to the light one has of that.
The strongest text for this are the ones usually invoked, such as Jn. 10:27-29, as they actually are contingent upon continued belief,
but the key issue is whether God promises to finally keep the elect in the faith, which Jn. 6:29,40 seem to support, or whether He makes them stewards of grace. (1Pt. 4:10)
In both cases God still justly gets all the credit for salvation, as man owes his very breath to God, and in conversion God draws, convicts, opens hearts and grants repentant faith, (Jn. 6:44; 12:32; 16:8012; Acts 11:18; 16:14; Eph. 2:8,9) so that the soul does what he otherwise could not and would not do otherwise as a sinner dead in trespasses and sins. And then God works in and thru the believer to do His good will, so that God should get all the credit, while man is justly blamed for sinning since ultimately that his man's choice.
And God offers grace whereby one can resist sin, (Gn. 4:7) and by rejecting the level of of light and grace God gives men, then they are essentially rejecting Christ, who lightens every man that comes into the world.
But i am getting off into a related subject.
As fas as OSAS, it is incontrovertible that Scripture does warn believers - in writing to believers as being believers - against having an evil heart of unbelief in departing
from the living God, and drawing back into perdition, and going back into bondage, falling from grace, making Christ of no effect, of no profit.
For this cause God works to chasten wayward believers back to walking in faith, as one can deny that faith.
• Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. (Hebrews 3:12)
• Now the just shall live by faith: but if
any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. (Hebrews 10:38-39)
• Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. (Galatians 5:1-4)
• But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. (1 Corinthians 11:32)
• But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. (1 Timothy 5:8)
The usual recourse by those who defend OSAS is to assert that such texts were not written to believers, but which is untenable in context, while it is also true that God "plays for keeps," and works to bring souls into saving faith, which he exhorts believers to walk in.
• But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. (Hebrews 3:6)
• For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; (Hebrews 3:14)
And the way we do that is by gladly resting in Christ as savior, and thus respond to Him as Lord, seeking to be holy and channels of His grace and truth to others, making a change in souls for time and for eternity, to the glory of God.
Pray for me to do much better in that.