Taking a closer look at OSAS - once-saved-always-saved

[Carl Emerson]

It is pretty simple really, Folks do have encounters with Him that render them incapacitated for a time and there is trembling. Think back to the beginnings of the quaker movement in the 1600's with George Fox before the movement was hijacked.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

I am astounded that you should claim my comment is false accusation - I thought we had a good dialogue going - I have waited 40 years to share my story which is intended to encourage not accuse...

You implied like I had not meet God by the fact that I did not have a face to face encounter with Him (which I see this as a change of heart involving His Word).

 

[Bible Highlighter]

It is pretty simple really, Folks do have encounters with Him that render them incapacitated for a time and there is trembling. Think back to the beginnings of the quaker movement in the 1600's with George Fox before the movement was hijacked.

George believed in a form of Gnosticism.

Shocking new occultic info revealed about Quaker founder George Fox

George Fox - Wikipedia

Quakers - Wikipedia

 

[Carl Emerson]

Sorry I did not mean that at all (if I understand you correctly)

All believers have met God but there are a vast variety of encounters.

 

[Carl Emerson]

You could be right about Fox... I haven't looked into it.

I assumed it started OK but may have gone off track??

 

[Carl Emerson]

Might be an idea to discuss the issue of the Quakers on another thread.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Any way back to topic, the priests in the old covenant were unable to stand in His presence. Paul was blinded for days. Isaiah was totally undone. No one would go near the early church because the Fear of God was with them. So working out our own salvation with fear and trembling is in respect to the fear of Him. We should not fear death or punishment as born again believers. A healthy Fear of God however should be normative.

 

[BobRyan]

Our eternal security is the result of God in us --a permanent situation. .

2 Corinthians 13:5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?

I'm not sure if you mean that to oppose what I said, or to augment it.

If I understand your position -- you are saying it is not even reasonable to do such a test once you have become saved -- just do it on the day you get saved. a one time event. Because if you are OSAS once-saved-aways-saved then having once discovered that you are saved... you will never change.

 

[Mark Quayle]

2 Corinthians 13:5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?



If I understand your position -- you are saying it is not even reasonable to do such a test once you have become saved -- just do it on the day you get saved. a one time event.

Wow. No, I'm not saying that at all. I wish all of us would test ourselves, and often, even continually! But your reference supports my position very well. The test is to see if we are in the faith. The test does not cause the faith.

The caricature those who hate Calvinism apply to it is amazing. WE LOVE HIM BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US ---Now what in that implies that we can be lazy once we think we are in the faith? Reformers believe the Word of God. Even the parts we can't explain to the satisfaction of those who hate the gospel of Grace. God's love compels us.

 

[BobRyan]

Our eternal security is the result of God in us --a permanent situation. .

2 Corinthians 13:5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?

I'm not sure if you mean that to oppose what I said, or to augment it.

If I understand your position -- you are saying it is not even reasonable to do such a test once you have become saved -- just do it on the day you get saved. a one time event. Because if you are OSAS once-saved-aways-saved then having once discovered that you are saved... you will never change.

Wow. No, I'm not saying that at all. I wish all of us would test ourselves, and often, even continually! But your reference supports my position very well. The test is to see if we are in the faith. The test does not cause the faith.
.

Well I think I missed your point then .. what happens in your view when 20 years from today you find that you fail that test? retro delete all assurance of salvation back to today?

 

[Mark Quayle]

2 Corinthians 13:5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?



If I understand your position -- you are saying it is not even reasonable to do such a test once you have become saved -- just do it on the day you get saved. a one time event. Because if you are OSAS once-saved-aways-saved then having once discovered that you are saved... you will never change.



Well I think I missed your point then .. what happens in your view when 20 years from today you find that you fail that test? retro delete all assurance of salvation to today?

The same thing that happens every day --I find over and over that I (according to my own judgement), fail the test, since Scripture says so many things about the life of the redeemed vs the carnal. My salvation is displayed by my obedience, not caused by it. I depend on the decision of the Almighty Creator for my assurance, and he will not fail to complete what he has begun. I also trust in his patience and kindness --his love-- which causes me more fear (a different sort of fear) than his threats.

In the end, though, the thing that satisfies me most is the realization, full of joy and delight, that God will accomplish all of his good pleasure in his Creation. This is HIS doing --not mine. And that he is doing it for his own sake, not mine. And I get to watch! Thoroughly involved in that is the walking with him, prayer, devotion and "living in Christ". I can do NOTHING without him.

 

[BobRyan]

2 Cor 13:5
5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. 6 But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.

The same thing that happens every day --I find over and over that I (according to my own judgement), fail the test, since Scripture says so many things about the life of the redeemed vs the carnal.

That is an interesting statement given the text you are responding to.

My salvation is displayed by my obedience, not caused by it.

Yes that is what Christ said in Matthew 7 - "not every one who says Lord Lord will enter the kingdom" and also "you will know them by their fruits - good fruit does not come from a bad tree" - the bad tree does not produce good fruit to become a good tree.

as scripture warns us in 1 Cor 6
7 Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? 8 No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren! 9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

Rom 2:13
13 (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified;

vs 16 ... on the day when according to my Gospel God will judge

26 Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? 27 And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law? 28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; 29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.

 

[Rod That Budded]

I'm afraid I may never understand what appears to me to be an obsession among Christians with "being" or "getting saved." I've always seen eternal life as something which began the day I first trusted my case to the Lord Jesus Christ and began a living relationship with Him. If what He says in John 17:3 is true, and that eternal life is bound up with knowing Him then that means everyone can begin now to experience eternal life! Not as a prize to be withheld until the day of glorification of the body at His 2nd coming, but a life like the one He promises in John 10:10, a life that not only extends into countless ages with immortality and incorruption, but one that is exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask or think (Eph. 3:20) at the present time! The Christian walk without this element is dead and decaying. It is devoid of joy and witness, and barely worth living. The apostle Paul understood this even as he lay, with his bloody, striped back against the dirt(y) floor of a prison with his feet in stocks, and it made him sing praises to God, The Son, with whom he was even then seated in heavenly places (Eph. 3:20)! Then God rewarded him by allowing him to effect the conversion of the jailor!

What is squeezing my filthy carcass through a crack in a pearly gate compared to this glory?

 

[bcbsr]

The best one I have found is one that states that "if you live like the devil then you are not saved no matter what you may be claiming regarding OSAS".

It appears to me that the above is a view that is shared by

• John MacArthur
• Chuck Swindoll
• R.C. Sproul
• C.H. Spurgeon

... and a great many others who say they believe in OSAS but also know that living like the devil is not a sign of OSAS. And I agree with them on that point..

And you could include me on that list as well. The basis for that idea of the correlation between behavior and salvation status is what the Bible says concerning the effect of regeneration.

"No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God." 1John 3:9 Which is clearly referring to a change of behavior given that the verse following it says, "This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother." 1John 3:10

That also explains why John could make judgements such as "They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us." 1John 2:19

Thus being born of God impacts a person's behavior, including his endurance in faith.

 

[Gottservant]

The OSAS truth is, if you have been saved: you will want the lost to be saved.

Remember your first love: you wanted everyone to have what you had!

Anything else is Christian navel gazing?

 

[BobRyan]

The OSAS truth is, if you have been saved: you will want the lost to be saved.

Remember your first love: you wanted everyone to have what you had!

Anything else is Christian navel gazing?

Wanting people to be saved - includes wanting people to listen seriously to the warnings given in the Bible.

That is what Noah and John the baptizer discovered.