[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Mars Horizon *
Thanks, Mars Horizon. I have a hard time keeping up with all the latest heresies, though shame on me for not being aware of this very dangerous one.
Like many heresies of the sola scriptura sects (I’m not saying all Protestants are heretics) – a group which, mind you, takes scripture to be a sole authority – this heresy has absolutely no valid scriptural basis.
Dissenting opinions?
This requires a yes and a no answer to the question of if there is a “Once Saved Always Saved” premise in the Bible.
For the yes answer.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39
We are to be secure in our salvation. Nothing can separate us from Christ, it is guaranteed to us. Thus when we accept Christ, we are guaranteed salvation.
Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1Peter 1:5
This is also another text which allows us to be secure in our salvation. For God Himself keeps us close through faith.
Now for the no answer.
We ourselves can denounce Christ. We can push away the Holy Spirit and thus our salvation.
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. Matt 25:42-45
And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Matt 13:3-8
Like the above texts tell us, there will be those who are lost. God calls us to show Christ to the world, if we fail to do that Christ will fail to recognize us. The parable of the sower is to warn us about taking our salvation lightly. As a Christian we are married to Christ and must take our wedding vows seriously. So in the definition that you have of OSAS, these texts refute that belief, and there are other texts but I will allow you to look them up.
So a brief recap, we cannot have salvation torn from us, but we can give it up of our own free will.
This is an intersting question, especially for me since I know longer consider myself a Christian but still believe in God.
My dilemma is this. I once believed Jesus was the path to salvation but through much reading,thought and soul searching no longer believe such. If I’m wrong will God hold me accountable for believing one person’s word over the other. Is God’s plan to rely on the best sales techniques?
I think God is caring enough not to hold me accountable for another man’s words. I think that God sees my heart and the fate of my eternity is his choice, not mine. A loving God would see my dilemma and accept me.
However, is it because I was once a Christian, or is it because God is understanding of His creation. I trust God enough to believe in the latter.
Hebrews Chapter 6:4-8 (RSV)
For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt. For land which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed; its end is to be burned.
That seems pretty damned clear to me (pun intended).
Quix
I think that it would be wise to ask someone who does believe in OSAS. I’m sure they can find a reason for why they believe this in the Scriptures.
You can find anything you want to in the Scriptures if you want it to be there bad enough, I think.
I hope that Navigator or Lauralee see this as they might shed some light onto it.
There was another post like this a while back where one person said that because of another quote from the bible. What I got from it is even if you don’t believe in god any more you can still go to heaven as long as you still don’t sin.
I have to gather my thoughts for a good anser, and well… life is just too busy at this moment, but give it a week, and you can hear my take on Eternal Security… (I don’t think it is a heresy, nor without biblical basis…)
I do want to toss a comment out, that even though we are in Christ, we still sin, and staying ‘sinless’ is no guarantee of heaven. We aren’t perfect, just forgiven.
I really don’t see how anyone can be so convinced that they are right to call disagreement with them as “heresey”. Have you received a personal revelation from God?
As for the OP, it seems to me that predestination and OSAS are pretty much the same. There is plenty of Biblical basis for predestination, such as something like “Before you were in the womb, I knew you” (that’s purely from memory, so I don’t guarantee accuracy). Seems to me that it comes down to how you define “saved”. If you say that someone is saved if they are going to heaven, then salvation is not a transient condition. Either you’re going to heaven, or you’re not. If you accept Jesus and then later reject him, then you weren’t ever really saved, because if you’re not going to go to heaven now, then your weren’t going to go to heaven then, either. So if you’re saved now, it must be because you will always be saved. So as long as salvation refers to a future state rather than a present state, it can not change, because that which will happen can not be changed, by definition (if it could be changed, then it would not be that which will happen).
**
Chill out, man. He hasn’t even said anything yet and you’re going for the jugular.
The guy was being flip. It’s his nature. If he was too damn serious, you’d find fault with that too, probably.
Navigator can have some silly ideas (
to him, and he’s not alone with those notions either), but he backs up his ideas whenever he can and a lack of humility is not something that he is guilty of, I don’t think.
Thanks Satan.
The Ryan, it is just the nature of religious dialogue. Heresy is a merely word meaning religious error. The Catholics regard gnostics as heretics. The Free Spirits regard Catholics as heretics. Catholics regard Free Spirits and Protestants as heretics.
Mainstream Islam has 72 main heresies alone. Judaism and Neo-Confusionism regard certain beliefs as heretical as well.
Any time you have an orthodoxy, you have a heresy.
Now, some religions simply don’t have an orthodoxy at all (Hinduism, Taoism), and some don’t have any one group you can point to so as to say the rest are wrong (the various branches of Buddhism)…
(Some groups do consider other groups as heretics, but just couch their theology in more inclusive language.)
… and to make a long story short, I’ll probably live to regret starting this thread. But I’ll be sure to pop it in a week to see what Navigator has to say.
Thanks to Quix and deb2world. Geez – I don’t think I’ve even even read Hebrews.
Mayor Quimby – I am curious what you found lacking in Jesus’s path, and I am sure I can relate. Care to hijack this a little while?
Oooo, a hijack! I guess it’s ok considering you started this whole thing.
I don’t know if I found anything “lacking”. Maybe I should give my anti-testimony. I’ll try to make it brief. I was very involved in the Pentecostal Christian movement, and as I became more involved, certain things bothered be about the teachings and practices of the church (in particular, speaking in tongues and the “slaying in the spirit” phenomenon). I started to research the history of the movement and became quite disturbed (it is only about 100 years old). I went back to see what the early church had to say on the subject (they were cessationists) and in my reading started to question other beliefs in the church. I decided to look what Judaism taught and was shocked to find out that how very little the two had in common. Well, now the religion that my faith was supposedly based in was completely different. Long story short, Judaism had the better arguements. For every point that Christianity made, Judaism made a better one. The more I studied Jewish thought, the less sense Christian thought made. For example, original sin, heaven and hell, origin of evil, works vs. grace, properties of the Messiah.
Now I don’t consider myself Jewish (there are some things I just don’t agree with), but I do find it makes much more sense. If I wrong someone, I appologize and try to make it right. If I wrong God, I appologize and try to make it right. Every action has a consequence. Hell, every story in the OT is about actions and their consequences. There were plenty of righteous people in the OT, and it was done through repentance and works. A rather simple plan. And I think Jesus just simplified it even more. Love. Love and the rest falls into place. I think that was his core message. Don’t follow rules for the sake of the rules. That is the wrong approach.
And my brain hurts now, as I should have been in bed about 3 hours ago.
I don’t know much about the dogmas or doctrines of any of the various Christian religious, or how they differ from each other. Mayor Quimby aluded to something I’ve never heard of, “slaying the spirit”.
I would have guessed that “heritic” was probably an insult, based on history: weren’t “heritics” at one time burned at the stake? Sounds like a reeeely bad thing to call someone…
Until I read this, I’d never heard of the “once saved, always saved” idea before. It makes no sence to me. I agree that it sounds like predestination. That I’ve heard of, and disagree with. To me, what point would Christianity have if nothing you do has any effect on where you wind up in the afterlife?
To me, Christianity would make a lot more sence if it REALLY taught what young children are TOLD it teaches: if you’re good, you go to heaven; if you’re bad, you go to hell.
Turns out, however, that it teaches that you go to heaven if you believe the right things, and to hell if you believe the wrong things, or even just don’t believe the right things. Unless the predestinationers are right. Then, you go to heaven or hell according to what God decided at the dawn of time, and nothing you think or do can change this. You just wait and find out when you die.
So, if avoiding an eternity of torment in hell requires holding the right set of beliefs, everyone who is raised in some other religion (or with no religion) has to figure this out and convert. And everyone who is raised in a wrong version of Christianity has to figure out he’s in the wrong one, identify the right one, and switch to it. That’s the deal?
Here is a small piece of the Baptist Faith and Message, describing the Southern Baptist official position on the matter. I think it summarizes a defense of OSAS.
More can be found on the SBC’s webpage here
My paternal grandparents were Pentecostal, my father was raised in the church but rejects it now. I’ve been to many Pentecostal services. I cannot explain the premise or the dogma behind being “Slain in the Spirit” because the churches I attended did not go into that kind of religious “frenzy”. They were quieter, but I have heard people “talking in tounges”. I’ve also seen people “Slain in the Spirit” on television. Usually the minister will put his hand upon the member’s head and they will “pass out” into a couple of guys arms. If my friend weren’t in Florida this week I’d ask her to explain. I wasn’t raised in the Pentecostal church, just attended off and on through the years, so I don’t understand all of it. I was raised Baptist and yes, was raised to believe “Once saved always saved”. However it is something that I’m not sure I believe.
Needs2know
Heh, don’t know that I’d be a lot of help to you Satan. I was raised Southern Baptist and with the belief in Eternal Security, but I wobble back and forth on it a lot. I see evidence for both sides, and it all tends to give me a headache after a little while. On one hand, verses like Romans 8
seem to point to Eternal Security.
But there are lots of others that seem to point the other way. It confuses me a lot.
Then too, Romans 8:38-39 doesn’t mention sin, or apostasy. Demons may not separate us from Christ, but the verse doesn’t exclude ourselves separating ourselves by our actions.
Amen to that. Circular logic I presume? Well if one believes in the principal of universal salvation, an idea prevalent in the early church and dormant for many centuries then the statement that** nothing** can separate us from the love of God applies.
Well what about those verses predicting eternal damnation, lake of fire, and disavowal for retrograde Christians. Well the concept of eternal has been mistranslated from the ancient Greek, lake of fire is a metaphor for cleansing, and temporary abandonment by God would be most frightening indeed for the backsliding Christian. The prodigal son had good reason for waiting as long as he did before returning home.
If anyone wants to know more about Universal Salvation feel free to punch the link in my sig.
Wow, it’s amazing what sleep does for the mind. Well jmullaney, I answered, although am not happy with it. Any particulars you care to hijack about?
Hazel and Needs2know, the dogma behind the “slain in the spirit” phenomenon, which is fairly new (about 100 years old, look up Azuza Street) is taken from various bible verses (usually out of context) and is explained as having the Holy Spirit come upon you with such force and emotion that you can no longer stand under the pressure and collapse into a coma like state at which time the Spirit continues to minister to you. Interestingly, the person “slain” always falls backwards and on their back. A study of the bible in which people fall down before God shows that it is always forward in reverence. Falling backward was reserved for those who were evil and being struck dead in judgement. They don’t bother telling you that though. Hope that helps.
I fall forward in praise, your honorableness. It is always interesting to know where people are coming from. I am curious as to what arguments you felt Judaism made better than Christianity – but I am certain the topic will come up. I’m starting to loathe starting another debate!
Please, no praise. But, while your down there . . . 
Anyway, I wasn referring to I wasn’t happy with my response, due to the lack of sleep. I to like hearing of people’s expereinces, it makes me examine my own life more.
I was trying to think of a way to tie in the OP with your question of Judaism vs. Christianity, but can’t think of a way. So, we’ll continue with the hijack.
Here are some:
Original sin: Christianity says you are born tainted, Judaism says you are born with a clean slate. Christianity needs original sin to justify a personal saviour (although I think Eastern Orthodox don’t believe in original sin). Judaism says you are only responsible for the wrong you do and also for restitution to those you have wronged.
Evil and it’s Origin: Christianity has the devil and dualism. One party fighting against the other for souls. Bad things are from the devil, good things from God. If you sin, it’s because you gave in to the devil’s tricks. Judaism has both good and evil originated from God. he places both before you (free will) and it’s up to you to choose. Those choices will have consequences, but it’s a choice you made. Satan is only an agent of God (which makes the stories of Job and the temptation of Jesus in the desert much more sensible) who is putting those choices before you in God’s behalf. I forget who said it, but in Judaism “Satan and the inclination to do evil are one and the same”. God controls all, no battle with a devil.
The afterlife: Christianity that hell thing. The hell is eternal torture (the most widely held party line). Those who don’t believe in Jesus burn. This is a certainty. And people should live working toward the goal of the afterlife, getting into heaven. Judaism focuses very little on the afterlife, and hell is not eternal punishment, but a place of purification. But the focus is to live a good life now and let God take care of the afterlife.
Messiah: Christianity’s attempt to prove Jesus was the Jewish Messiah falls short in my opinion. There is no world peace, no return to God. Jesus fulfilled NONE of the prophecies pertaining to the Messiah. Christianity claims he will on the 2nd coming. Judaism’s arguements against Jesus being the messiah are more solid than Christianity’s claim that he is.
Nature of God: Christianity, for the most part, has the Trinity. One in three, three in one. Judaism has one God, unchanging and indivisible. The idea of Jesus being both God and man disturbs me. Fully God, fully man. But yet Jesus says many things to suggest otherwise. The one that comes to mind is the disciples asking about his return. Jesus says no one knows, not even him, but the Father. Well, if he’s fully God, how can he hide something from himself. If he can’t, then he did know of his return and is lying. But Jesus was perfect and couldn’t lie. Do you see where this is leading. Sounds to me that Jesus is the rock made too heavy to lift. Judaism has one God, unchanging. Interestingly, this means both in the physical sense and emotion sense. When the OT refers to an “angry” God or a “jealous” God, this is for the purpose of helping people to try to understand. If God is “angry” then he has changed, and this can not be. Talk about “mysterious ways”. I’m still pondering that one.
There are more, but I think you get the general idea.