I thought I'd take what Matt posted in another thread and Start a new one.
Here is the quote
OSAS - Once you are saved, there is nothing you can do, you will be saved. This ends up being a license for sin. You've got your ticket punched, so do what you want, cause you'll go to heaven anyway. OSAS would teach that if a person fell away or backslid, as long as they are saved, they will still go to heaven
Perseverance of the Saints teaches that all who are truly born again will not fall away but will persevere and be preserved until the end (either of their life or of this age.) This is not a license for sin because it teaches that Christians must progress in holiness and godliness. Becoming more like Christ is required for the Christian life. Progress in holiness, and enduring until the end, is the work of God's Spirit in the believer and would be the evidence of being "born again". Those who believe in Perseverance of the Saints believe that if you fall away or backslide you were never regenerated, or "born again", in the first place. (i.e. this is what John means in 1 John "They went out from us but were not OF us).
As I read the two definitions I see OSAS much differently.
I see "backsliding" Believers applying to every Beleiver.
James 4:17
Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
I think we would have to send most of the believers from the church in Corinth to the unsaved pile if they were to be judged on the basis of preserverence.
Since Salvation is all of God how can I lose it? Would God be ( pardon the term here ) an Indian giver?
John 10
28 And I give them eternal life( gift ), and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand( sounds like OSAS ). 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand( Double OSAS ). 30 I and My Father are one.â€
I have always believe that when I accepted Christ as my personal Saviour He paid for My past,present and future sins. It would seem that the payment He made was not enough if it were to exclude future sins?
When I read passages like 1 corinthians 5
I read it as a believer who has fallen into sin and needs to repent and be restored,not as he was an unbeliever.
1 Cor 5
9 I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. 10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.
12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.â€
When a believer lets his or her flesh control them instead of the spirit they fall into sin. Let's take a person who commits adultery,is very repentant and is restored. Now compare that to a person who for a moment or two looks at another person and lusts over them. 1hr. later they are carrying on with their day having forgotten the episode altogether.
What do we have is the first the ungergenerate sinner or the second?
Perserverence sounds more like get saved, " work for your salvation " and make sure you never sin a Big sin ( at least visibly ) or you will lose it cause you really never had it.
Have you ever noticed that MANY great believers finish badly.Noah ( drunken beach bum) ,David ( had to live with the results of his sin which were painful ),Moses ( kept from entering the promised land ) Peter preaches and 3000 were saved and then he tries to put back up the wall of seperation between Jew/Greek But why are they in Heb 11? Faith!! not Perserverence!! Were they progressing in Holiness,enduring til the end? Can we look at their lives and see their faith in God and want to be like them? Oh Yes!!!
18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.†Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
At the Bema seat there will be great loss of rewards for some and less for others,but the loss of meeting one's Saviour is not on the map for a true believer!!!
There are of course those who have never repented,live like the devil and yet somehow try to say they are Christians.
There also those who represent God and yet have never known Him as Saviour and Lord.( these tares will be ironed out in the end )
BB:happyheart::heartbeat::happyheart:
You misunderstand... I agree with almost ALL of what you just said (with the exception of how you misunderstand perseverance.)
Perseverance does not mean that Christians are always kept from falling into sin, just because they are Christians. We fall into sin many times, sometimes grievous sins. The idea is, someone who is truly saved will repent and return.
Preveverance doesn't mean that those who merely profess Christ without actually being born again are secure. Just because a person claims to be a Christian and is a member of a church, or can pass a theology exam, doesn't mean their saved. This is why there are so many warning passages. We are able to stand firm only because God keeps us. But it is also true that we must stand firm.
We may fall, maybe even frequently. Nevertheless, in the end we will be with Jesus and will be made like him, because this is the destiny that God in his love keeps them through calling, regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification.
The only things that saves us is Christ's work and God's grace. The only thing that keeps us saved is Christ's work and God's grace. How do I know I'm saved? By the testimony of the Holy Spirit in my heart and my confession of faith. How do others know I'm saved? By my confession of faith and fruit in my life. Hence "I will SHOW you my FAITH by my works". If he doesn't have works, he doesn't have faith.
Ultimately, to put it simply, we agree on almost everything. There is one difference, "Calvinists" don't believe in "Carnal Christians". And a "Christian" who commits apostasy or falls away, was never saved to begin with. If a Christian backslides and DOESN'T repent and return, he is committing apostasy and was never a Christian.
Since you love long Copy and Paste quotes, LOL :thumbup:, here's one from the Westminster Confession:
CHAPTER 17 - THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
1. THE saints are those whom God has accepted in Christ the Beloved, and effectually called and sanctified by His Spirit. To them He has given the precious faith that pertains to all His elect. The persons to whom such blessings have been imparted can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace, but they shall certainly persevere in grace to the end and be eternally saved, for God will never repent of having called them and made gifts to them. Consequently He continues to beget and to nourish in them faith, repentance,love, joy, hope, and all the graces of the Spirit that issue in immortality. Many storms and floods may arise and beat upon them, yet they can never be moved from the foundation and rock on which by faith they are firmly established. Even if unbelief and Satan's temptations cause them for a time to lose the sight and comfort of the light and love of God, yet the unchanging God remains their God, and He will certainly keep and save them by His power until they come to the enjoyment of their purchased possession; for they are engraven on the palms of His hands, and their names have been written in the book of life from all eternity.
Ps. 89:31,32; Mal. 3:6; John 10:28,29; 1 Cor. 11:32; Phil. 1:6; 2 Tim. 2:19; 1 John 2:19.
2. It is on no free will of their own that the saints' perseverance depends, but on the immutability of the decree of election, which in its turn depends upon the free and unchangeable love of God the Father, the efficacious merit and intercession of Jesus Christ and the saints' union with Him, the oath of God, the abiding character of the Spirit's indwelling of the saints, the divine nature of which they are partakers and, lastly, the terms of the covenant of grace. All these factors guarantee the certainty and infallibility of the saints' perseverance.
Jer. 32:40; John 14:19; Rom. 5:9,10; 8:30; 9:11,16; Heb. 6:17,18; 1 John 3:9.
3. In various ways-the temptations of Satan and of the world, the striving of indwelling sin to get the upper hand, the neglect of the means appointed for their preservation-saints may fall into fearful sins, and may even continue in them for a time. In this way they incur God's displeasure, grieve His Holy Spirit, do injury to their graces, diminish their comforts, experience hardness of heart and accusations of conscience, hurt and scandalize others, and bring God's chastisements on themselves. Yet being saints their repentance will be renewed, and through faith they will be preserved in Christ Jesus to the end.
2 Sam. 12:14; Ps. 32:3,4; 51:10,12; Isa. 64:5,9; Matt. 26:70,72,74; Luke 22:32,61,62; Eph. 4:30.