forum post
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
Notice the sleight of hand being played at here, however. He quotes one passage that would seem to assault his stance, but then dismisses it with a broad statement about “the rest of Scripture.” I am sure that if you asked him whether Scripture was self-contradictory, he would deny that it was in quite vocal terms. Yet here he is, playing up an apparent contradiction for the sake of his tenuous point.
mindstorm, you seem to be trapped in a kind of binary thinking — either one is justified, or one is not. You seem incapable of realizing the reality of imputed justification, of understanding that we are not either 100% justified or merely 0% justified. Yet that is exactly the case: our justification in Christ is not an “instant on” sort of thing, but rather a gradual process we and He work at throughout our entire lives. We move forward, we backslide, we rise up, and we fall down again. Justification is not instantaneous; it is imputed over time.
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To an extent, I agree. However, I disagree with the terms you are using. I do believe that there is a single instance in time when we are made right with God, a time when we are born again. However, where you are using the word justified, I’d say that would be our time of sanctification.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"][QUOTE="mindstorm"]Instead, I hold that if one does not hold true and faithful until the end, one was never justified from the beginning.[/QUOTE]
Typical Calvinist claptrap, nowhere indicated in the cited passage or in all of Scripture. This is not a Biblical view in the slightest.[/QUOTE]
And that makes it untrue how? If we hold that both Hebrews 3:13 (We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.) and Romans 8:38-39 (…[nothing] will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.) then what would a better explanation be?
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
Now you are contradicting yourself again, however. Of what need has faith for “strengthening” if faith gives instant, lasting, permanent justification to a person? Of what danger is there that such a person’s faith might weaken, given your own stated views on the impossibility of genuine faith lapsing? If you genuinely believe that true faith endures without failing every sling and arrow of outrageous fortune, you must admit that there is no need for that faith to be bolstered or strengthened; equipped as it is to outlast all tribulation, it is already as strong as it could be.
Likewise, if you hold that faith with does lapse is not true faith to begin with, or not faith at all, why do you say faith needs strengthening? For is not faith which lapses or weakens a false faith to begin with, by your own logic
[/QUOTE]
Again, we seem to be simply disagreeing with the definition of justification. One is first justified, then sanctified, and then glorified. At our justification we are made in a right relationship with God. At sanfictication we become more holy through a gradual process. Not until our glorification are we made perfect.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
[QUOTE="mindstorm"]The evidence of the Christian truly partaking of Christ’s salvation involves endurance “to the end.” The condition (“if needed”) has been understood in various ways. Some have argued that the condition indicates that true Christians can lose their salvation. However, from what I see of Scripture, I believe that to be impossible (we’ll get to that).[/QUOTE]
I think you should first and foremost stop here and explain by what authority your teachings & interpretations on this matter are correct, in the face of the vast body of Christian theology and interpretation which disagrees with you and them. That is to say: what authority have you, above all Christendom, to argue that your personal & private interpretation is more correct than the learned interpretation and teaching of over a thousand years of Christian doctrinal tradition?
I’m not the only person across the past 2000 years to believe this. o_O
However, tradition is not my authority, Scripture is. If I’m shown a more right view according to Scripture, then I shall change my mind.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
Again, typical Calvinist claptrap. You began this comment of yours with the statement that you had come to a middle ground, yet all the evidence of your own words points to the reality that you remain mired down in Calvinist error. You have come to no middle ground; you remain at the same philosophical point you were at a week ago, or a month ago.
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In relationship to the people I’ve been debating with about this very same topic across this past week, this is a middle ground.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
This view of yours is unnecessarily cruel, to the point of being un-Christian. It is easy, temptingly easy, to simply dismiss one who struggles in faith as someone who was never a true Christian; it saves you from having to show compassion to that person. But what if that person you dismiss one day returns to the faith? Do you simply say that you were in error about them and their faith…do you simply wash your hands of your cruel dismissal of them as ingenuinely Christian and say that they were, in fact, genuinely Christian the whole time, even through the dark night of the soul that you refused to help them through?
Such a stance is worth nothing save being spit upon.
[/QUOTE]
I do not see how it’s cruel. If someone finishes the race with their eyes on Christ, they have truly been followers all along. Also, I do not ever claim that someone has turned from the faith for I cannot know a person’s heart.
My typical approach is to never assume someone is a Christian regardless of their works, deeds, or profession. One can say the right things, do the right things, but still be very far from God. That’s why we should always be an encouragement to one another, exorting one another in the path that we should follow.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
[QUOTE="mindstorm"]The ongoing experience of perseverance results in “confidence” and assurance that one does in fact “share in Christ.” This verse then provides a grave warning to everyone who claims to be saved—that is, to examine oneself carefully to be sure that one is in fact a genuine believer, because if there is no evidence of perseverance in faith and obedience, then there is a real reason to doubt that such a person has ever been saved.[/QUOTE]
A remoresless, compassionless view. Granted, it containes granules of truth; we can know much about a person by the fruit they bear. But even so, it is amusing to me how you have twisted an exhortation to show compassion to those who struggle in faith into a dire warning devoid of all compassion. How very Christ-like.
I would wonder at what you would define “perseverance” as? Does it include theological orthodoxy?
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I’d define perseverance as following Christ until the end, much like Paul does in 2 Tim. 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
Also, I’m in no way saying how we are to respond to one another. As stated above, we should always be an encouragement to one another, exorting one another in the path that we should follow.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
[QUOTE="mindstorm"]I say all of this because I do not believe that according to Scripture that one can lose our salvation. Here are just a few passages that I believe show that.
John 10:27-29 states, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has give them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them our of the Father’s hand.”
Thus, would it not be said that those who are “snatched away” were never his to begin with?[/QUOTE]
If that were the only case, yes. But there is another case which your interpretation fails to consider: what of those who, for various reasons, demand to be let go by their words or actions? It is one thing to consider sheep within the flock, another to consider sheep outside of the flock…but what about sheep who leave the flock for some reason, and for some duration? How do you address this case, which at present you have not? How does Scripture address this case?
[/QUOTE]
“Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” – 1 Tim. 4:16.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
[QUOTE="mindstorm"]Ephesians 1:4, “He chose us in him before the foundations of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”
If God chose us before the foundations of the earth, does that mean he changes his mind when we “fall from his grace.” Or perhaps, were we never his to begin with?[/QUOTE]
Or perhaps this passage speaks to the desire of God to see all humanity perfected in Himself, while not explicitly mentioning the reality that God’s gift to us of free will and the ability to make choices — informed and uninformed alike — means that some of us will choose, in the end, against becoming perfected, even if at some point prior to that we had chosen to strive toward becoming perfected? [/QUOTE]
Some will choose by their own free will to never follow Christ and are held accountable to that choice. However, those who do choose Christ were predestined to do so by the power of his grace and mercy.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
[QUOTE="mindstorm"]Romans 8:38-39 goes as far as to say, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
With that said, if we have had the grace of God lavished upon us, how can we separate ourselves from it?[/QUOTE]
I have already spoken to this reality. Nothing can separate us from the love of God…this is true. But love is sometimes about, however painfully, letting a loved one suffer the consequences of the choices he makes. God loves all humanity, and desires that all be saved. Nothing can separate even the lowest, most wretched man from the love of God.
But, out of love, God will not force us toward an eternal fate we do not choose. If we do not choose Heaven, or if at some point we choose against Heaven, God will not force us to enter into that kingdom. That’s the shattering, terrifying reality of the final judgement…that it is so pure and righteous, so truthful and rational, that we would willingly admit ourselves into Hell itself
[/QUOTE]
I agree. However, I do not even believe our choices can separate us from the Father.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
[QUOTE="mindstorm"]Scripture also speaks about how those who are in Christ are “born again,” that their “hearts are circumcised.” Does this not mean that if we have truly been justified before the Father, that if we were to “fall from grace” then we would literally be changing back to our old nature.[/QUOTE]
Not exactly, no. There are aspects of our nature that are inexorably changed. Baptism is once and for life. But equally, there are aspects of our nature that remain as they were; we continue to be concupiscent. Which means that either justification is imputed to us over time, and so it is possible to backslide, or else justification is “all at once” and we effectively have a license to sin…because we will still sin.
[/QUOTE]
It seems you define justification as not only becoming right with God but turning from our sin. I’d say the latter part is sanctication and not a part of justiciation but merely the result of justification.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
[QUOTE="mindstorm"]The only way this would be possible is if we could willfully change back and forth between our old selves and our new selves. Is it not God through his Holy Spirit who changes us? If not, then would we not be able to live a sinless existence apart from the help of God?[/QUOTE]
You honestly believe any man save for Christ is capable of living sinlessly?
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Not remotely, that’s an idea that I’m trying to defeat. Our hearts are made new at justification (and thus gain the desire of sinlessness) but we are not completely sinless until our glorification when our bodies are made new.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
[QUOTE="mindstorm"]All of this that I have said, I believe, defeats two mindsets: that we can “fall from God’s grace,” and that we are saved by a prayer we made when we are 10.[/QUOTE]
Do you believe in “once saved, always saved,” or don’t you? Because if you don’t, you have to accept that falling from grace is possible, even if we do so only temporarily. If you do, then you’re really in no position to criticize the 10-year old’s prayer.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not trying to criticize a 10-year old’s prayer. Heck, I lead a 12-year old through said prayer last Saturday night! However, we cannot know if he is truly one of Christ’s until he lives the rest of his life.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
[QUOTE="mindstorm"]You see, if we are truly justified before the Father, then would we not follow through with sanctification and glorification? Other than for those who come to Christ on their deathbeds, I do not believe there would be any exception to this.[/QUOTE]
This is true in the end, but we still have to discuss the nature of justification. Is it instantaneous, or imputed over time? What does Scripture say?
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I tend to separate justification and sanctification into two separate things. Thus, it could be either depending upon your definition. It’s merely a debate about semantics.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
[QUOTE="mindstorm"]“Once saved always saved” is true but we are only saved if we finish the race that has been set before us.[/QUOTE]
This is called “having your cake and eating it too.”
Either OSAS is true, or it is true that we must “finish the race.” If OSAS is true, then if we are “saved” mid-race, what need have we to “finish” it? What does finishing it even mean? If OSAS is true, then the race ends, for us, when we become “saved” (even if that’s at age 10, per your above remark), and the rest of our life is just a victory lap in which no other actions we undertake even matter.
OR it is the case that we are, in fact, called upon to run the race to the end of our days, and that we are judged based upon the conduct of our whole life. At which point, OSAS cannot be true. [/QUOTE]
If we are “saved” mid-race, as you put it, then we are going to finish the race. However, I’m not very fond of the language used in speaking about how there is a moment when we “were saved.” We are in a process of “being saved.” If that process starts, it will finish.
[QUOTE="WtFDragon"]
[QUOTE="mindstorm"]Our confidence is not placed in a prayer we once prayed but in Christ through our own repentant, believing, and obedient heart.
[/QUOTE]
But under OSAS, what need is there to repent? We’re already saved, our sins already covered…so what does it matter if we sin again, and why have we need to repent? What consequence is levied against us if we don’t repent, since we are already assuredly and inexorably saved?
[/QUOTE]
When we are made right with God, our very desires change and we gain a repentant and changed heart through the power of the Holy Spirit.
I do not like the idea of trying to persuade someone that they are “saved.” It’s much better to question our salvation while living in obedience for the rest of our lives than place our faith in a past event while living in disobedience.
Rather, we should all simply have a repentant and humble heart toward God through the rest of our lives. Whether we believe that there was a specific time when we wereborn again doesn’t matter. What matters is that we currently have our eyes on Christ and obediently follow him throughout the rest of our days.
