Eternal Security

[Diane_Windsor]

Do you believe in the Eternal Security of the Believer (OSAS)?

Yes, No, or Undecided

Please give a reason for your response.

Diane
:wave:

[ZiSunka]

Those who truly have saving faith in Jesus Christ are saved forever. Those that have shallow faith, meaning that they come to faith in Christ for the wrong reasons (such as to impress a girlfriend, or because their mother begged them, or because they thought Christian chicks are cuter, or because they thought it would give them power or better business connections, etc.) do not have saving faith in Christ and almost invariably those people will eventually fall away permanently because living for Christ is very difficult. They do not have saving faith in Christ.

But those who come to Christ because they know they are sinners in need of a savior, and believe that Christ is the only savior, and confess to others that they need Christ and set in their minds that Christ will be the Lord of their lives, those people have saving faith in Christ and will persist in the faith because they know that there is no where else to go--only Jesus has the words of eternal life.

[constance]

Diane - you're not the only person who doesn't fully fit the "Baptist" mold - this is where I fall short! I believe that a person can believe they are saved and not be, and I believe that a person can believe they are saved and have their name blotted out from the book of life. (Both of these things I see in the Bible) - I realize that OSAS may accomodate this by saying, "Well, those people were never saved in the first place" but I feel that is just too close to double predestination. Additionally, I see OSAS used as a "life preserver" with new converts in a way that is terrifyingly dangerous. We get converts who are told "say this prayer & you will always be saved" and then never see them again - not good.

Constance

[GreenEyedLady]

Yes I believe in it.
We are told in the 2nd Chapter of Colossians that we are spirtually circumsized with the Holy Spirit. I don't know of any male that ever wanted to replace his physical circumzion nor do I know of any one that every tried it. You cannot undo the physical that a doctor did, you cannot undo the operation of God made without hands.
If you are saved, you are saved until you die.

[ej]

I don't know.

Scriptures can be used to support either stance, but ultimately we have only one judge :)

[mannysee]

eternal security in Christ, yes i do.
I'm sure each letter/book of the NT alone mentions various aspects of this.
As i am reading Galatians at the moment, there are found such words as "promise", "credited with", "heirs", "inheritance", "adoption as sons of God" and so on.
Next up is Ephesians!!

[Terri]

I am OSAS because I have complete confidence in my Dear Heavenly Father. He will do whatever is necessary to bring me to my heavenly home.

I have entered God's rest. ALL I do is trust in Him completely and He takes care of the rest!!

1PE 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

[PapaLandShark]

Yes I do believe in OSAS. The question then becomes "How do you know that you are saved?"

By a changed life. One of the greatest difficulties I went through early on was "How do I know". It was rather amusing really. Everyone around me could see it and feel it...But I was so blinded by sorrow and joy I could not.

There, I cannot stress this enough, IS a definate danger to the "Just say this prayer" thing. I was a victim of it. Intellectual understanding is not the same as belief...however intellectual understanding is needed in order to believe imoo. You cannot separate the two.

[Tenorvoice]

yes!

[Flynmonkie]

through faith......I agree with OSAS.

I don't know.

Scriptures can be used to support either stance, but ultimately we have only one judge :)

EJ, my dear sister! True God is the ultimate Judge of salvation. But God has assured us as Christians, we are His. I have never been more miserable in my life than when I questioned my state of salvation. Satan would like nothing more than to interfere with our trust in Gods word. I urge you to ask questions or read the scriptures and pray. :) There is one way. A good thing to remember there is no such thing as sitting on the fence. Satan owns it.

[£amb]

Yes. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit. Jesus came to give us eternal life.

[DawnTillery]

I am still undecided. I believe I am saved, but I also believe I have free will to fall away, which means (although I wouldnt get resaved, but I am not living a life for God, so to come back into grace, I would have to rededicate my life back to God. I think at that point I would probably NOT make it to Heaven if I wasnt living my life right.
We should ALWAYS try to reach perfection, but we will never get there. (does that make sense)
I am SO CONFUSED..

I do NOT believe God will blot your name out of the book of life aslong as your repenting for things as you go along, I dont think he stops forgiving us aslong as we are sincere. I think we all have problems, things to overcome, and with Gods help we will overcome. Some take longer than others.

So I believe I am eternally saved, aslong as I dont jump out of Gods hands, but God will not push me out or pull me out. I have free will. To serve or not.

But people REALLY need to explain things to new Christians, because as I posted on another thread, I got people that are telling me OSAS means no repenting..
Means God will jerk you out of the world before you get to far away.
I would have to see scripture to back this up and I have as of right now never seen it.
I dont think we shouldn't be preaching OSAS to young Christians, because it leads to misunderstanding. (as I have proved above)...
I think people MUST understand.
I see BOTH SIDES and STILL UNDECIDED as of right now.
I FEEL LIKE A HUGE SLINKY/YOYO combined.. lol

[ej]

Excellent post Dawn, that's how I feel too...

I trust the Lord, but I do not trust myself. I repent of sins, but I cannot promise I will never commit the same sin. It feels like I'm letting God down.

[White Horse]

Ah, my sisters. Please understand that OSAS doesn't mean you can go sin all you want to once you're a Christian. It means you're going to sin more than you want to when you're a Christian. We all stumble at times. The prodigal son was always a son, even when he was in the pig pen. His father never disowned him. He was always his father, and like we all do, eventually realize we don't belong in the pig pen. He was never going to be happy there. You can go to the pig pen, but you will not be content there, because you belong in the mansion, but you're always His child.

I'll tell you another thing. Our Lord said that He'd walk away from the 99 to go get that one sheep who strayed away. My friends, He started with a hundred sheep and He'll finish with a hundred sheep.

There was nothing you could do to gain your salvation, and there's nothing you can do to lose it. You can walk away from the flock all you want to...you still belong to that Shepherd, and He's gonna come get you and keep you in the fold.

You'll drive yourself crazy wondering exactly at what point you fall from grace. That's a ploy by the enemy to keep you down and defeated and living by rules and regulations and out of fear instead of out of liberty and grace and love.

Peace, be still. Rest in Him. Enjoy His fellowship. There's nothing you did to earn it to begin with, there's nothing you can do to keep it and there's nothing you can do to lose it. It ain't about you. It's about Him.

[DawnTillery]

White Horse, I agree on some of your points, although I still struggle with this question.. So I am not able to post this or that. I think it is all about God. Its not Limited Salvation..
I also believe its up to God.. I gained salvation the moment I confessed my belief. (so I feel yes I had to do something) To keep my salvation, I need to repent of my sins daily, if I dont I feel so far away from God (well whether we agree on this or not, but for me I have to and it doesnt hurt to say your sorry) I also need to live my life to please God (Colossians 1:10-11) Jesus gives us many examples to live by and if He did it surely we are supposed to also.
Yes I agree satan keeps us doubting, wondering, thinking.. what if but 1 John 1:9 clearly tells me If I confess, God will forgive (No if ands or buts about it)

[White Horse]

Oh, there's absolutely no doubt He'll forgive you when you confess your sins. But what you have to understand is that we never reach perfection. We're constantly short of God's will. Paul never attained that goal (Phil 3:10-16). We'll never reach that plateau until we leave these weak bodies behind.

You gained salvation because you accepted it...you trusted Him. You really didn't "do" anything. He handed you a gift. He made it, packaged it, wrapped it and brought it to you. He even opened it for you. There was no physical act you could do to gain it, just believe, and He's the one who convicted you and revealed it to you and gave you the wherewithal to accept it. Likewise, there's no physical act you can do to lose it. He calls it "eternal" life for a reason. If it could be temporary, then He couldnt' call it "eternal". :)

[JimfromOhio]

I voted "yes"

I believe that at salvation, it must be true and we are very remorseful that we are sinners. God's Spirit convicted us of our sins, brought us to repentance, and regenerated us. He then indwelt, baptized, sealed, gifted, and separated us from sin. In the ongoing process of sanctification, He gives us access to and intimacy with God, who supplies all the resources we need for physical and spiritual life.

Regarding Once Saved, Always Save (OSAS): It is a matter of the Holy Spirit securing your salvation at the moment you accepted Christ as your saviour. Ephesians 1:13 14 says, "You were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance." The Greek word translated "sealed" speaks of authenticity an unbreakable promise. The Holy Spirit secures you for eternity. Holy Spirit is sufficient for every need. Our responsibility is to be filled with the Spirit and to walk by the Spirit each day (Eph. 5:18; Gal. 5:16, 25).

[Diane_Windsor]

I'll tell you another thing. Our Lord said that He'd walk away from the 99 to go get that one sheep who strayed away. My friends, He started with a hundred sheep and He'll finish with a hundred sheep.

There was nothing you could do to gain your salvation, and there's nothing you can do to lose it. You can walk away from the flock all you want to...you still belong to that Shepherd, and He's gonna come get you and keep you in the fold.

What if a sheep doesn't want to come back to the fold? Is Christ going to force them to come back against their will? Where is our free will in all of this?

Diane
:wave:

[White Horse]

What if a sheep doesn't want to come back to the fold? Is Christ going to force them to come back against their will? Where is our free will in all of this?

Diane
:wave:

See the story of the prodigal son. It's like the Mafia. You can't leave. ^_^

Seriously, a child of God does not want to, will not, can not leave the fold. He may walk out of line for a while, but he'll never be content. He still belongs to the Shepherd. If we were cattle, we'd be branded. Whether we stayed with the rest of the pack is irrelevant. We still belong to the Owner, and He's not going to let His property (we were bought with a price) get away. Even if you *think* you want out, He knows you really don't want out, and He's not going to let you slip out. Our Lord said "none" can snatch us from His hand. The Greek word used in John 10:29 means no person or thing, including yourself. Those were our Lord's words. And here are Paul's.

Rom 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of the Christ? tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Rom 8:36 (according as it hath been written--`For Thy sake we are put to death all the day long, we were reckoned as sheep of slaughter,')

Rom 8:37 but in all these we more than conquer, through him who loved us;

Rom 8:38 for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor messengers, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,

Rom 8:39 nor things about to be, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of god, that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

[Marissa]

Had I been asked this 2 days ago I would have said OSNAS. Without a doubt in my mind. I've never been armenist (sp?) or calvinist. I consider both to be contradictory to the bible and rather was somewhere down the middle.

Yesterday however I read something by a staunch calvinist. Whenver this has come up before, I've never seen anything that made me consider OSAS to be true. He gave pretty good back up for it. Dozens upon dozens of verses. I'm in the middle of exam week atm for uni so I can't look into it right now, but when exams are done on Wednesday I plan on going through what he said.

Right now, I still accept OSNAS to the greater extent but until I look at it again I will say "I don't know".

[JimfromOhio]

Had I been asked this 2 days ago I would have said OSNAS. Without a doubt in my mind. I've never armenist (sp?), but rather somewhere between calvinist and armenian. I consider both to be contradictory to the bible and rather was somewhere down the middle.

Yesterday however I read something by a staunch calvinist. Whenver this has come up before, I've never seen anything that made me consider OSAS to be true. He gave pretty good back up for it. Dozens upon dozens of verses. I'm in the middle of exam week atm for uni so I can't look into it right now, but when exams are done on Wednesday I plan on going through what he said.

Right now, I still accept OSNAS to the greater extent but until I look at it again I will say "I don't know".

I have been studying about salvation being taught by various denominations. I did some researching and found there are basically 3 kinds of salvation that are being taught in the Christian world.

Free Grace Theology
This doctrine states believers can fall into sins for a prolonged period of time and that it is possible for true believers to fall away without losing salvation. This is predominantly a dispensationalist doctrine. Those who hold to this view state that salvation is always in the aorist tense, so that once a person is converted he/she cannot be unconverted regardless of the circumstances. I have heard that theologians who hold to this view are Charles Stanley, Zane Hodges, Charles Ryrie, Erwin Lutzer, Robert Thieme, Michael Cocoris, John Hart, Chuck Swindoll, Earl Radmacher, and all free grace believers.

Calvinism (Perseverance of the Saints) or (Lordship Salvation)
This doctrine states that those who are elected unto salvation will persevere till the end. Holiness and faithfullness will be a general mark for the believer and that true believers will never backslide or fall away from the faith. Those who hold to this position acknowledge that temporary sins will come into a believer's life, but holiness and righteousness will be the consistent lifestyle for the believer. This view denies the view that Christians can lose their salvation. This view is predominant in many Covenant based denominations like presbyterian and reformed baptist. I have heard that this view is held by theologians like John MacArthur (baptist/non-denominational), R. C. Sproul (presbyterian), J. I. Packer (presbyterian), John Gerstner, J. M. Boice (presbyterian), Kenneth Gentry, and James Kennedy (presbyterian).

Arminianism
This doctrine declares that you can lose your salvation. It teaches that you obtain salvation through faith in Christ, but then you must maintain your salvation status or lose it. There's some variation in the Arminian community as to whether one loses salvation by sinning (in which case to maintain your salvation status, you would be required to maintain a certain outward performance or behavior or you lose it by simply not believing anymore, or a combination of these. Aminianism tends to be dominant in those churches that are derived from a Wesleyan tradition such churches as Methodist and Pentecostal (including Assembly of God).

I hope I got this right. Let me know if I didn't.

[Diane_Windsor]

Just found the exact same thread (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?t=1136610), but it's a closed poll.

[hindsey]

Yes I do believe in OSAS. The question then becomes "How do you know that you are saved?"

By a changed life. One of the greatest difficulties I went through early on was "How do I know". It was rather amusing really. Everyone around me could see it and feel it...But I was so blinded by sorrow and joy I could not.

There, I cannot stress this enough, IS a definate danger to the "Just say this prayer" thing. I was a victim of it. Intellectual understanding is not the same as belief...however intellectual understanding is needed in order to believe imoo. You cannot separate the two.

Amen

[hindsey]

Once a person is born-again, they are made a part of the family of God. As has been said throughout this thread though, how do you know you're born again.

[White Horse]

Heb 7:25 whence also he is able to save to the very end, those coming through him unto God--ever living to make intercession for them.

Eph 1:13 in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth--the good news of your salvation--in whom also having believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise,

Jud 1:24 And to Him who is able to guard you not stumbling, and to set you in the presence of His glory unblemished, in gladness,

Jud 1:25 to the only wise God our Saviour, is glory and greatness, power and authority, both now and to all the ages! Amen.

Joh 6:39 `And this is the will of the Father who sent me, that all that He hath given to me I may not lose of it, but may raise it up in the last day;

Joh 6:40 and this is the will of Him who sent me, that every one who is beholding the Son, and is believing in him, may have life age-during, and I will raise him up in the last day.'

Joh 10:27 according as I said to you: My sheep my voice do hear, and I know them, and they follow me,

Joh 10:28 and life age-during I give to them, and they shall not perish--to the age, and no one shall pluck them out of my hand;

1Co 3:11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

1Co 3:12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;

1Co 3:13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.

1Co 3:14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

1Co 3:15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

[Athanasian Creed]

I voted no. I do believe one can, by disobedience, take themselves out of God's hand.

I agree with 'PapaLandShark' that true, geniune salvation results in a changed life. There are plenty of "ifs" regarding salvation, that to me means it is conditional upon continued obedience to Christ and His Word - "IF you love Me, keep My commandments", "IF a man love Me, he will keep My words", "IF a man abide NOT in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered..."(if one was, at a point in time, a branch, that means he abided in Christ and belonged to Him) Paul also makes mention of a person "holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:" That speaks of a person exercising free will to reject/disobey God after once having saving faith. Etc., etc., etc.

I do, however, believe that if one continues to abide in Christ that God will enable that person to withstand all the forces of the enemy and that nothing will be able, in that case, to seperate them from God and His love - BUT it is conditional upon remaining in Christ as He commands us to do ! ;)


Ray :wave:


P.S. Also, in the parable of the Prodical Son, the father only made a move in the direction of the son when the son FIRST made the move BACK to the father - then, in response, the father ran towards the son, seeking reconciliation.

[AJ]

or because they thought Christian chicks are cuter, :)