Hi. this debate has raged on for centuries. i did a very therough bible study on this topic. it is very lengthy, but i deal with both topics and rightly divide the word on them. If you have your mind made up as to what you want to believe: then this study is not for you! because no matter how much evidence is presented to the contrary of what yo want to believe: you will not accept it or believe it! But if you have an open mind and only what to know what the truth is on these two topics: then this study is for you!
I start with the negative then the positive later on. please do not post any replies to this, or ask any questions concerning it, until you have read all of it! for i answer all questions and objections in this study! if after reading you have unanswered questions: (which is unlikely) please feel free to ask them. i will answer them. but please do not ask questions that have already been answered in this study.
So for the intellectually honest, and only the intellectually honest people i have attached my study for their reading pleasure.
Thanking you for this post, many months after it was made. I hope I don't repeat anything you covered in your paper, (my brain isn't as sharp as it once was). I became a nominal Christian for decades, after falling away slowly over time and with the cares of this world. I was not living anything close to what would be called an immoral life, but was adrift without an anchor, without direction, without joy, with a "peace" that came only in times everything was going my way, and anxiety to panic when they weren't. After a miraculous and heaven rattling salvation, it looked like I was not only, not going to finish the race, I was pulled up lame on the sidelines. The honest, living, breathing, every moment relationship with the Creator of Everything, His Son, and His Holy Spirit I began with, was so far in the past, I was completely ineffectual and worthy to be burned.
Can a true Believer lose their salvation? From personal experience and study in the Word, I believe we can. What brought me back into right relationship with God, was the shock of the lockdowns, and my spirit being quickened by The Holy Spirit that the Great Tribulation was dead ahead, and the realization of how unprepared for extreme hardship, and worse, not to be counted worthy of, persecution for Christ. If God had dropped my body, (I was near death several times), at any point from say 30 to 65 years old, I don't see how He could have allowed me to enter His rest, let alone offer to share His Throne with me (imagine such a honor).
I guess some would say, it's because I truly was saved that I came back, and if I had not, it's because I never really was saved. I truly believe there has to be a level of response from the Believer. It's not salvation by works, but faith and grace require a reciprocal relationship too. He gives us all the time needed and puts in every effort to draw us to Him, but we have to not only maintain, but allow Him to grow, inside, the places no one can see but Him. If all it takes to enter Heaven is "asking Jesus into our hearts" then plotting our own course, filled with nothing but that original grace (that's I think what Bonhoeffer said turns into a "cheap grace"), then this person is missing that even salvation by grace costs something. If a truly saved person never takes the time to learn and practice that, and to the end of their life, they will be no better than the unsaved.
Jesus' warnings to us over and over "Do not be deceived..." or 'I'm coming like a thief in the night...", or "you must OVERCOME to be with me" makes your strongest argument the ten virgins, especially for the modern church. How does one become deceived? How does one miss the signs of His Master's Return? Because they have no relationship with Him. Imagine having a spouse with whom the other never communicates, not even so much as to say good morning, good night, how was your day, is there anything you wish me to do for you today? They leave notes on your bedroom pillow with all their desires for your relationship and how very much they love you, but they're never read, preferring the images on television and the computer day-after-day in their free time, instead. That person won't be warned of danger, won't be ready, will be out of "oil", and won't be going with Him -- not so much in the Rapture, as so many worry about today, but more importantly at the time of our, unknown to us, bodily death.
You noted Hebrews 10:14
14 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
The verb "BEING" jumps off the page. Sanctification requires our active participation with Him, EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY. As you point out, the Christian life is not passive, it is not laziness.
It is also interesting that you are the only person I've come across to confront Christians with Jesus words in Rev 3:5 '...I will not erase his name from the book of life... Two things I have learned in my resurrected absolute fear of God is: 1) He means what He says, and 2) so many of His commandments contain the word "if".
In Rev. 3:20 - Notably, Jesus is standing OUTSIDE the church door in Laodicea knocking, and wondering if anyone inside the church can hear His voice. He's trying to get in to the church that bears His name. Some inside have never been saved, some truly are, but their leaders don't teach that HE HAS TO KNOW WHO WE ARE, (even the devil knows who God is, He requires so much more from us). If we don't "open the door" of our hearts, and continually cry out like David, our salvation is in danger:
Psa 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
4 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
After stopping momentarily, the LORD led me directly to this Scripture. He is sooooo good to us with everlasting forgiveness! Thanks for your post.
Luk 15:20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.