We essentially disagree (Dan and me) over the whole OP post. Those are my views. His views differ. We essentially differ over verses like this:
Hebrews 10
[SUP]38 [/SUP]Now the[SUP][
k][/SUP] just shall live by faith;
But if anyone draws back,
My soul has no pleasure in him.”[SUP][
l][/SUP] [SUP]39 [/SUP]But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
Clearly the only way for someone to draw back from faith is to have had faith. We know that many are called but only few are chosen. If you believe in once saved always saved, you have to twist scriptures like the ones above to try force fit doctrine, instead of taking them at face value.
How about if we begin with verse 35.
Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.
For yet in A very little while,
HE who is coming will come, and will not delay.
But MY righteous one shall live by faith;
And if he shrinks back, MY soul has no pleasure in him.
But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.
So those with genuine faith are those who don't shrink back, they continue on and they persevere to the end.
Those who shrink back are those that have the bad soil. They have a faith, but it's not the lasting faith, the genuine faith and it's those who Jesus tells away from me for I don't now you while all the time they're calling Jesus, Lord.
Personally I don't like the OSAS term either. I like to say that we're assured of salvation IF. The if is if we abide, if we love Jesus and obey His commandments.
And it's because my faith is genuine that I will abide and it's because my faith is genuine that I will obey.
I could be wrong, but I think some here really do believe in what you're saying and they agree with what you're saying, and vise versa, but if not, I stand corrected. I just think terminology makes the difference.
And that's one thing I realized myself. I'm totally against "once saved, always saved" because it tells the believer that if they walked down that aisle to receive Jesus, it's a done deal and once your saved, you're always saved.
I can't agree with that, but I do believe that those with genuine faith, will endure, will obey, will abide and because they meet the conditions of a genuine faith, they can be assured that they will enter into the gates of heaven.
Its not an INITIAL faith that saves you to the end. Its a CONTINUING FAITH that saves you to the end. If you draw back at any point (v38 above) then the Lord is not pleased with such a person, and their end is perdition.
That's correct. Again though, it will be those with the bad soil, those with a feigned faith. Those with the good soil will believe to the end because they have a genuine faith. They will be proved genuine in the end, but today, yesterday and tomorrow, God knows those who are His.
But for those who don't endure, they have lost their lives and brought death to themselves because they refused to truly believe on the One who saved them. I could never tell a church full of people that they are all once saved always saved.
I don't know them and I don't know their faith, only God knows that.
But I would warn them all, I would as Paul and Peter did, continue to correct, rebuke, exhort, encourage, etc.
For the one with genuine faith, they will heed the apostles warnings and obey the teachings of scripture and they will continue on in obedience and repentance. Therefore the warnings is not aimed at them directly, but the warning encourages them to continue on in the faith.
For the one who doesn't have the true faith, that warning will be brought on their heads like a ton of bricks and they will know what hit them because their deeds are truly evil.
Here are some more verses which may help:
1 Peter 1v5 (KJV) [SUP]5 [/SUP]Who are kept by the power of God through
faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Romans 13v11 [SUP]11 [/SUP]And
do this, knowing the time, that now
it is high time to awake out of sleep; for
now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.
Hebrews 9v28 [SUP]28 [/SUP]so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a
second time, apart from sin,
for salvation.
Whereas Dan will say they were never really in the faith, my view is that yes, they were in the faith. They just never exercised it. Never Kept it. Never fought for it. So they eventually lose it. These are those who are in the two middle type soils.
Right, and this is why I think both sides might be saying the same thing. Your understanding is that they were in the faith. They sort of were, but they really weren't. They entered into the New Covenant, half-hearted. You posted:
~ They never exercised it.
~ Never kept it.
~ Never fought for it.
~ Eventually lost it.
So does that list sound like a genuine faith? Like a real faith? The genuine faith produces fruit. Those without the genuine faith can't produce fruit. They can't work and they can't obey. They never had the power within them to do so.
They can enter into the covenant by saying yes Jesus is my Lord and Savior. They can enter into fellowship and so all the things that Christians do, but they're tares. They look like, talk like, act like, maybe even sparkle like the genuine, but upon closer scrutiny they're a fake.
They were never baptized into the Spirit. Therefore they are faithless, they are powerless. They were never born from above.
Again, I see that you're saying the same thing........only you're not saying it in the same way. But again, I could be wrong and I could be misunderstanding the two separate sides.