Loss of salvation???

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Your latest reply continues the personal evaluations while still providing no textual or grammatical support for your claim. I'm not responding to demands for my credentials - personal qualifications don't determine what the text says & neither do yours. I've stayed with Heb 3 & with the very grammars you cited.

I hope this satisfies your curiosity: ""epexegetical"" is a standard grammatical category. It means explanatory - an infinitive that clarifies, specifies, or gives the content of the noun it follows. Grammars do not define an epexegetical infinitive as an identity statement. They define it as explanatory. Again, explanation is not equivalence & clarification is not redefinition.

Returning to the text again: Heb 3 distinguishes unbelief (3:12 & 3:19) from the rebellion, provocation, sin & disobedience that flow from it (3:15–18). The inspired author keeps the categories distinct. Your interpretation does not.

Your latest reply continues the personal evaluations while still avoiding the text itself. Since the conversation keeps drifting into ad hominem assessments of me rather than Hebrews 3, I'm stepping back from this exchange. I'll probably still address your errors - both narrow & wide.
Now that you’ve earlier acknowledged that the references I cited were showing the infinitive phrase to be epexegetical, and you’ve now defined an epexegetical infinitive as one that is “explanatory — clarifies, specifies, or gives the content of the noun it follows,” the phrase in Heb 3:12 is understood in those same terms:
  • Unbelief explained as departing from the living God
  • Unbelief clarified as departing from the living God
  • Unbelief specified as departing from the living God
  • Unbelief having as its content departing from the living God
All four of your own terms point to the same conclusion: the infinitive phrase functions adjectivally, giving the author’s intended sense of “unbelief” in that sentence. It's saying precisely what I and the references I cited have said. It's not describing a later action, result, or root‑fruit sequence, which would have been stated in entirely different language.

Thus we can say disobedience–unbelief or obedience–belief, with the hyphen indicating the Hebrews author’s own parallel usage and not lexical definition as you keep asserting I’m saying, but simply showing that the two terms belong together as one unified concept. The hyphen doesn’t mean the words are identical. It just shows they function together and should be read as a single, connected idea rather than as separate or sequential categories.

Faith-Obedience, just as is conveyed in several other areas of Scripture.
 
RE: More Faith-Obedience – Obedience emphasized Post #10969

The entire interpretation begins with a false premise - ""We've just been instructed in no uncertain terms what biblical faith is: It's Faith‑Obedience"".
This misstates the entire post which did not use what you quote as a premise, but as a conclusion after drawing it from the content of the verses.

Par for the course in our discussions.
 
The theological identity you're asserting isn't in any of your sources, it's GARBAGE you imported & then retro‑justified with linguistic footnotes.

Hebrews 3 text itself keeps the categories distinct: the root is unbelief (3:12 & 3:19) & the rebellion, provocation, sin & disobedience in Vs. 15–18 are its expressions. The inspired author gives the theological category, the grammars simply describe the syntax. Using grammars to override the author's own summary is not exegesis, it's category collapse GARBAGE.
My friend you are saying so without showing so.

In respect to the Greek word translated depart in the KJV. One can't depart unless one is in a place to depart from.

From Danker and Bauer:
... to distance oneself from some pers. or thing (mid. forms, and 2 aor., pf., and plupf. act.) intrans.
go away, withdraw τινός (Hdt. 3, 15; Epict. 2, 13, 26; 4, 5, 28; BGU 159, 4; Sir 38:12; En 14:23; Jos., Ant. 1, 14; Just., D. 106, 1) Lk 2:37. ἀπό τινος (PGM 4, 1244; Sir 23:11f; Jdth 13:19; 1 Macc 6:10, 36; Just., D. 6, 2) Lk 1:38 D; 13:27 (Ps 6:9); 24:51 D; Ac 12:10; 19:9; Hs 9, 15, 6. ἐκ τοῦ τόπου Hm 5, 1, 3. Abs. (Aesop, Fab. 194 H.=86 P.=H-H. 88; cp. Ch. 158; Just., A I, 50, 12) s 8, 8, 2. Desert ἀπό τινος someone (as Appian, Iber. 34 §137; cp. Jer 6:8) Ac 15:38; GJs 2:3.—Fall away (Hdt. et al.), become a backslider abs. (Appian, Iber. 38 §156 ἀφίστατο=he revolted; Jer 3:14; Da 9:9 Theod.; 1 Macc 11:43; En 5:4) Lk 8:13. ἀπό τινος (X., Cyr. 5, 4, 1; Polyb. 1, 16, 3; oft. LXX, mostly of falling away fr. God) Hb 3:12;..

One can't depart from, fall away from unless one is a place to depart, fall away from.

As Cambridge Greek alludes to with it's use of the word apostasy:
ἐν τῷ ἀποστῆναι ἀπό, “in the apostatising from.” In that one word—Apostasy—the moral peril of his Hebrew readers was evidently summed up. To apostatise after believing is more dangerous than not to have believed at all.

Which William Robertson Nicol confirms in his work:
...What they are to be on their guard against is the emergence of καρδία πονηρὰ ἀπιστίας ἐν … ζῶντος, a wicked heart of unbelief manifesting itself in departing from Him who is a living God. ἀπιστίας is the genitive of quality = a bad, unbelieving heart; whether the wickedness proceeds from the unbelief, or the unbelief from the wickedness, is not determined. Although, from the next verse it might be gathered that unbelief is considered the result of allowed sin: i.e., it is when the heart is hardened through sin, it becomes unbelieving, so that the psychological order might be stated thus: sin, a deceived mind, a hardened heart, unbelief, apostasy. The main idea in the writer’s mind is that unbelief in God’s renewed offer of salvation is accompanied by and means apostasy from the living God. In the O.T. Jehovah is called “the living God” in contrast to lifeless impotent idols, and the designation is suggestive of His power to observe, visit, judge and succour His people. In this Epistle it occurs, Heb 9:14, Heb 10:31, Heb 12:22. To object that the apostasy of Jews from Christianity could not be called “apostacy from God” is to mistake. The very point the writer wishes to make is just this: Remember that to apostatize from Christ in whom you have found God, is to apostatize from God.

One can not apostatize, depart from God, fall away from unless one is with God in the first place

Which A. T. Robertson confirms in his work:
In falling away from the living God (εν τω αποστηνα απο θεου ζωντος). "In the falling away" (locative case with εν of the second aorist active (intransitive) infinitive of αφιστημ, to stand off from, to step aside from (απο with the ablative case θεου) the living God...

One can't be removed unless one is in a placed to be removed from.

And if it is that one can't be removed or placed because of predestination, what is the point in beseeching them that they be not hardened through the deceitfulness of sin?

Obviously, there is a choice.

Heb 3:12 See, brethren, lest there shall be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in removing away from the living God.

Heb 3:13 But beseech one another according to each day, as far as the day is called; lest any of you be hardened by deceit of sin.

Typical, throw out a cluster of Greek terms & then smuggle in a ""grace through obedience"" conclusion that none of the grammars actually support. In Post #10,602 you described your method as shrinking the battlefield, isolating the hidden flaw, tracing upstream corruption & identifying the one point where GARBAGE enters the system so everything downstream becomes GARBAGE OUT. That's a very specific rhetorical posture: you cast yourself as the diagnostician, the root‑cause analyst, the one who sees what others miss & the one who decides what counts as valid data & what counts as GARBAGE.

The problem is that this posture is now being used to override the very grammars you cite. You didn't follow Votaw, Robertson, BDF, or Moulton‑Turner, YOU ""overrode them"". All 4 classify the infinitive in Heb 3:12 as epexegetically, meaning it explains unbelief. None of them say unbelief is disobedience or that faith is obedience. Grammars describe syntax, not doctrine.
The context states it. Can I show you or do you want to show me it doesn't?
 
Yes, good = godly = loving (Rom. 5:5, Gal. 5:6, Eph. 2:10).
Little children be not deceived, he that does righteousness is righteous even as He was righteous.

Even as is a direct comparison.

So how was Jesus righteous?

By being righteous through God.

As Jesus said in John 14:10. " He doeth the work"

Which Christ confirms in Paul in Phil 2:12 and 13 " Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that works in you both to will and do His good pleasure"
 
I just do not think individual "word study" is the first "go to" for understanding a text.

Context (in its fullest sense) is always the correct approach to exegeting a text.
One has to understand the words to understand the context.
 
This misstates the entire post which did not use what you quote as a premise, but as a conclusion after drawing it from the content of the verses.

Par for the course in our discussions.
You can call it a conclusion instead of a premise, but that doesn]'’t change the issue: your statement ""We've just been instructed in no uncertain terms what biblical faith is: it's faith‑obedience"" is not drawn from the text of Luke 17.

The passage never defines faith as obedience, never equates the 2 & never presents ""faith‑obedience"" as a category. Whether you place that claim at the beginning or the end of your post, it remains an imported idea that the text itself does not state.

The narrative structure actually distinguishes the categories-Jesus gives commands (obedience), the apostles respond by asking for faith (trust), Jesus answers with a faith analogy & then He follows with a parable showing that obedience is simply a servant's duty. If faith & obedience were the same thing, that contrast collapses. So the problem isn't where you positioned your statement. The problem is that Luke 17 doesn't teach the conclusion you're asserting.
 
One has to understand the words to understand the context.

Let me restate.... when a text/word is isolated from its context, the truth can be distorted and it can be made to say almost anything we want it to say.
 
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He follows with a parable showing that obedience is simply a servant's duty.
The elephant in the room seems to always turn out to be the size of a mustard seed. God declares us sons, and we confine ourselves to the servant's quarters. What is that? I can't quite define it. It strikes me like some contrived humility or something, maybe even unbelief. :unsure:
 
The reason why people cannot see it.
*2 Corinthians 4:3,4.*
And there we have it - disagree with the error in Faith-Alone and we're not saved.

Let's get a grasp on this; if we read God's Word to inform us that believing in Jesus Christ means to also be obeying Him and doing God's will under His Grace in Christ in Spirit for the rest of our days here and to not withdraw/revolt/apostatize from Him, then we are said to be working for our salvation and thus we are not saved.

Theologies...
 
You can call it a conclusion instead of a premise,
Yes, I called it what it was instead of repositioning and misrepresenting it as you did.

And, as usual, just denials with no actual work to even try to prove what you say.

Why don't you take us through verse by verse and explain how you see it at each step and why?

BTW, here's the entire conclusion:

We’ve just been instructed in no uncertain terms what biblical faith is:
  • It’s Faith-Obedience
  • It’s not faith-alone
  • Apart from obedience it’s not the biblical kind of faith
  • God responds to Faith-Obedience
  • In one sense our mindset must be that we are worthless slaves doing what we are obligated to do no matter how tired, how weak, etc...
  • We are to habitually speak from a proper mindset based in faith-obedience
  • Jesus Christ commands and orders – we obey in faith
  • God responds in ways we likely cannot imagine.
 

It is not possible because you have "self" in the way, just like @Toknow.

Until you choose to lay that down, there is no amount of verses or exegeting which will make a difference against that wall.

But rest assured you and @Toknow and all others who preach against the Good News, but rather supplant it with "self" disguised as faith and obedience,

cannot walk in the Law of Liberty,
cannot walk in Godly Joy,
cannot walk in Freedom

which is received via the completed work of Christ Jesus.

Instead you have chosen the Path of Burden, which feeds upon "self."
Ironic, don't ya think.
 
It is not possible because you have "self" in the way, just like @Toknow.

Until you choose to lay that down, there is no amount of verses or exegeting which will make a difference against that wall.

But rest assured you and @Toknow and all others who preach against the Good News, but rather supplant it with "self" disguised as faith and obedience,

cannot walk in the Law of Liberty,
cannot walk in Godly Joy,
cannot walk in Freedom

which is received via the completed work of Christ Jesus.

Instead you have chosen the Path of Burden, which feeds upon "self."
Ironic, don't ya think.
That "wall" is built by an errant theological system rooted in Reformed monergism.

Any time you or any of your friends would like to actually go through Scripture, including the Gospel - which BTW is actually the entire NC a.k.a. The Faith of/from Jesus Christ - or any focused part of it, verse by verse, I'm more than happy to take part in the discussion.

The very clear problem in these discussions is that those like yourself really only know your system and do not know God's Word.
 
That "wall" is built by an errant theological system rooted in Reformed monergism.

Any time you or any of your friends would like to actually go through Scripture, including the Gospel - which BTW is actually the entire NC a.k.a. The Faith of/from Jesus Christ - or any focused part of it, verse by verse, I'm more than happy to take part in the discussion.

The very clear problem in these discussions is that those like yourself really only know your system and do not know God's Word.

Justified.
 
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You can call it a conclusion instead of a premise, but that doesn]'’t change the issue: your statement ""We've just been instructed in no uncertain terms what biblical faith is: it's faith‑obedience"" is not drawn from the text of Luke 17.

The passage never defines faith as obedience, never equates the 2 & never presents ""faith‑obedience"" as a category. Whether you place that claim at the beginning or the end of your post, it remains an imported idea that the text itself does not state.

The narrative structure actually distinguishes the categories-Jesus gives commands (obedience), the apostles respond by asking for faith (trust), Jesus answers with a faith analogy & then He follows with a parable showing that obedience is simply a servant's duty. If faith & obedience were the same thing, that contrast collapses. So the problem isn't where you positioned your statement. The problem is that Luke 17 doesn't teach the conclusion you're asserting.
Yes, restating the assertion as a conclusion. Romans for completely refutes that notion that faith and obedience are the same thing. They are clearly not.

Good post!

Much love!