Loss of salvation???
- Thread starter gratefuloneson
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
From God’s eternal perspective (God is omniscient) the entire redemptive process is settled. This tense expresses certainty and finality in God’s purpose. It is as good as done, by the God who sees the end before the beginning.
How do you know that? I know a lot of people say that. I'm just curious why.
Much love!
Because it's rooted in the specific Greek grammatical construction used by Paul, known as the aorist tense, which is often interpreted as proleptic (speaking of a future event as if it has already occurred) to emphasize absolute certainty in God's plan.
Verse 30
Called (εκαλεσεν)
--Justified (εδικαιωσεν)
--Glorified (εδοξασεν). All first aorist active indicatives of common verbs (καλεω, δικαιοω, δοξαζω). But the glorification is stated as already consummated (constative aorists, all of them), though still in the future in the fullest sense. "The step implied in εδοξασεν is both complete and certain in the Divine counsels" (Sanday and Headlam)
Romans 8 - Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament - Bible Commentaries - StudyLight.org
Romans 8, Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament, Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament is a rich resource for understanding Scripture, delving into original language and cultural nuances.
The aorist is most commonly translated in the simple past tense.Because it's rooted in the specific Greek grammatical construction used by Paul, known as the aorist tense, which is often interpreted as proleptic (speaking of a future event as if it has already occurred) to emphasize absolute certainty in God's plan.
Verse 30
Called (εκαλεσεν)
--Justified (εδικαιωσεν)
--Glorified (εδοξασεν). All first aorist active indicatives of common verbs (καλεω, δικαιοω, δοξαζω). But the glorification is stated as already consummated (constative aorists, all of them), though still in the future in the fullest sense. "The step implied in εδοξασεν is both complete and certain in the Divine counsels" (Sanday and Headlam)
Romans 8 - Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament - Bible Commentaries - StudyLight.org
Romans 8, Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament, Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament is a rich resource for understanding Scripture, delving into original language and cultural nuances.studylight.org
I think the reason people think of this as a future fulfillment is that they don't see it as happening already.
"in the fullest sense"? I wonder though that being recreated in God's very own image might qualify as a glorification? Like your commentatory wrote, "the glorifiction is states as already consumated", but then he goes on to say not really.
I'm not so certain myself.
Much love!
No you haven't. You spoke without actually addressing anything with anything other than just saying so. With that being said You say if is not conditional
IF is conditional by definition in the Greek and in the English. Nothing you say here above shows that it is not.
There is a choice being posed in Rom 8:13. THERE is NO WAY around it.
The ye that is told if they live after the flesh, they shall die is the same ye that is counseled, but IF ye live through the Spirit ye shall live. YE is Ye.
Rom 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
No context says different and sadly I think you know it.
All it states in Rom 8:9 is that one is not in the flesh if the Spirit of Christ dwells in them. Not two conditions, one which is determined if the Spirit of Christ dwells in them.
And after that it states that IF Christ's Spirit be in us the Body is dead, but the Spirit is life through, on the account of righteousness and shall quicken our mortal bodies
Then Rom8:12 starts with the word therefore, because of this gift of Christ's Spirit that shall quicken our mortal bodies we are debtors, under obligation not to live after the flesh but after the Spirit of Christ.
For, BECAUSE if ye, who he was speaking to in verse 12 live after the flesh, ye who is speaking to in verse 12 shall die: but if ye who is speaking to in verse 12 through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
The ye that is told if they live after the flesh, they shall die is the same ye that is counseled, but IF ye live through the Spirit ye shall live. YE is Ye.
Rom 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
Rom 8:10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
Rom 8:11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
Rom 8:12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
Rom 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
The problem is that you are treating Romans 8:13 as if it stands alone, when Paul has already established the controlling reality of the entire chapter:
Romans 8:1: There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
That is a legal verdict, not a conditional warning. It is the umbrella under which the rest of the chapter must be read. If your interpretation of verse 13 means a Holy Spirit‑indwelt believer can spiritually die, then Romans 8:1 becomes false and Paul contradicts himself in the same paragraph. That cannot be the case.
Paul defines the two identities before he gives the IF-clauses. In verses 8-11, Paul already distinguishes:
Those in the flesh: cannot please God, do not have the Holy Spirit, are "not of His."
Those in the Spirit: the Holy Spirit dwells in them, Christ is in them, they have life, they will be raised.
These are identity categories, not conditions believers must maintain.
Therefore, the IF‑clauses in verse 13 are not a conditional, salvation maintenance program for believers but a confirmation of realm-diagnostic.
Paul is not saying: If a believer slips into fleshly living, he loses salvation.
He is saying: If someone's life is characterized by the flesh, that reveals he is in the flesh. If someone mortifies sin by the Spirit, that reveals he is in the Spirit.
Behavior reveals identity - it does not create it. You are reversing Paul's logic by making behavior determine identity, when Paul makes identity determine behavior.
The "ye" argument doesn't work.
Paul regularly addresses mixed congregations as "brethren" and "you," while still warning about: false brethren (2 Corinthians 11:26 & Galatians 2:4), unbelievers among the group (Hebrews 3:12-13 and 4:1-3), apostates who "crept in unnoticed" (Jude 4), Judas, who walked with the disciples but was never clean (John 6:64-71). Warnings exist because visible communities are mixed.
Romans 8:30 seals the argument. Whom He justified, them He also glorified. Paul speaks of glorification in the past tense because it is guaranteed.
Your reading of verse 13 would require: justified = maybe glorified - justified = possibly condemned. That destroys Paul's entire argument.
Romans 8:1 is the controlling declaration. You don't interpret the verdict through the warning. You interpret the warning through the verdict.
No condemnation means NO condemnation - not conditional, not probationary, not reversible.
Walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit is confirmatory evidence of salvation rather than a condition to obtain it. The verse confirms no condemnation for those in Christ, with the walk being the practical outcome of having the Spirit, rather than a performance-based condition to merit safety from condemnation.
If Romans 8:13 meant a Holy Spirit‑indwelt believer could spiritually die, then Romans 8:1 would be false (as would Ephesians 1:13-14, 4:30, 2 Corinthians 1:22, 5:5, Ephesians 2:1-5, Colossians 2:13, 1 Peter 3:18) and Paul would contradict himself in the same breath, which means your interpretation cannot be correct.
That is what no argument says in respect to Jesus commissioning the Church after His resurrection to go into ALL the WORLD Teaching ALL things whatsoever He commanded and BAPTIZING in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Additionally, after Israel's fall, we see this written about the witness of the Church, which was FIRST and ONLY populated with with Jews:
Acts 11:19
Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.
So, we can talk long and hard about what was commanded, but the reality is that they preached to Jews only because Paul and his fellow workers were the ones tasked with preaching unto Gentiles.
MM
There is neither Jew nor gentile. One Gospel. We are all one in Christ Teaching and baptizing All nations whatsoever I commanded you. Lo I am with you even unto the END of the world
Matthew 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Matthew 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
That's an illegitimate interpretation.
IN CHRIST, there are no distinctions in the offer of the Gospel for salvation and IN CHRIST as the body of Christ there are no distinctions today going all the way back to the fall of Israel, but it took the fall of Israel for salvation to come unto the Gentiles. That's scripture, so one can either accept or reject it by way of warped and foreign hermeneutics so much adopted by the anti-Semitic, replacement theology hounds of modern, Western Christianity.
MM
Folks, we should accept what scripture says to us:
Romans 11:11
I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
Who is THEM? It was and is Israel. What truth is this verse based upon?
Ephsians 2:12
That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
To whom was Paul writing? GENTILES, not Israel. Remember that "middle wall of partition." That wall wasn't a tangible wall separating the dry desert from the thriving city life within. It was a wall of separation between Jew and Gentiles. Why? Paul stated why in the above quote from Ephesians.
That is so profound, and yet so ignored by so many Evangelicals and independents alike who demonstrate their hatred for the word of God by trying to force Gentile inclusion in salvation all the way back into the days when Jesus walked this earth in the flesh, also ignoring Christ having referred to Gentiles as dogs before the fall of Israel after His ascension.
One individual tried to claim that the Canaanite woman alone was called a dog because her people were idol worshippers. Question: What Gentiles were NOT idol worshippers in those days, or at least hailed from a Gentile culture of idol worshippers? Come on! Really? Why so many want to ignore and deny the truths of what scripture declares to us is astounding. Instead, they prefer "another gospel" preached by those who are accursed!
If one loves the scriptures, then one should accept what scripture says without bringing up unrelated verses in the practice of trying to pit the word of God against itself.
MM
Romans 11:11
I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
Who is THEM? It was and is Israel. What truth is this verse based upon?
Ephsians 2:12
That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
To whom was Paul writing? GENTILES, not Israel. Remember that "middle wall of partition." That wall wasn't a tangible wall separating the dry desert from the thriving city life within. It was a wall of separation between Jew and Gentiles. Why? Paul stated why in the above quote from Ephesians.
That is so profound, and yet so ignored by so many Evangelicals and independents alike who demonstrate their hatred for the word of God by trying to force Gentile inclusion in salvation all the way back into the days when Jesus walked this earth in the flesh, also ignoring Christ having referred to Gentiles as dogs before the fall of Israel after His ascension.
One individual tried to claim that the Canaanite woman alone was called a dog because her people were idol worshippers. Question: What Gentiles were NOT idol worshippers in those days, or at least hailed from a Gentile culture of idol worshippers? Come on! Really? Why so many want to ignore and deny the truths of what scripture declares to us is astounding. Instead, they prefer "another gospel" preached by those who are accursed!
If one loves the scriptures, then one should accept what scripture says without bringing up unrelated verses in the practice of trying to pit the word of God against itself.
MM
Technically, Jesus was speaking to those who would soon become his apostles.
Yes. That's true. That instruction, allegedly still relevant for us today, that most of Western Christianity points at as the "Great Commission," to all who follow Christ in faith, allegedly aimed also at Gentiles, is purely manmade and a denial of the middle wall of separation that existed at the time Jesus uttered those words. Westerners also tend to ignore the invalidity of that gospel for that dispensation that is no longer aimed at Israel today as it was then. The fall of Israel brought about a number of changes that Gentiles today ignore entirely. That most don't ever question this is itself a bold-faced denial of the very book they claim to love and embrace.
Additionally, when bandwagoneers claim, with such broad brush strokes, that statement of there allegedly being "no Jew nor Gentile," irrespective of context and its timeline, and at that level of indifference to biblical continuity and meaning, the continuance of that laziness is astoundingly indicative of just how irrelevant the scriptures are in what they actually say to us ALL today around the world. Here in the West, we seem to have our own form of Christianity that's amazingly indifferent to the texts of scripture at the expense of having developed a cultic religion that embraces a gospel that can no longer save anyone when considering the taint of works that's sprinkled throughout.
Rather than works being the outflow of genuine salvation, many here make works the basis FOR salvation, which is "another gospel," totally ignoring Paul's instruction to work OUTWARDLY one's salvation already bestowed. Instead, they twist the meaning of his words into their love for a works-based salvation that can save not even one soul today.
MM
If you don't mind, I would also like to add something to what you said. The Mt. Sinai covenant can't be kept by an individual. This might sound strange to our ears, but a review of the text will bear me out. The Mt. Sinai covenant was a covenant that God made with the nation of Israel: therefore, anyone wishing to keep it will cooperate as a nation. Only a nation can keep it.
Contextually, that's true. We of Israel who are part of the body of Christ know this. You're right. We as a nation are with whom the covenant was made, not Gentiles nor any of their nations. Only Israel was addressed by the Lord concerning the Law. We alone answered that we would keep ALL His Law...which we did nothing of the sort. Our rebellion came within a very short time of our acceptance of the Law, therefore our having earned the label of being a stiff-necked people.
So, the Hebrew Roots movement and all the other legalistic movements allegedly adhering the Law, they're all lacking in so many ways, and are so pathetic in our eyes who are absolutely seeking Christ and Him alone for salvation and reward treasures stored in Heaven. Works of Law are not going to earn them even reward. Good works as defined by our brother Paul of Tarsus, those are worthy and are the items that clearly build up for us treasures in Heavenly places where we of the body of Christ will dwell together, not on the New Earth nor the New Jerusalem.
Amen
MM
For the works-based salvationists out there, does this mean anything to you?
Romans 4:5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
Ah, but to many, scripture is always subject to interpretation according to those whose basis of comparison is what their "church" taught them or their favorite anti-Bible teacher taught them. Is that really a legitimate basis for interpretation? How does one interpret the above verse into saying OTHER than what it clearly states? Well, unfortunately, there are many corrupt, manipulative gyrations many perpetrate in order to get out from under the cultic falsehoods they follow after with unflinching dedication.
MM
Romans 4:5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
Ah, but to many, scripture is always subject to interpretation according to those whose basis of comparison is what their "church" taught them or their favorite anti-Bible teacher taught them. Is that really a legitimate basis for interpretation? How does one interpret the above verse into saying OTHER than what it clearly states? Well, unfortunately, there are many corrupt, manipulative gyrations many perpetrate in order to get out from under the cultic falsehoods they follow after with unflinching dedication.
MM
The struggle continues...
With works-based salvationists never defining that line over which one can allegedly step and thus allegedly lose his salvation, how much it takes to earn it, nor how much works it takes to retain one's salvation, the silence is deafening
We watch that crowd spewing all manner of accusations, such as grace being nothing more than an excuse to continuance in sin, and that the grace defenders allegedly teach precisely that.
On and on the circus goes, week after week, month after month, with no meaningful discussion on a reasonable enough level for all to understand the works-based gang's position. The moving target antics are just that...tactics aimed at keep at bay any potential for them being pinned down to any one concept that is easily negated within scripture, almost as if they know their position is indefensible, but they hold to it nonetheless.
Looks like the lack of substance will continue ad finitum.
MM
With works-based salvationists never defining that line over which one can allegedly step and thus allegedly lose his salvation, how much it takes to earn it, nor how much works it takes to retain one's salvation, the silence is deafening
We watch that crowd spewing all manner of accusations, such as grace being nothing more than an excuse to continuance in sin, and that the grace defenders allegedly teach precisely that.
On and on the circus goes, week after week, month after month, with no meaningful discussion on a reasonable enough level for all to understand the works-based gang's position. The moving target antics are just that...tactics aimed at keep at bay any potential for them being pinned down to any one concept that is easily negated within scripture, almost as if they know their position is indefensible, but they hold to it nonetheless.
Looks like the lack of substance will continue ad finitum.
MM