Loss of salvation???
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omc I have already been over all this before, maybe you need to read my thread here: https://christianchat.com/threads/reconciled-to-god-while-enemies.223474/ Therein I have labored abundantly on this subject.
The problem is not that I fail to understand your grammar argument.
The problem is that you repeatedly confuse what the grammar allows with what the grammar requires.
Take Jude 1:1.
Yes, τετηρημένοις (tetērēmenois, "kept/preserved") is a perfect passive participle.
Yes, perfect participles ordinarily describe a completed action with a present state resulting from that action.
But the perfect participle itself does not tell you when that preserving action began.
It describes the present condition of Jude's readers as those who stand in a state of being preserved.
To get from "they are preserved" to: "they were eternally preserved in a Legal Phase before they were ever called"
requires a theological inference beyond what the participle itself proves.
Likewise, the aorist participle κλητοῖς ("called") does not necessarily function as the final event in a chronological ordo salutis.
Greek participles often describe believers from multiple perspectives without establishing a strict temporal sequence.
So your argument proves preservation.
It does not prove your five-phase timeline.
Hebrews 3:14 presents a similar issue. μέτοχοι γὰρ τοῦ Χριστοῦ γεγόναμεν
("For we have become partakers of Christ...")
Yes, γεγόναμεν is a perfect indicative.
Yes, it points to a completed reality with continuing results.
What you keep assuming is that the conditional clause: ἐάνπερ... κατάσχωμεν
("if indeed we hold fast...") can only function evidentially.
But that's precisely what has to be demonstrated.
The grammar itself does not contain a label saying: "This condition merely reveals a prior reality."
The condition remains a real condition in the text.
Your interpretation may ultimately be right.
My point is that the perfect tense alone does not settle the theological question.
John 15 is even more problematic for your case.
You insist that the fruitless branch lacks the "and I in him" reality of verse 5.
But notice what you've done.
Jesus explicitly says: "Every branch in me..."
You then redefine "in me" in verse 2 by importing verse 5.
That may be a reasonable synthesis.
But it is still a synthesis.
The distinction between external union and internal union is not explicitly stated in verse 2 itself.
The text says "in me."
The question is what Jesus means by that phrase.
That is exactly the point under debate.
The same problem appears in 2 Peter 2.
The dog and sow imagery strongly supports your argument about unchanged nature.
I grant that.
But Peter also says they: "escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
You emphasize the sow imagery.
Others emphasize the escape language.
The grammatical debate is not nearly as one-sided as you claim.
Most importantly, your repeated appeal to "contradiction" is overstated.
No informed opponent of perseverance says: "Jesus' sheep perish."
The dispute is over whether the people described in the warning passages belong to the category Jesus defines as His sheep.
That is not a contradiction.
That is an interpretive disagreement.
So I continue to maintain the same point:
Your reading is sophisticated.
Your reading is possible.
Your reading may even be correct.
But the Greek grammar does not perform the "checkmate" you keep claiming.
The grammar narrows the options.
It does not eliminate every alternative reading with the level of certainty you are asserting.
The theological conclusions still require argument beyond the verbal forms themselves.
I am not denying that 2 Corinthians 5:19 is important.
I am questioning whether you're drawing from it what Paul intended.
You emphasize: "not imputing their trespasses unto them."
But Paul immediately follows with: "be ye reconciled to God" (v.20).
That creates a problem for your interpretation.
If every elect person is already reconciled, already non-imputed, and already under saving favor while in unbelief, why does Paul plead with people to be reconciled?
The text seems to distinguish between the accomplishment of reconciliation in Christ and the reception of that reconciliation by those who believe.
I agree that God purposed Paul's salvation before Damascus.
I do not agree that Saul was already enjoying all the benefits of reconciliation while he was persecuting Christ's church.
The New Testament consistently speaks of a real transition: "being justified by faith, we have peace with God" (Rom. 5:1).
So I think you're correct to stress the objective work of Christ, but you're collapsing that together with conversion, justification, and the believer's experience of reconciliation.
Paul keeps those distinctions intact.
No, I didn't just "blow it off." I addressed the conclusion you're drawing from it.
I agree that καταλλάσσω (katallassō) means reconciliation, restoration to favor, or the removal of enmity.
The question is not the definition of the word.
The question is who Paul is describing and in what sense reconciliation is being spoken of.
Thats correct, preserved is in the perfect tense, and all teachings should be affirmed with a biblical based synthesis with other scripture, thats the Divine order for the man of God 2 Tim 3:16-17
16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
To compare Spiritual with Spiritual 1 Cor 2:13
13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.