Can we lose Salvation?

[Strefanash]

(05-13-2009 03:01 PM)sheep wrecked Wrote:  I am curious what your thoughts are on the John 15 passage that I quoted.

I agree with you, sheepwrecked, it seems.

Why would he tell christians to abide in Him if by mere virtue of being born again we already did? I hold that abiding in christ is not the same as merely being a born again believer. If we do not abide eventually we backslide beyond his reach when in our sin we are so hardened that we refuse to hear his spirit prompting us. And if christians only ever heard and obeyed His voice why bother with the exhortation "today if you hear not His voice harden not your heart" to those who retort that this is the epistle to the Hebrews I wil cite Paul to others: "quench not the Spirit".

John chap 15 is here a clear reminder of the peril of falling away. We might hold to sound doctrine and be in good standing withour church, we may efven be missionaries, but if we have ceased our relationship with teh living Person who is Jesus Christ we have fallen away and if this fallenness away is so advanced that the person cannot and will not hear the Holy Spirit then he is lost to perdition for he has blasphemed the Spirit.

The remedy is not frantic legalism but abiding with him, ie staying with him, and this in personal relationship.

If we hood false defionitions of what christians are and what christians do we come to the ludicrous position that in his letters St Paul only every praiuseed the christians in the church he was writing to and all his criticisms were to the non christians in these churches, so the man having sex with his step mother was not a christian, nor those wjo got drunk in communion, etc etc etc.

This is clearly ridiculous.

Another passage: If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh you will live.

and if we dont? clearly we will die. this is not a legalistic burden, it is to stay with him and continue in the relationship whereby His Holy Spirit leads us to repentance as a free gift. it is a synonym for John 15.

To say that denying once saved always saved is to turn salvation into works is to totally misunderstand salvation and grace. THus it is a straw man. Grace is a process whereby God as a process over years acts in our lives. If we stop this process and refuse his divine persuasion whereby his goodness leads us to repentance we will fall finally to loss and be condemned and damned