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Disclaimer
All reader e-mails are here by permission only. I will not use last names or e-mail addresses.
7/14/00
Rebecca
I like your salvation web site. It is very helpful. I have been a Christian for 9 years and I am now married to a Christian. Praise God!! Anyway, some churches believe... "Once Saved, always saved" and some believe that you can loose your salvation or "the second work of grace". I have researched the bible and there are different scriptures that I think could be interpreted one way or the other. In my heart, I know you can not work your way to Heaven. But, are you still a sinner when you become a Christian? Or are we sinners saved by Grace, but we can still sin? I know that I still struggle with sin now and again (may be big or small in world's eyes but still the same to God). Everyday I am asking God to forgive me, refine me and open my eyes to areas that need to be improved. If you are a Christian should you still have to ask for forgiveness all the time? Or should we live knowing that we are forgiven and just keep trying to live the Christian life? I really could appreciate your help. If this is not something you can provide, I understand.
Thanks
REPLY
Dear Rebecca:
The question of whether a person can lose their salvation or not is very important. It not only affects your walk with the Lord, but it even affects a person's relationship with the Lord. One of the questions I generally pose to those who have argued that you can lose your salvation is how. Is there a particular sin that causes that loss, or do you need to commit the same sin over and over again? I hear repeated sins mean you will lose your salvation argument frequently. Again I ask, how many times can you commit the same sin before you lose your salvation??? There is no answer to these questions because there is no need to address them in scriptures. Why, because you can't lose your salvation.
What happens if you die while sinning? Possibly you have repented of every other sin and have asked for forgiveness daily. You don't have the opportunity to repent of the current sin, so do you lose your salvation?
Those who fall into the belief system that says you can lose your salvation will use scriptures such as the following:
Heb 6:4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
On it's own, these verses can seem to point to the idea that salvation can be lost. Yet, we must remember to take the whole counsel of God into consideration to make sense of any verse. Jesus tells us that if the Father has given Him someone, they can't be lost. I believe these verses tell us how to discern if a person ever really was a Christian to begin with.
1. He shows how far people may go in religion, and, after all, fall away, and perish for ever, v. 4, 5. (1.) They may be enlightened. Some of the ancients understand this as their being baptized; but it is should be understood as knowledge and common understanding, which a person may have a great deal, and yet come short of heaven. Balaam was the man whose eyes were opened (Num. 24:3), and yet with his eyes opened he went down to utter darkness. (2.) They may taste of the heavenly gift, feel something of the value of the Holy Spirit in His operations upon their souls, causing them to taste something of religion, and yet be like a person in the grocery store, who taste the sample items and while they like what they have tasted, they are not willing to pay the price of the item, and so they take a taste, and leave it. People may taste religion, and seem to like it, if they could have it on easier terms than denying themselves, and taking up their cross, and following Christ. (3.) They may share in the gifts of the Holy Spirit (some will argue this point, however, before we accept Christ, the Holy Spirit enters us and reveals Christ to us, if we accept, He stays with us taking up residence, if we deny Christ, He will leave us to our judgment); they may have cast out devils in the name of Christ, and done many other mighty works. Such gifts in the apostolic age were sometimes granted to those who had no true saving grace. (4.) They may taste of the good word of God; they may appreciate some of gospel doctrines, they may hear the word with pleasure, and even remember much of it, and talk well of it, and yet never accept Jesus into their heart as Lord and Master or have the word dwelling richly in them. (5.) They may have tasted of the powers of the world to come; they may have been under strong impressions concerning heaven, and dread of going to hell. These are some of the lengths hypocrites may go, and still turn apostates. Now observe, [1.] These things are spoken of those who may fall away; yet in these versus it is not said that they were truly converted, or that they were justified; there is more in true saving grace than what is said here about apostates. [2.] This therefore is no proof of the final apostasy of true saints. These may fall into eternal damnation, but they were never truly saved by God by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The tree that has not roots will not stand.
2. The apostle describes the dreadful case of those who fall away after having gone so far in the profession of the religion. (1.) The greatness of the sin of apostasy. It is crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting him to open shame. They declare that they approve of what the people did in crucifying Christ, and that they would be glad to do the same thing again if it were in their power. They pour the greatest contempt upon the Son of God, and therefore upon God himself, who expects all should show reverence to His Son, and honor Him as they honor the Father. After all of the knowledge they have, the do again what the people did when Jesus walked the earth, they deny Him. This denial is what lead to the the Crucifixion and the shame that Jesus had to endure. This is the nature of apostasy.
Well, that was a very interesting study for me, I hope you as well. I will be briefer with you other questions in the interest of your eyesight!
Are you still a sinner once you become a Christian? We are no longer bound by our sin nature, but we are obviously still capable of sin. We will not reach perfection until we are transformed completely until we are caught up (either through death or rapture) to be with Jesus. Paul tells us of his struggles doing that which he does not want to do and what he want to do, that he doesn't do. (Romans 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.)
But, as Christians, we should find that we sin less and less frequently and that we will be filled with shame and guilt because of our sin. That is the Holy Spirit calling us to repentance.
There are those who claim that to believe that salvation is given to us by the grace of God is to be telling people that they have free reign to sin. That is not what scripture teaches us. If we sin and do not seek forgiveness or repent from that sin, we will not lose our salvation, however, sin causes a separation from God. How can we grow in Christ if we build up this wall between us and God.
King David certainly sinned when he slept with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed. David did not lose his salvation, but he did need to go before God and repent. He did suffer consequences here on earth, but his heavenly reward was not affected because he repented and his sin was wiped clean.
We continually strive to run the good race. Sometimes we fall behind, but we must simply keep looking and moving forward. We are to put behind us those childish things, or things of the past and keep moving towards the future. So if we sin, we must repent, and yes, ask for God's forgiveness, and then stop looking back on our failures and just look ahead towards our goal of being pure before God and standing righteous before Him with Jesus by our side.
I hope this helps. God bless you and your husband (family).
RESPONSE
In response to what you wrote, here are some additional insights that I have been given. When you truly become a Christian, you are given the holy spirit to dwell in you. The holy spirit discerns right or wrong for us. Sin is a known trangression against God. We may have thoughts to do sin, but it is the conscious decision whether or not that we act upon it that makes it sin or not. Some people believe that we are called to live above sin (not that we are perfect- we are only perfect when we are made "complete"), but with the holy spirit as our guide, we are able to know when we are sinning. I pose the question to people what about when you say something rude, because we all know that the tongue is hard to tame. Then this lady from my church said that our tongues can be tamed by the Lord, but never to perfection. It is when we intentionally (willfully) calculate to slander, put down, and gossip about people that it is wrong. If after the fact of saying something, you think .. boy I shouldn't have said that. Well that is when you would be reconciled with God, but that wouldn't be sin. It would only be sin if once God revealed that saying something wasn't right, we didn't repent.
I have decided for now to stop debating "doctrine" with people and only study the bible further and I know with that goal in mind, I will be growing closer to the Lord.
Thanks again for your encouragment and scripture. I really appreciate it.
In Him,
Becky
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