"Once Saved, Always Saved" Revisited (Part 2)

The following are our comments on Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1G5nejWEd8&lc=Ugxu8qzgOX6gCxfcWYF4AaABAg.9HQAAeD3xCe9HR1H0AS-Aj

Paul gave verses that he thought supported OSAS.

First Response:

Romans 8:1 is not quoted completely, a major issue with folks who use only word study without context. There is no condemnation ONLY FOR THOSE who walk in the Spirit. A believer has free will to walk in the Spirit or in the flesh. He can always choose. Romans 11:29, the gifts of God are irrevocable like salvation. It will ALWAYS be a divine offer that is open to all. His calling is irrevocable. A Calling is simply an invitation, nothing more, nothing less. Man has free will to accept it or not. Paul is simply saying that God continues to invite anyway despite man rejecting it. This has no relation to OSAS unless you do it by inference. Like I said, inferential interpretations WILL ALWAYS have alternative interpretations that might even be the opposite of how one understands it. We stand ONLY on the DECLARED word of God. John 6:40 in the original Greek is Present Participle Active. In fact, almost all of the verbs on "believe" and "hear" in the gospel of John are PPA which means they are progressive and continuous. The accurate language translations should really be "keep on hearing" and "keep on believing". Even John 3:16 is PPA, keep on believing. It is not something that is done once and for all time. That is false teaching based on the original language. John 5:24, exactly the same PPA, "keep on believing". John 10:28, Christ gives eternal life. This is no different from Romans 11:29. The problem with OSAS is it implicitly assumes that a believer loses his free will because he is saved. That is absolutely false, scripturally, empirically and practically. That is why Scripture is replete with warnings against losing faith, becoming unfaithful and falling away. That is the love of God still trying to save. Regardless, a believer can still choose to renounce his faith. 2 Corinthians 1:22, "guarantee" is biased mistranslation. The Greek is "pledge" or "promise". This is not a guarantee. It simply means that the believer is to EXPECT final salvation. A pledge, like a down payment, is NOT A FULL AMOUNT. You are to expect full salvation IF YOU PERSEVERE and not fall away. False teaching arises out of preaching promises WITHOUT A CONDITION. Most or even ALL of Scripture promises HAS A CONDITION. Most conditions you do not fulfill once and for all. Most Bible conditions depend on continuously fulfilling the conditions behind the promise. Your interpretation is based on an unreliable English translation. If we do word study, we need to look at the Greek. Romans 8:30 and even Ephesians on predestination. The biggest mistake of the Reformers in interpretation is applying words like this to individuals. These promises or declarations were addressed to the church, the body of Christ as a whole. The emphasis of the verse is "those" PLURAL. To interpret it otherwise makes one a Calvinist which is a heretical doctrine based on the Orthodox Faith. An innovation from the 16th century and never been taught nor believed by the Apostles nor the church fathers. This makes your interpretation another inferential one. The other mistake which John Calvin and even Augustine made was to develop a whole false doctrine of predestination just based on one word in Scripture and blatantly contradicting the rest of Scripture. Now look again at the first response I entered in your other video. Examine each of those verses I gave and see if you come up with good interpretation that is not Scripture twisting. Paul, you and I KNOW for sure that we are truly saved, We also know that you personally and me personally are assured we will not lose salvation (but only on a personal basis) because of the quality of the faith we have as far as how we obtained salvation by grace through faith. REGARDLESS, even if we "feel" it is true in our lives, OSAS is a doctrine that has no solid Scripture basis based on the original Greek and the tradition and practice of the Apostles and the early church, then it is false doctrine to teach or preach. All I am saying is it cannot be preached as doctrine. It never was in the early church. The emphasis of the New Testament is not justification or forgiveness of sins or freedom from the PENALTY of sin. This is available in the Old Testament! The emphasis of the New Testament is sanctification or freedom from the POWER and DOMINION of the sin nature because Christ sent the Holy Spirit to give us the power of the resurrection as we live our lives in this life.

Paul responded by asking something like if we lose salvation when we sin, what sins or how many sins will it take for us to lose salvation? Also, he proposed the usual response that if a Christian is condemned, he may not have been a Christian in the first place.

Second Response:

 Hi Paul, I feel for you even today. I am sure of my salvation but I cannot preach OSAS for the very reason that I do not know the Christian walk of the person I am conversing with and may be in danger of giving him a false guarantee. Yes, I can give him assurance of salvation but I cannot give him a guarantee of eternal life or the abundant life because I am not sure how he is going to follow through with the rest of his earthly life.

  Even Paul said at least twice that the believer DOES NOT STAY in any comfort zone. In 1 Cor 9:27, he talks about continuously disciplining his body for fear or concern that after preaching to others, he would turn out to be disqualified for the kingdom! 

  In Philippians 3:12, Paul talks about continually pressing on toward the mark of the upward call of Christ. Why? Because he declares that he has NOT YET obtained what he wanted in verses 8 and 9. He further confirms NOT  having gained it in verse 13. This is the person whom you said told us that God gave us a pledge, a PARTIAL PAYMENT!

  In Philippians 2:12, this SAME Paul, who talked about being sealed with the Spirit, actually commands (Greek Imperative mood) Philippian believers to work out your salvation WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING.I do not see even a little trembling in many Christians I talk with. So how can I preach OSAS to them without turning out to be a false teacher???

  Now let us try to answer your questions of HOW MANY SINS?

Third Response

Biblically and empirically, people mean it when they accept Christ. No one can judge sincerity and most people who come to the altar are sincere. Most will come in humility. Some even come in fear. Regardless, we cannot make the matter of sincerity an intellectual issue because we can never see the heart of a man the way God sees it. And God in Romans 11:29 sees the heart and continues to offer and court the believer towards salvation because he is NOT WILLING that any should perish. BUT ALAS, this is one of God's will that even God knows will never happen!!! That is why we have divine revelation. That is why we have a Bible. That is why the Bible is not only full of invitations or divine callings, but divine WARNINGS. In fact, for every calling, there would be tens or even hundreds of verses on warnings. The density or magnitude of the divine warnings in Scripture should already speak the obvious that OSAS is a faulty belief.

So, how many sins? What is the borderline? Well, as a general Scripture principle, God forgives more than seventy times seven. God practices what he preaches. But there are clear exceptions also in Scripture.

Now, the popular "protestant" hermeneutic is that the New Testament explains the Old Testament. UNFORTUNATELY, these same people forget that it is the Old Testament that CLEARLY ILLUSTRATES the principles of the New Testament. Did not Christ declare in Matthew 5 that the Law and the Prophets (The Old Testament ONLY) will not pass away until even each punctuation is fulfilled (an idiomatic expression to seriously emphasize the importance of the Old Testament, this makes "New Testament Only" Christians cultic if not heretics!)

Let us read Numbers 15, the Torah chapter on Laws about Sacrifices. Note that these sacrifices CAN ONLY BE PERFORMED by THE PEOPLE OF GOD. This means that the Christian sacraments (from the word sacrifice) CAN ONLY BE PERFORMED by Christians and NOT outsiders to the kingdom, e.g., baptism, Lord's supper or Eucharist, etc. This is very important in understanding this chapter.

So the chapter talks about two kinds of sins:

1. Sins that can be forgiven by offering atonement sacrifice (Roman Catholics call this venial sin)

2. Sins that cannot be forgiven but the offender is stoned to death right away (Roman Catholics call this mortal sin. Unfortunately, the Latin church DID NOT and still DOES NOT classify their list of mortal sins correctly because they rely on a fallible Pope to speak for God, instead of the infallible Word of God)

The concept of venial and mortal sin is biblical, but just the concept.

When Christ mentioned that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgiveable sin, he did not specify what these are in the passage but there are passages like Rev 3:5 and the Old Testament gives us a clue. This exegesis is allegorical, I admit, but try to see if there is any other rational way to interpret this. The same book of Numbers did not forgive the Sabbath breaker in the same chapter. It did not forgive Korah's rebellion in the next chapter. God did not forgive the ten spies. God did not forgive the generation that rebelled in the desert and postponed entrance into the Promise Land so that generation would die. Did these people repent? Yes, they did (Numbers 14:39-45) but they still did not make it.

From those examples above, God does NOT FORGIVE the sin of premeditated active public rebellion against him. Paul says to Timothy "if we deny him he will also deny us". Jesus did say quite clearly, "He who denies me before men, I will deny before the Father" (Matt 10:33; Luke 12:9). Let's not talk here about Peter's denial. Just accept that words do not matter when we are ignorant of context. Now, rebellion implies that you have been part of a group, for how can one rebel if he was never part of the group he is suppose to rebel against?? Hence, committing the unforgiveable sin can only be committed by people who are already Christians. The same is true of apostasy. You cannot fall away from something you have never been a part of.

Based on the above discussion. I believe unforgiveable sins are those which are the equivalent of treachery or shaming the name of God. These are the equivalent of despising the work of the Holy Spirit in one's life which Christ said was the unforgiveable sin. Why? It is the Spirit's work to make a believer grow into the image of God, so if we shame the name of God, that is the opposite of the Spirit's work. If we betray our God for another "god" or "no god", like what Judas did, that is treachery, premeditated active rebellion. Now, this is why I believe in "Once lost, always lost", i.e., loss of salvation is permanent because it is unforgiveable. And here are some Bible analogies:

1. In a kingdom, a person may be a thief, even a murderer but he is still a citizen although he may be in prison for his crimes. However, if he become a traitor to the kingdom or to his country, he loses citizenship PERMANENTLY either by death or by exile.

2. In a family, a son may disobey the father so many times on different violations but he is still a son. But he publicly shames the father name (during Bible times and sometimes today in Muslim lands) he is disowned by the father PERMANENTLY.

3. In old Jewish practice, cited in Jeremiah 3:1, if a woman divorces her husband it is PERMANENT.

The above analogies will make us understand the whole context and message of Hebrew 6:4-8 without any Scripture twisting to fit our cherished doctrines. This is a warning to those who have been partakers of the Holy Spirit. This will also make us understand 1 John 5:16-17. As you can see OSAS and my "Once lost, always lost (OLAL)" are both inferential but I think there is more Bible support for OLAL than there is for OSAS.

Non-believers can sin all they want and it is all covered by the cross. Unfortunately, those who have been partakers of the Holy Spirit, when they fall away, or rebel, Christ cannot die a second time for them. They are lost forever.

I have to be honest though and inform you that the early "Gentile" church fathers did not believe that there was no unforgiveable sin at all and practiced re-instatement of bishops who previously renounced their faith because of the early persecution. but the Apostles and the disciples of the Apostles like Clement, Polycarp were martyred for their faith. It is now up to you to believe Scripture or the Gentile church fathers. I chose Scripture over men in this case in terms of what I teach or preach.

Fourth Response:

The sin of Judas Iscariot was premeditated active rebellion. Judas wanted a conquering Messiah and would NOT settle for a suffering one. He wanted to CASH IN, quit and run. So he carefully planned his betrayal. There was no fear nor confusion in his betrayal. Peter's denial, on the other hand, was done out of fear and confusion along with very little knowledge of Christ's ministry. He knew the Messiah would suffer but he never thought Christ would suffer the way he was witnessing what they were doing to him. (I believe this is classified as unintentional sins in Numbers 15.) We must note that once restored, Peter volunteered to be crucified upside down because he did not want to die on the same level as his Master, a testament AGAINST renouncing faith and the unforgiveable sin.