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REGARDING “ONCE SAVED, ALWAYS SAVED.”
(OSAS)
By Barbara Gunter
Once saved, always saved isn't true to
God's Word. If we lose our Faith and turn away from Him to make
another object our main focus of faith, we lose our salvation.
If your faith always remains in the Cross,
but you stumble and make a sinful mistake, you don't lose your
salvation, you repent and ask for His forgiveness and put on His
Grace.
You can lose your salvation. Once saved,
always saved is a dangerous damnable doctrine.
A sinner does not get a pass from God.
When we sin (not IF we sin...but WHEN we sin!) we must run TO God
and repent with Godly sorrow.....just like Peter did!
Judas had regrets, but "NO repentance!”
We don’t walk around in fear of losing our
salvation. We have PEACE like a River because OUR faith is daily in
Him and His finished work on Calvary’s cross.
A person who has gained salvation by faith
in Jesus Christ can lose that faith AND the salvation that comes
with it. The Bible says that maintaining faith requires great
effort, a “hard fight.” (Jude 3, 5) Early Christians who had already
accepted Christ were told: “Keep working out your own salvation with
fear and trembling.” ~ Philippians 2:12.
The Bible warns against sins that will
keep a person from entering God’s Kingdom. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11;
Galatians 5:19-21)
If salvation could not be lost, such
warnings would be meaningless. Instead, the Bible shows that someone
who has been saved can fall away by returning to a practice of
serious sin. For example, Hebrews 10:26 states: “If we practice sin
willfully after having received the accurate knowledge of the truth,
there is no longer any sacrifice for sins left.” ~ Hebrews 6:4-6; 2
Peter 2:20-22.
Jesus emphasized the importance of
maintaining faith by giving an illustration in which he likened
himself to a vine and his followers to branches on that vine. Some
of them would at one time demonstrate faith in him by their fruits,
or actions, yet would later fail to do so and be “thrown out like a
[fruitless] branch,” losing their salvation. (John 15:1-6) The
apostle Paul used a similar illustration, saying that Christians who
do not maintain their faith “will be lopped off.” ~ Romans 11:17-22.
Christians are commanded to “keep on the
watch.” (Matthew 24:42; 25:13) Those who fall asleep spiritually,
whether by practicing “works belonging to darkness” or by not fully
performing the works that Jesus commanded, ”lose their salvation”. ~
Romans 13:11-13; Revelation 3:1-3.
Many scriptures show that those who have
been saved must still endure faithfully to the end. (Matthew 24:13;
Hebrews 10:36; 12:2, 3; Revelation 2:10) First-century Christians
expressed joy when they learned that fellow believers were enduring
in their faith. (1 Thessalonians 1:2, 3; 3 John 3, 4) Does it seem
reasonable that the Bible would stress faithful endurance if those
who did not endure would be saved anyway?
Only when his death was imminent did the
apostle Paul feel that his salvation was assured. (2 Timothy 4:6-8)
Earlier in his life, he recognized that he could still miss out on
salvation if he gave in to fleshly desires. He wrote: “I pummel my
body and lead it as a slave, so that after I have preached to
others, I myself should not become disapproved somehow.” ~ 1
Corinthians 9:27; Philippians 3:12-14.
Something else regarding ONCE SAVED,
ALWAYS SAVED.....
How can names be blotted out if they were
never there before?
No, no, no! “Once saved, always saved”
(OSAS) is a lie from the pit of hell.
“He that overcometh, the same shall be
clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of
the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father....”
(Revelation 3:5)
One more thing.......
Think on this.... There are many Atheists
who were once raised in the Faith, and they know very solidly the
Word of God. At some turning point in their lives, they turned their
back on Righteousness (Justification) and Salvation and did a 180
and walked away from God. They refuse to ever address Him and yet
can write and profoundly quote scripture. A few even become
extremely angry if Jesus or God is brought into conversation. They
will tell you that they once walked with Jesus. Quite personally,
they do not often share what caused them to turn away again.
It is easy to say that they probably were
never saved to begin with, to protect the "once saved always saved"
doctrine, but I have heard many people who have first-hand knowledge
of many years of ministering to these individuals will tell you that
they once made a true confession with their mouths and with their
hearts for Jesus, and yet, eventually left their salvation tossing
it to the ground as a filthy rag.
We like to believe that this doesn't
happen because it is very sad when it does, but that belief isn't
real. It's very unfortunate when it does happen.
Many people mistake justification for
salvation. You are saved, justified, sanctified and made whole.
Salvation occurs at the moment you accept Jesus. So does
justification. Sanctification is a step-by-step walk, daily. We grow
in sanctification.
We are justified by the blood of Jesus
Christ shed for us at the Cross. God looks down upon us when we
repent and sees that blood justification. If we are "once saved,
always saved", why do we need repentance? Why do we need Grace to
overcome sin?
Scripture is clear when it tells us that
"all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God." We can sin
as Christians. We also can repent when the Spirit of God convicts
us. We put on His Grace....God's unmerited favor to refrain from
sinning, but we will not be wholly sanctified until we put on
eternal immortality.
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