Once saved always saved?

by greendawn 26 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  bob1999

  Amen
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  LoverOfTruth

  My daughter has a bumper sticker on her car that says in essence "Please God, Save me From the Christians" Something to think about.
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  Shining One

  Greendawn,
  Read Ephesians 2:8-10. See if you know what I mean when I say, "don't put the cart before the horse".
  Rex
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  Shining One

  Terry,
  Believing all five facets of t.u.l.i.p. leads to a contradiction. "All have an opportunity to be saved". Man is a creature that can make judgements and decisions. John 3: 18-19 will bear this out. You have to hold the providence of God in hand with the responsibility of man. You may not like it and I am sure even your great brain cannot grasp it completely. Too bad! It happens to be the most believable explanation for the reality that we all face.
  Rex
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  Terry

  *********"All have an opportunity to be saved". Man is a creature that can make judgements and decisions. John 3: 18-19 will bear this out. You have to hold the providence of God in hand with the responsibility of man. You may not like it and I am sure even your great brain cannot grasp it completely.***********

  Yet, you grasp it easily! You must be smarter than I.

  Think of the situation this way. A family moves into a new home under construction.

  1. The Dad puts his kids in a nice playroom with two doors. He tells the kids not to go through the green door because they will be injured. If they play without going through the green door, then; he'll take them through the other door to a nice ice cream parlor for treats.

  2.The kids play for awhile and a sock puppet pops up in the playhouse and tells them Dad was joking; the real test is to see if they are smart enough to go through the green door for ice cream right away.

  3.The daughter hears this, believes it and coaxes her brother to join her.

  4.The two go through the green door and fall into an indoor swimming pool! Neither knows how to swim!

  5.Dad hears their cries for help. He decides to let them see if they can learn how to swim on their own. They don't/can't. They drown.

  6. Dad pulls them out and resuscitates them. He asks them a question. "Are you sorry you didn't obey me?" They answer "yes". Then the Dad asks, "Will you mind me from now on?" The daughter says "No" because she is angry her Dad let her drown. The son says, "Yes!"

  7.The Dad throws the daughter back into the swimming pool where she drowns again. The son he takes out for ice cream.

  What is your opinion of this Dad?
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  drew sagan

  The basic Christian message is that we cannot as indiviuals or groups preform any work that can save us! Instead we can only be saved by Gods plan through Jesus Christ.
  When I hear the old "faith without works is dead" routine, we must ask "What is faith?" Many in the WTS simply think that faith is a logical step of acceptance and belief in paradise. The focus on Gods plan through Jesus insn't mentioned.
  We do need to back up our faith with Christian works, but this should be done in humility and in recognition that we CAN'T preform any work to save ourselves but instead show due honor to Gods plan and not our own ideas of salvation. Strange how the WTS distorts this message.
  At the same time, other Christians seem to forget what the 'once saved allways saved' message really means. If they would accept the fact that as a Christian they can't preform any work that will save them they might loosen up a bit and focus on love instead of being fundys.
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  kid-A

  The only thing one needs to be saved from is the absurd and illogical fear of death and non-existant tribal deities in the sky.

  You are born. You live. You die. The end. Not really too hard to grasp.
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  Qcmbr

  I think it all depends what people think they are being saved from.
  
  In the tradition of a simple heaven and hell, works become pretty pointless as a means of procuring heaven (what is the pass mark?)
  In the tradition of 'many mansions' there is a hint of the gradation of heaven and perhaps a reward motive to being saved with certain benefits for 'better' candidates
  In the tradition of 'ye are gods' there is the suggestion that salvation is not about simple avoidance of bad consequenses but the reaching for better ones.
  
  I think salvation is multi-faceted:
  1/ Adam's transgression caused death for which you and I are not responsible (we never chose to eat any forbidden fruit) - Jesus broke bounds of death for all mankind - a gift for which we likewise pay nothing. Justice is satisfied and no works of our own required nor do we need to accept Jesus since the debt wasn't ours in the first place.
  2/ Separation from God (who is perfect) is inevitable since we are responsible for our own sins and imperfections. Jesus paid the price for this as well but the acceptance of this payment is conditional and not a free gift to all irrespective of acceptance or not (devils believe but are not saved, many will say 'Lord, Lord' and will not be recognised etc..) Thus our return to God is a journey that is not done piggyback but is done hand in hand. Those who sit on their bums claiming they will be carried into heaven will still be sitting there at their judgement day. Some works that are required to 'fulfill all righteousness': repentance, baptism, charity, forgiveness.
  3/ The admonition to be ye therefore perfect was not idle nor frivolous but a commandment IMO. Perfection is impossible since we are all sinners so we must all rely utterly upon the grace of Christ. No amount of works will achieve perfection but the acceptance of Christ allows His mercy and grace to make up the shortfall. It is impossible to accept Christ and not experience spiritual rebirth - they are intrinsically linked. Those who are truly reborn will do the works of the Father and will inevitably perform works. Faith produces works - only a fool would argue faith has no physical manifestation - works can also feed back and strengthen faith.
  4/ Why do we do works and why would an omnipotent being require such paltry efforts from us? Works themselves change us, we become what we do, our charaters are changed and altered (if you haven't changed one iota of your lifestyle after accepting Christ or indeed any creed you haven't really accepted that belief). In my mind the purpose of any heaven would be to progress towards the behaviour patterns of our 'parents' as we 'grow up' - to become more Christlike and happier and to have greater responsibilities to achieve (parable of talents)- if someone beliefs in an infinity of harp strumming then I guess they probably don't need any works. To argue that this process (working toward perfection) does not begin nor is required here is to suggest that what we are aiming for (progression) is of no real worth in heaven which is ludicrous. If you really want to stop smoking you do it as soon as possible not at some future unreached date - likewise with works and faith.
  
  I once met another christian who argued that works had no place in the gospel - he gave me a piece of paper with a prayer on it and asked me to say the prayer (inviting Jesus into my life) and if I meant it I would be saved - he could not see paradox he had created.
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  XJW4EVR

  I believer that Christians are saved by grace through faith and that not of ourselves but it is the gift of God not be works so that no man can boast (Eph. 2:8 & 9). The soteriological element in this passage is clearly the grace of God, not the faith or the works.

  Now what James was preaching was pratical Christianity. Demonstrating our faith through our good works. For lack of a better illustration, faith is the apple seed, and good works are the apples.
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  Qcmbr

  Of course the trick to saying your saved by grace alone suggests its antitheses (saved by works) as the only alternative when the argument is much more nuanced than that. Is it possible after being saved to lose that position through bad behaviour? If the answer is yes then you must be maintaining that position by good works alternatively if saved once no matter what you choose to do thereafter why bother with correcting apostate behaviour by letter in teh New Testament Are you saved in your sins or from them? I would suggest that you must forsake and repent of the sin before it is forgiven and paid for. Discuss!!
  
  I would suggest a middle road that concurs with all scriptures and doesn't pit one against another in extreme dogmas and that is that grace is available to all who obey God's commandments, this fits the covenant relationship far better to my biblical reading than running the very dodgy path of claiming no need for works when Jesus clearly said keep my commandments.