For follow-up discussion and general commentary on the topic. Comments are sorted chronologically.
Larry Wiseman
Ephesians 1:4 says he knew me from before the foundation of the world, billions of years ago in His mind He saw you and me. Jesus said in John 10:28-30 we will never remove ourselves from the hand of God, he's the one who placed us there, not us. John 14:6. As to the verses in Hebrews 6:4-6, take note the person described heard the word, they may have been thrilled at the truth even feeling the peace that only the Holy Spirit can provide, but they are like the hearers in Jesus's parable of the sower in Luke 8 and Mark 4. The conclusion he is saying in vs. 18 is only the seed which fell on the good ground was truly saved, the others had only emotional experiences. We are born again not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man but of God. We didn't earn it and certainly can't keep it, but God can. His plan is perfect, no mistakes. Psalm 18:30. We can be assured of our salvation in 1 John 5:13. PTL.
Barbie Wheat Gill
"Thank You Larry Wiseman. I'm in agreement. I am a born again, blood bought, spirit filled, tongue talking, bible believing, believer in God the Father, His Son which is Jesus Christ our Lord & the Holy Spirit, with an indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit whom God has sealed me with. Hallelujah, Amen and Amen. And I know what I know because the Spirit of truth is within me from above.
Larry Wiseman
Just had to give you a quick shout out...you sound like someone thrilled with your blood-bought relationship with our Lord! May your enthusiasm rub off and affect those around you who don't know Jesus or who need encouragement in their walk. Keep it up Barbie!
Larry
Barbie Wheat Gill
Thank you Larry..the blessing of a gift is greater when we know of the sacrifice
that has been made, in love by the giver, God made the greatest expression of
love when He gave us the gift of His Son, may His gift of Jesus always be a
blessing and joy to you.
Praying your Christmas is filled with His love Merry Christmas Larry!
Barbie
James Kraft
Amen and Amen. He said He has begun a good work in us and He will complete it. He never leaves unfinished work. Oh how I love Jesus. We are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.
Matthew Miller
The difficulties followers of Jesus come to understand is not from our own wisdom but our Fathers. We know God loved us first, by His grace has He allowed us to love Him, as well, by love God allows forgiveness. Through the divine word, there is something very important we as believers must recognize in the Bible, God uses the events of others to guide His gift of forgiveness. Every follower of Jesus Christ who receives God the Holy Spirit comes to understand Jesus is the way, the light, and truth, as every chapter we read points to Jesus.
Most important, God has not created robots, if Jesus came to defeat sin, how is it possible to understand sin without the struggles and dangers of failing? Did Jesus receive the Holy Spirit before He was tempted in the desert or after? If He was the sacrificial object to finalize Gods promise to link us to His everlasting existence, could it have been broken? Jesus was everything we could never be, which under tempting moments in our lives we will fall, struggle, and come to know fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom. Yes we can fail God, Yes we can loose our faith, and Yes we can go to the place designed for fallen angels if we choose to deny God.
Brian Ansell
Let's look at this logically, rather than from a position of belief. Anything we can gain in life we can lose! Even life itself, we can die be killed or commit suicide, and no one can ever stop anyone from making that choice!
I can think of many so-called Christians who seem to think they are saved, but they don't love their neighbours, so they are not even Christians.
Robert Warmbier
But even saved people can backslide to the point of denying Christ as their Lord and Savior. This is the one and only thing that will prevent people from entering heaven. Saved people can still murder, steal, cheat, commit adultery, etc. (Romans 10:9) but to deny Christ is another matter. Matt 10:33 states - But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven. John 3:18 even states this - Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
Jennifer Rothnie
True. I Tim 2:11-13 says,
"Here is a trustworthy saying:
If we died with him, we will also live with him; (This speaks of Christians who have died in Christ)
if we endure, we will also reign with him. (This speaks of still-living Christians)
If we disown him, he will also disown us; (This speaks of Christians who believe for a time, but then reject that faith and deny Christ, possibly including but not limited to fakers as well)
if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. (This speaks of unbelievers, and how God is still faithful to His plan and character even though many do not believe.)
If you drew this up like a picture of a race, there would be those that finished, those still running, those who started but quit, and those who have not started at all.
It is impossible for a believer to be apisteó, without faith - for this means more than a little doubt or failing, but literally the refusal to be persuaded! Someone without faith in Christ has never had it at all, unlike those who have it for a time but eventually reject it/fall away. The term apisteó shows that a person remains unconvinced, even when confronted with the truth of Christ and the gospel.
James Kraft
When ever we get away from the all sufficiency of Jesus sacrifice for our sin, we are already in a form of apostasy. We are saying that our salvation depends on us instead of Him who saved us by grace. It is unbelief.
If Jesus paid our sin debt in full then we have nothing to boast in. If we preach any other gospel than the gospel of grace to save sinners, we are in apostasy.
The bible says that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God that saved us by grace. That means we can not even separate our selves from His love for us.
We have nothing to boast in but the cross. We can not boast in ourselves and the cross at the same time.
Christians can absolutey go In to apostasy. The bible says we have no righteousness in our selves and all of our righteousness comes from God. So when we are trusting in our selves that we are righteous, we are in apostasy.
First John 1:8 says- If we say we have no sin, we are liars and do not the truth. All have sinned and continue to sin even though we are saved by grace.
Religion is a false Christianity. It is salvation by works instead of grace and belief that Jesus did not pay for all of our sin.
God only accepts sinners for salvation. Paul said, "even when we do good, there is evil present with us." It is because we want to give some of the glory for saving us to ourselves instead of to God. We want God to accept us by our works instead of grace. We want to contribute something to our salvation that belongs to God.
James Kraft
Pride says if I obey all of Gods commandments He will accept me because of my own righteousness. God says all of our righteousness is filthy rags before Him and only God is Holy.
When we do good, it is because God is good and does it through us. When we do evil that is our own.
Pride and self righteousness are in the heart of every man but take us away from Christ instead of to Him. It is when we begin to trust in anything else but Jesus blood sacrifice for our sin. That something else will be an idol. It is unbelief.
RICK PORTER
In approximately AD 33 there was a criminal who was executed and had a death structure conversion and according to Gods Word went to paradise that day.
In approximately 1700 years later there was a man born in prominent circumstances, but who had serious emotional anguish troubles to point of being institutionalized and tried to commit suicide. He read Romans 3:23-25 and at age of 33 accepted these words as truth and was redeemed and forgiven. Some years later he had reoccurring depression and even doubted his eternal security in Christ, but thru the council and prayer help of the writer of Amazing Grace, a saved reprobate named John Newton, his own description of himself, while reading Zechariah 13:1, William Cowper wrote, "There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flow, lose all their guilty stains".
As the decades and millenniums stream by, God's Salvation and Security of the Redeemed shall stand and no one and no power shall be able to sever His preservation of His Born Again Children, for they are kept by The Holy Spirit;s seal, and God's Promise.