Hello doves, I haven’t written in a looooong time and heard from my friend Reva a while ago that she missed seeing me post so first of all shout out to my sister Reva (1 Corinthians 10:31) It takes something important for me to get active on the keyboard lately and a post by Craig Opal was important enough for discussion that I thought I had to offer my thoughts.Hi Craig, regarding your post last week:
"Weren’t the Angels Eternally Secure?"
I wanted to reply, not to debate you or try to change your mind but to give you some food for thought because I have wrestled with the same things you described in your letter but came out on the other side of it with a different opinion.
So you make a good point about the angels who seemed to “lose” their salvation by choice and so if we are strictly looking at choice - the question has to be asked why can’t we do the same?
There are many scriptures that seem to indicate that we can do just that, and I won’t go into all of them becasue any one who is convinced that salvation can be lost if we do not maintain it will already know them.
But I found in my own personal study that it is the Holy Spirit and specifically whether or not an individual is filled and sealed with the Holy Spirit that makes all the difference - so I would think it is more accurate instead of saying “Once saved always saved” to rather say “Once SEALED always saved” since that will help us understand the dynamic that is going on spiritually - let me explain what I am talking about.
Ephesians 4:30 clearly says that we should not grieve the Holy Spirit with whom we are sealed until the day of redemption. So the question I had to ask of myself is this - when I was born again was I filled with the Holy Spirit?
If the answer is no, then none of this matters, there is no argument, if the answer is no then I do not belong to Christ and am not saved anyway - but if the answer is yes then we have to ask a whole other set of questions.
If the answer is yes, and anyone is truly born again and filled with the Spirit and is, as Ephesians 4:30 tells us, now sealed with the Spirit - then here is the question we need to ask- when we sin and we grieve the Holy Spirit does He leave us and move out and break the seal He has put on us?
So in other words is the Holy Spirit in a constant state of moving in and moving out because we grieve Him with our sin? If He moves out does He break the seal or “unseal” us? That would not at all be something described as a seal, since a sealing indicates ownership, and something more permanent, not some temporary thing and most Christians agree, that once the Holy Spirit moves in He does not leave you or forsake you .
So then if the Holy Spirit does not leave us how then would we lose our salvation?
This is where I wanted to give you food for thought - consider - losing your salvation might have been possible under the Mosaic law, but how can it be possible after the Holy Spirit is given? Consider, you had mentioned and used as your example the angels which willingly chose to sin and lose their salvation - However this really cannot be compared to us for 2 reasons.
First, the angels were never “saved” since in thier original state in that they had nothing to be “saved from”. They were created in a state of perfection which some chose to willingly vacate, whereas we were born into a fallen state of sin and imperfection that we did not choose, and that we needed to be saved from.
Yes, the angels were eternally secure, and as long as they maintained their state of perfection they had eternal security. And it was the choice of some to leave that state but we can’t technically call them saved at any point, since they do not have that state available to them. Our two states are either saved or lost, while the only two states available to the angels are either perfect or lost.
God does not offer them salvation, I suspect because they entered the state of damnation with full knowledge, willingly, knowing what they were leaving - whereas we were born into a cursed state, not knowing why or having made the choice to reject God - it is our default becasue of our first parents so I suppose God draws a distinction there and takes greater mercy on us than the angels who became sinners willfully with knowledge. (You might argue that our first parents Adam and Eve were also in a state of perfection at one time and this is true - but their condition was slightly different in that they were deceived from without and tempted to leave their state of perfection whereas Lucifer was tempted from within as were all of the other fallen angels who had no reason to not believe God since they lived constantly in His presence)
But secondly and more importantly - ask yourself this - were any of the fallen angels ever filled with God’s Holy Spirit?
Consider, none of the angels are filled with the Holy Spirit becasue they simply don’t need it, they were created perfect without the Holy Spirit in dwelling them and the fallen angels chose to leave this state of perfection for a lie from Satan that they could be like God, without God (which would include being like God without His Holy Spirit obviously)
So ask yourself, now in this hypothetical, if Lucifer himself were ever filled with God’s Holy Spirit do you think he could have been capable of rebellion and falling away from God? Or do you think he would have sinned by wanting to be like God if he already had God in him in the form of the Holy Spirit? God’s Spirit is what makes all of the difference - it was simply not available to the angels, either holy or fallen, and as a human if you have it you are safe, and if you don’t have it you are lost.
Satan causes us to doubt our salvation so as to try to keep us in a works based salvation mode which is not acceptable to God - He rejects all of our good works for salvation. We cannot work our way to salvation and once we are saved we cannot work to keep our salvation, otherwise it would not be the grace and glory of God to save us, it would be our own works. However that gives rise to the next lie of Satan.
Now, this idea (greasy grace becasue of the confidence in OSAS) also is twisted by Satan, and I sensed this at the end of your letter, because you are correct, God does very much expect good works out of us after we are saved, but not to keep us saved, rather these good works become the evidence of a changed heart and life and at this point the result of these works is reward and authority in heaven, not to maintain salvation which we never could attain by works and certainly cannot keep by works.
So anyway, I hope I have offered some food for thought without being divisive, argumentative or obnoxious about it - these are just the conclusions I have reached in my own struggle trying to balance some of these ideas - my goal is in love to try to let my iron sharpen your iron, and I hope it was received as such.
2 Timothy 1:12 (b) ”……for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.“
Love and Peace from the Messiah Yeshua, Jesus and from His Holy SpiritYour brother in Christ,Derrick Drew