Hi John and Doves,

Re: Once saved always saved: Kat (23 July), Gino (6 Aug), Kat (13 Aug)

Kat and Gino, I have followed your posts on this subject with interest, as I’m preparing a study called:

Growing in Grace to Glory.

In support of Kat’s position and the excellent references she quoted, and the advice given, I too believe it is possible for a person to fall away from the Grace they once received; when they do not afterward ‘continue on’ in the faith and turn their backs on the ‘saving grace’ previously obtained by them. We sometimes label these people back-sliders! We are called to overcome the flesh, and grow-on in the spirit; not to be pikers! (Australian term for an unreliable person.)

2 Peter 2:1–22 has extremely harsh words to say about such people who apparently infiltrated the Church:

He describes them as false teachers with destructive heresies. He calls them… brute beasts, spots and blemishes, with eyes full of adultery, hearts trained in covetousness, gone astray; cf. verse 20–21

For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them…. (Cf. Hebrews 6:4–6 quoted by Kat,13 Aug.)

Jesus portrayed the state of backsliders in some of his parables… 

The sower and seeds:  (Matt. 13:5–6) and explanation 13:12, regarding the stony and thorny ground.

For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.

Also, we should consider the size of the reward that came out of the good fertile ground… thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. Not all rewards for dogged perseverance in the faith will be the same, but rewards there will be! (This is not a topic that is regularly set forth by preachers.)

The Wedding Invitation:  (Matt. 22:8–14) The King’s servants who gathered people in for the wedding from the highways had brought in both bad and good participants to the wedding feast.  It was the guest who was not wearing the ‘wedding garment’ supplied by the King, who was ejected. Jesus used this parable to show the nonchalant attitude of the Jews toward the Kingdom of God, but there is also a lesson here for the Gentiles who were brought in from the highways!  God provides us with the robe of righteousness when we are ‘in Christ through the Holy Spirit’ which is a continuing process that will result in us becoming in His likeness, i.e., we will eventually be reflections of His glorious ‘goodness’ hence the ‘wedding garment.’  

The Servants and the Talents:  (Matt 25:14–30) It is interesting that Matthew repeats the same verse (almost as a mantra or slogan) which is used in Matt. 13:5–6 above, regarding the seeds sown, and he applies it to this parable also:

For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.

1 John 2:19 likewise, the Apostle says the proof of true salvation is that they continue-on in it…

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. BUT you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. (NU document)

The key to the conundrum, regarding this ‘Once Saved Always Saved’ topic of discussion, is that only God truly knows our hearts, and fortunately for us He does look upon us with Grace and Mercy; HOWEVER, as is stated above…  BUT you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know!

Not only does God know the state of our hearts and minds, but the spiritual anointing we received reveals to us what that state is as well; we know whether the anointing from God through the Holy Spirit (whose job it is to transform us unto the likeness of Jesus Christ), has been granted freedom—by us—to do His work; or whether we resist; loving and clinging instead to the ‘fleshly things’ that prevent us from becoming the true likeness of Jesus in thought, deed, and personality.

Romans 8:12–16 (NIV) is pretty straight forward:

Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it.  For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.  The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

As they say, ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating…’  Only the end results will show whether the Holy Spirit has truly been free to bring us to ‘sonship’ as ‘joint heirs’ with Christ, that we might be glorified together.

Blessings to all,

EAR