It is GOD who grants repentance. You are missing that part also.
While I believe the King James Bible is the divinely inspired perfect Word of God, I also do realize that it had an influence even upon Modern Bibles with the use of archaic words (i.e. 1600’s English).
The modern understanding or rendering on 2 Timothy 2:25 would be:
2 Timothy 2:25 says:
“who is gentle as you correct your opponents,
for it may be that God will give them the opportunity to repent and come to know the truth.”
So it’s talking about giving them an opportunity to repent and it’s not God forcing anything upon them.
In fact, Jesus told people to repent or they will perish (Luke 13:3). This would not make any sense for Jesus to tell them to do that if they were incapable of doing so.
I can see you are not accepting the scriptures I already posted and seek to pit the scripture against itself. Do you know that some people get no rewards and are scarcely saved.
Lets see where the Bible talks about being scarcely saved.
1 Peter 4:18-19 says:
18 ”And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
19 Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls
to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.”
I see verse 19 encouraging the believers to suffer according to the will of God in keeping their souls in well doing, and not based on them doing nothing whereby they don’t get any rewards.
Granted, I do believe babies who die are saved by God’s grace without having any faith.
The man on his deathbed who accepts Jesus as His Savior can be saved by God’s grace without works (With faith).
But the person who lives out their faith must obey God as a part of the faith. It’s conditional and not unconditional.
The Bible uses words like:
Continue in the faith.
Continue in God’s grace.
Continue in his goodness.
Keep yourselves in the love of God.
Such sayings don’t make any sense if it is all forced upon you once you are regenerated.
We will all of us in the sheepfold be judged for the things done in the body, but as believers have passed from death to life as we believed by being born of God, logically what you're saying is a person who sins and falls and repents and sins and fall and repents is saved, not saved, saved again. Therefore, they must be born again over and over and over.
No. If a person is born into this world, they can die and be brought back to life by medics in an ambulance. That does not mean that their being brought back to life means they are given another birth certificate.
Gotquestions has an article that says that a believer is characterized by living a life of holiness, but they also say that a backslidden Christian who lived in sin is still saved.
Is a backsliding / backslidden Christian still saved? How far can a true Christian backslide?
www.gotquestions.org
This means that they are teaching that a prodigal son could potentially be saved while he was living it up with prostitutes.
So if sin does not endanger your soul, then there is no reason to live holy or righteously.
You can just go on sinning and think you are saved by a belief alone in Jesus.
Even if you believe that a Christian is not to practice sin (whatever that means), if you teach that 1 John 1:8 is an excuse to sin occasionally in this life (this side of Heaven), and man cannot help but to sin again, then one is turning God’s grace into a license for immorality (Jude 1:4).
Are you really willing to accept that kind of faith-nonfaith relationship over and over?
2 Timothy 2
19 Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of [
g]Christ depart from iniquity.”
Why are they being told to depart from iniquity if it is just automatic to being born again?
20 But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. 21 Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, [
h]sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work. 22 Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 23 But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. 24 And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, 25 in humility correcting those who are in opposition,
if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, 26 and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.
Again, this is referring to giving them an opportunity to repent by hearing the gospel message. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). It’s not forced upon people. That would make the judgment a joke if God forced salvation upon some and he did not choose to save others. No man could be held accountable for rejecting the truth if that was the case.
Yet, in 2 Thessalonians 2:10 it says that the reason why those who perish are perishing is because THEY RECEIVED NOT the love of the truth that they MIGHT be saved. There is no MIGHT be saved in Calvinism. Yet, it’s in my Bible.