The Basis of Salvation

[BreadOfLife]

How are 2 separate verses an outline for a method?

HUH??
@Cooper stated the following:
"First we need to accept Gods gift of free salvation in repentance, and secondly we need to remember what happened to Adam and Eve."

These are TWO issues that are dealt with by TWO verses of Scripture.
Why should this be an issue??

 

[BarneyFife]

HUH??
@Cooper stated the following:
"First we need to accept Gods gift of free salvation in repentance, and secondly we need to remember what happened to Adam and Eve."

These are TWO issues that are dealt with by TWO verses of Scripture.
Why should this be an issue??

Because he was laying out a method or model of progression and I asked where this model was consolidated (or ordained to come one after another) in Scripture. Steps in a process should be outlined together in some way to be considered valid. I don't see how this is so hard to understand. What connects them in sequence?

 

[BreadOfLife]

Because he was laying out a method or model of progression and I asked where this model was consolidated (or ordained to come one after another) in Scripture. Steps in a process should be outlined together in some way to be considered valid. I don't see how this is so hard to understand. What connects them in sequence?

Listen - you can't dissect the Word of God as if one verse has NOTHING to do with another.
ALL Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16) - and if it doesn't ALL harmonize - then it's a lie.

The boundaries that YOU are putting on it are the reason that there are literally tens of thousands of disjointed and perpetually-splintering Protestant sects that ALL teach different doctrines based on the parameters of each individual.

 

[BarneyFife]

Listen - you can't dissect the Word of God as if one verse has NOTHING to do with another.
ALL Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16) - and if it doesn't ALL harmonize - then it's a lie.

The boundaries that YOU are putting on it are the reason that there are literally tens of thousands of disjointed and perpetually-splintering Protestant sects that ALL teach different doctrines based on the parameters of each individual.

Nonsense. I concede, nay, I exclaim that all of Scripture is in harmony. If you can't get my point from what I've already said, then I can't think of any other way to express it.
Not understanding each other and therefore rejecting each other is what causes the plurality within Christendom. And you might want to stop dictating and pontificating if what you seek is to influence others. And by the way, Protestantism is not anticatholic. Protest means "in favor of testing" all doctrine by the word of God, regardless of who is teaching falsely. Catholic influence has increased because of a backlash caused by ignorant Protestants discriminating against Catholic people instead of protesting against false doctrine. Wake up.

 

[BreadOfLife]

Nonsense. I concede, nay, I exclaim that all of Scripture is in harmony. If you can't get my point from what I've already said, then I can't think of any other way to express it.
Not understanding each other and therefore rejecting each other is what causes the plurality within Christendom. And you might want to stop dictating and pontificating if what you seek is to influence others. And by the way, Protestantism is not anticatholic. Protest means "in favor of testing" all doctrine by the word of God, regardless of who is teaching falsely. Catholic influence has increased because of a backlash caused by ignorant Protestants discriminating against Catholic people instead of protesting against false doctrine. Wake up.

In what part of my post did I equate ALL Protestants as being "anti-Catholic"??
NOT all are anti-Catholic - but the spirit of Protestantism is perpetual splintering. If you disagree with someone's interpretations - you start up your OWN sect.

As to your original point - I gave you TWO verses of Scripture that show the Biblical truth of what @Cooper was trying to convey to you.
You've chose to deny it simply because they are not listed together in ONE neat little package - and therein lies your confusion . . .

 

[BarneyFife]

In what part of my post did I equate ALL Protestants as being "anti-Catholic"??
NOT all are anti-Catholic - but the spirit of Protestantism is perpetual splintering. If you disagree with someone's interpretations - you start up your OWN sect.

As to your original point - I gave you TWO verses of Scripture that show the Biblical truth of what @Cooper was trying to convey to you.
You've chose to deny it simply because they are not listed together in ONE neat little package - and therein lies your confusion . . .

You assume much. I just asked for some Scripture indicating that the two steps were chronological. And you're making a huge deal out of it. As far as the anti-Catholic part is concerned again you're taking a general statement personally. I mistook your position on this issue. I'm sorry. That's all I can do.

 

[Behold]

The fact that you despise Calvin yet cling so desperately to his OSAS invention only shows your hypocrisy.
'Nuff said . . .

PS - the following verses aren't going away . . .
(Matt. 7:19-23, Matt. 10:22, Matt. 24:13, Matt. 25:31–46, John 15:1-6, Rom. 11:22, 1 Cor. 4:4, 1 Cor. 9:27, 1 Cor. 10:12, 1 Tim. 4:1, 1 Tim. 4:16, 2 Tim. 2:12, Heb. 3:6, Heb. 3:12-14, Heb 6:4-6, Heb. 10:26-27, 2 Pet. 2:20-21, 2 Pet. 3:17, 1 John 2:24, 1 John 5:13, Rev. 3:5, Rev. 22:19)

I "cling" to the reality that The Blood Atonement is not temporary or related to my behavior.
If you think that you are responsible for getting yourself into heaven, then your have no understanding of The Cross.

So, lets continue with more opportunity for you to understand that Salvation is all of God and none of us.
Its God's Gift that we dont earn and we dont keep, as God alone controls what He alone gained on the Cross.
-
-
The entire bible...both Old and New Testament, is "how God is doing something, being revealed over time". And what is He revealing? He's revealing "I am Holy, you are not, and here is why.....and here is how I SOLVED IT".

The entire central principal core of the Bible, is....."RIGHTEOUSNESS"...... Its all about that..... How it was lost, the harm this caused us by being lost, why it was lost, and WHO finally came to restore us back TO Righteousness.

IN the Garden of Eden you find the first revelation of How God is going to later resolved the "sin issue" for the entire world, when you had 2 brothers, who came to God to be accepted and one was rejected totally, because he did not bring the BLOOD OF ANOTHER,.. He tried to be accepted by God by doing WORKS......by self effort, and God denied him, utterly. He was so upset about this that he murdered His brother, because of his ENVY that Abel was accepted and Cain was not.

.....Adam and Eve knew God. They had perfect fellowship with God.. They enjoyed spiritual communion with God, at all times. They lost this spiritual relationship to God, by transgressing God's order to NOT DO SOMETHING.

From this event, you have the "fall".. And this event created spiritual death in them, and upon every human ever born, since then.

In Philippians, You have the Apostle Paul who says....>"i kept the law....i am blameless in the Law......i broke no law i broke no commandments, and yet, all this perfect Self -Righteouness, he describes as "" dung"""... Its useless, because God does not accept it.......and why? Because Paul was born into sin..>He was born with a dead spirit and a fallen nature that had to be "born again", and all his perfection regarding living a perfectly Holy LIFE, as a man..."blameless in the law", could do nothing to resolve his fallen nature and dead Spirit. Jesus says..>"you MUST BE BORN AGAIN"....

So, what IS this spiritual death? Its the LOSS OF Holiness, as defined as RIGHTEOUSNESS. So, the bible then begins a long journey to show you the process of coming to understand how we are able to get this RIGHTEOUSNESS BACK. In the OT God shows you that it takes BLOOD to pay for, or to "atone for" sin. The scripture says..>"without the shedding of Blood there can be no purging, no washing CLEAN, of you.....regarding how your sins have made you dirty in God's eyes, or unrighteous..

God shows us, as the bible continues to reveal more and more in the OT..... that there was a once a year offering of animal blood that , in a sense, forgave the Jews, for a year, their sin. And yet, this process was not a completed solution because the effect of the clearing of sin was temporary. So, God is showing us in the OT that the Law is our enemy, because it has no ability to make us or give us or restore to us "righteousness".. It only has the POWER to define us as sinners and our deeds as SIN. Its by the revelation of the Law that we see ourselves as dirty as compared to a HOLY GOD.

So, in ALL THIS, we see that we are helpless. We, can't do anything to bring back our Lost Righteousness that God requires us to have so that we could be RESTORED into His family. So what can we do? We are helpless.....we are SO LOST....

Enter JESUS. Jesus is God come to Earth to die on a Cross. And this sacrifice by God on the Cross is the POWER OF GOD that eternally forgives, pardons, and redeems us from our sin. This is accomplished by God Himself as Christ, bearing and becoming not just our sin, but the sin of the Entire World. "For God so loved the WORLD that He GAVE......and whosoever will BELIEVE"..

So, this Sacrifice by GOD on the CFOSS.... is a one time and eternal payment for the sin of the world that is FREELY offered to "all who will call on the Name of Jesus, and be saved..( born again)".

This is God, on the Cross, paying for the sin of the World, AND offering us His Righteousness as This HOLY GIFT. And when we hear this "Gospel" that im giving you, and Trust in Christ, then God sees that Faith in our heart and accepts it, and then HE FREELY gives to us His "gift of Righteousness" which then completely restores us into the same RIGHTEOUS Sinless condition that Adam was in before his righteousness was lost because of His disobedience to God, which caused us to be born with the same fallen nature.

And the BEAUTY of God's free Gift of Righteousness, is that its maintained for us by God, because its HIS GIFT that is given. He takes full responsibility for not only saving us with His very own Blood, but this same BLOOD is an Eternal Redemption.....its "Everlasting".....Its, "once and for all"......It can't be broken, it can't be lost, it can't be stopped, because it's GOD doing it all for us, for FREE by Himself.

Philippians 1:6. "God who began salvation in the born again, will HIMSELF be FAITHFUL to Complete it"..

God's faithfulness, is TRUE.

Salvation is God saving us and keeping us Saved , so that we always have God's righteous as our very own, = once we are BORN AGAIN.

This is the GRACE of GOD.

 

[CadyandZoe]

We CANNOT be saved unless we cooperate with God's grace.
OSAS is a perversion of men . . .

Bear in mind that Paul writes epistles to churches filled with people whom God may or may not be saving. A warning given to a church is not the same thing as a warning given to an individual. What might be true, generally, about a group is not necessarily true about a particular individual in that group. We should not assume that what is true of a particular church located in a particular city is true of individual members in that church.

So for instance, Romans 11:22 is a warning to Gentiles, taken as a whole, not to particular individuals. Paul is saying nothing in that passage about the salvation of any one individual. He is NOT suggesting that God might one day be kind and the next day be severe to an individual. His point is to say that Israel, taken as a whole (not individual Jews) have been cut off the tree, whereas, the Gentiles, taken as a whole have been grafted onto the tree. And he says, this circumstance may be reversed. This passage isn't talking about salvation per se, it is talking about access to the promises, essentially the scriptures.

The so called, "warning passages" do not defeat the doctrine of God's workmanship. Paul never argues that a God will stop saving someone.

 

[CadyandZoe]

@Cooper I would like to know a bit more regarding your comment about Adam and Eve. I don't think you got a fair hearing. What did you have in mind?

 

[BreadOfLife]

Bear in mind that Paul writes epistles to churches filled with people whom God may or may not be saving. A warning given to a church is not the same thing as a warning given to an individual. What might be true, generally, about a group is not necessarily true about a particular individual in that group. We should not assume that what is true of a particular church located in a particular city is true of individual members in that church.

So for instance, Romans 11:22 is a warning to Gentiles, taken as a whole, not to particular individuals. Paul is saying nothing in that passage about the salvation of any one individual. He is NOT suggesting that God might one day be kind and the next day be severe to an individual. His point is to say that Israel, taken as a whole (not individual Jews) have been cut off the tree, whereas, the Gentiles, taken as a whole have been grafted onto the tree. And he says, this circumstance may be reversed. This passage isn't talking about salvation per se, it is talking about access to the promises, essentially the scriptures.

The so called, "warning passages" do not defeat the doctrine of God's workmanship. Paul never argues that a God will stop saving someone.

And who say ANYTHING about "defeating" God's workmanship?

Part of God's workman ship is that we FREELY come to Him - or that we FREELY walk away from Him. That is the only true love.
We're not lifeless automatons who are pushed in one direction because we have no will of our own. the ENTIRE Gospel message is about the CHOICE we have - not a sentence that we will be strapped to against our will.

Anyway - one of the points you missed about the verses I presented was the word "Epignosis. As I stated earlier - "Epignosis" is a full, experiential and relational knowledge - not just an intellectual assent (gnosis/oida). BOTH Peter and the writer of Hebrews are writing to truly converted, born-again believers.
These people are being warned NOT to fall back into darkness and lose their security.

 

[BreadOfLife]

You assume much. I just asked for some Scripture indicating that the two steps were chronological. And you're making a huge deal out of it. As far as the anti-Catholic part is concerned again you're taking a general statement personally. I mistook your position on this issue. I'm sorry. That's all I can do.

EXCUSE me??

Ummmm YOU are the one who objected to the Scriptural evidence I presented. I didn't make a "huge deal" out of anything.
YOU began putting all of your own limitations on that Scriptural evidence and claiming that it didn't fit YOUR understanding.

All I can do is give you the Scriptural evidence YOU requested.
If you reject it - that's your problem, not mine . . .

 

[BreadOfLife]

I "cling" to the reality that The Blood Atonement is not temporary or related to my behavior.
If you think that you are responsible for getting yourself into heaven, then your have no understanding of The Cross.

So, lets continue with more opportunity for you to understand that Salvation is all of God and none of us.
Its God's Gift that we dont earn and we dont keep, as God alone controls what He alone gained on the Cross.
-
-
The entire bible...both Old and New Testament, is "how God is doing something, being revealed over time". And what is He revealing? He's revealing "I am Holy, you are not, and here is why.....and here is how I SOLVED IT".

The entire central principal core of the Bible, is....."RIGHTEOUSNESS"...... Its all about that..... How it was lost, the harm this caused us by being lost, why it was lost, and WHO finally came to restore us back TO Righteousness.

IN the Garden of Eden you find the first revelation of How God is going to later resolved the "sin issue" for the entire world, when you had 2 brothers, who came to God to be accepted and one was rejected totally, because he did not bring the BLOOD OF ANOTHER,.. He tried to be accepted by God by doing WORKS......by self effort, and God denied him, utterly. He was so upset about this that he murdered His brother, because of his ENVY that Abel was accepted and Cain was not.

.....Adam and Eve knew God. They had perfect fellowship with God.. They enjoyed spiritual communion with God, at all times. They lost this spiritual relationship to God, by transgressing God's order to NOT DO SOMETHING.

From this event, you have the "fall".. And this event created spiritual death in them, and upon every human ever born, since then.

In Philippians, You have the Apostle Paul who says....>"i kept the law....i am blameless in the Law......i broke no law i broke no commandments, and yet, all this perfect Self -Righteouness, he describes as "" dung"""... Its useless, because God does not accept it.......and why? Because Paul was born into sin..>He was born with a dead spirit and a fallen nature that had to be "born again", and all his perfection regarding living a perfectly Holy LIFE, as a man..."blameless in the law", could do nothing to resolve his fallen nature and dead Spirit. Jesus says..>"you MUST BE BORN AGAIN"....

So, what IS this spiritual death? Its the LOSS OF Holiness, as defined as RIGHTEOUSNESS. So, the bible then begins a long journey to show you the process of coming to understand how we are able to get this RIGHTEOUSNESS BACK. In the OT God shows you that it takes BLOOD to pay for, or to "atone for" sin. The scripture says..>"without the shedding of Blood there can be no purging, no washing CLEAN, of you.....regarding how your sins have made you dirty in God's eyes, or unrighteous..

God shows us, as the bible continues to reveal more and more in the OT..... that there was a once a year offering of animal blood that , in a sense, forgave the Jews, for a year, their sin. And yet, this process was not a completed solution because the effect of the clearing of sin was temporary. So, God is showing us in the OT that the Law is our enemy, because it has no ability to make us or give us or restore to us "righteousness".. It only has the POWER to define us as sinners and our deeds as SIN. Its by the revelation of the Law that we see ourselves as dirty as compared to a HOLY GOD.

So, in ALL THIS, we see that we are helpless. We, can't do anything to bring back our Lost Righteousness that God requires us to have so that we could be RESTORED into His family. So what can we do? We are helpless.....we are SO LOST....

Enter JESUS. Jesus is God come to Earth to die on a Cross. And this sacrifice by God on the Cross is the POWER OF GOD that eternally forgives, pardons, and redeems us from our sin. This is accomplished by God Himself as Christ, bearing and becoming not just our sin, but the sin of the Entire World. "For God so loved the WORLD that He GAVE......and whosoever will BELIEVE"..

So, this Sacrifice by GOD on the CFOSS.... is a one time and eternal payment for the sin of the world that is FREELY offered to "all who will call on the Name of Jesus, and be saved..( born again)".

This is God, on the Cross, paying for the sin of the World, AND offering us His Righteousness as This HOLY GIFT. And when we hear this "Gospel" that im giving you, and Trust in Christ, then God sees that Faith in our heart and accepts it, and then HE FREELY gives to us His "gift of Righteousness" which then completely restores us into the same RIGHTEOUS Sinless condition that Adam was in before his righteousness was lost because of His disobedience to God, which caused us to be born with the same fallen nature.

And the BEAUTY of God's free Gift of Righteousness, is that its maintained for us by God, because its HIS GIFT that is given. He takes full responsibility for not only saving us with His very own Blood, but this same BLOOD is an Eternal Redemption.....its "Everlasting".....Its, "once and for all"......It can't be broken, it can't be lost, it can't be stopped, because it's GOD doing it all for us, for FREE by Himself.

Philippians 1:6. "God who began salvation in the born again, will HIMSELF be FAITHFUL to Complete it"..

God's faithfulness, is TRUE.

Salvation is God saving us and keeping us Saved , so that we always have God's righteous as our very own, = once we are BORN AGAIN.

This is the GRACE of GOD.

Another verbose rant - another frantic dodge.

Just ADDRESS the Scriptural evidence I presented that refutes your 16th century, man-made invention of OSAS already . . .
(Matt. 7:19-23, Matt. 10:22, Matt. 24:13, Matt. 25:31–46, John 15:1-6, Rom. 11:22, 1 Cor. 4:4, 1 Cor. 9:27, 1 Cor. 10:12, 1 Tim. 4:1, 1 Tim. 4:16, 2 Tim. 2:12, Heb. 3:6, Heb. 3:12-14, Heb 6:4-6, Heb. 10:26-27, 2 Pet. 2:20-21, 2 Pet. 3:17, 1 John 2:24, 1 John 5:13, Rev. 3:5, Rev. 22:19)

 

[Cooper]

@Cooper I would like to know a bit more regarding your comment about Adam and Eve. I don't think you got a fair hearing. What did you have in mind?

If I remember correctly, the discussion was about salvation and as we know, all that is necessary, is for us to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (for whom he truly is) and that we invite him into our heart and life and follow Him all the days of our life. At that moment we are saved.

About the same time as I posted this people were talking about the subject of "Once Saved Always Saved" and as there are numerous warnings against backsliding I reminded people of what happened to Adam and Eve when they strayed away from God, (they were thrust out from His presence) adding that those who remain faithful to the Lord, then the warning in 2 Peter 2:21 would not apply. As far as I know Adam and Eve never did return to God, and so would be eternally damned. Had they repented of their sin, the Good Shepherd, as in the parable of the Prodigal Son, will always welcome us back to the fold.
.

 

[CadyandZoe]

If I remember correctly, the discussion was about salvation and as we know, all that is necessary, is for us to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (for whom he truly is) and that we invite him into our heart and life and follow Him all the days of our life. At that moment we are saved.

About the same time as I posted this people were talking about the subject of "Once Saved Always Saved" and as there are numerous warnings against backsliding I reminded people of what happened to Adam and Eve when they strayed away from God, (they were thrust out from His presence) adding that those who remain faithful to the Lord, the warning in 2 Peter 2:21 would not apply. As far as I know Adam and Eve never did return to God, and so would be eternally damned. Had they repented of their sin, the Good Shepherd, as in the parable of the Prodigal Son, will always welcome us back to the fold.
.

Thank you for your thoughtful answer. With regard to the faith of Adam and Eve, or lack thereof, you might investigate the meanings of the names of Eve's children. I think Eve meditated on God's prediction concerning her children.

 

[Cooper]

All I know, off the top of my head is that the nation of Israel stemmed from them, but where should I look in particular?
.

 

[CadyandZoe]

And who say ANYTHING about "defeating" God's workmanship?

I did. Remember? And so did Paul.

Ephesians 2:8-10
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

The Greek word for "workmanship" indicates a work of art, such as a painting, a sculpture, a statue, a well crafted musical instrument and etc. Those whom God is saving are his work of art, his craftsmanship. The are his creation.

In your argument against OSAS, you toss out the baby with the bathwater. In fact, you aren't arguing against OSAS at all, which is a misnomer. The acronym OSAS represents the idea that once a person makes a confession of faith, e.g. walking forward during a worship service, that person will never loose his salvation. Of course, you and I both know this is not true. People can fall away after they initially believe the gospel and the Bible gives no hope to those who do.

Your focus on freedom of the will, however, misses the essential nature of salvation itself, which is God delivering us from ourselves. If salvation was contingent on a free will choice, no one could be saved. God is saving us from, or in spite of our free will choices. Essentially, we are victims of his grace (if you can dig it.) As Paul says, we are his workmanship, his creation in Christ Jesus.

Anyway - one of the points you missed about the verses I presented was the word "Epignosis. As I stated earlier - "Epignosis" is a full, experiential and relational knowledge - not just an intellectual assent (gnosis/oida). BOTH Peter and the writer of Hebrews are writing to truly converted, born-again believers.

Again, we cannot form doctrines about individual people based on writings to a group of people. Warnings to a group are not the same thing as warnings to an individual.

These people are being warned NOT to fall back into darkness and lose their security.

Losing security is an absurd notion. Either our salvation is secure or it isn't. But I encourage us to rethink our view of salvation, which is present tense, "we are being saved" rather than past tense, "we were saved." Our security is found in the savior, not in our choices. We are not saving ourselves; we are being saved by someone else. We are not depending on our own free choices; we are depending on the free choice of someone else, namely God the father and his son Jesus Christ.

 

[BreadOfLife]

I did. Remember? And so did Paul.

Ephesians 2:8-10
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

The Greek word for "workmanship" indicates a work of art, such as a painting, a sculpture, a statue, a well crafted musical instrument and etc. Those whom God is saving are his work of art, his craftsmanship. The are his creation.

In your argument against OSAS, you toss out the baby with the bathwater. In fact, you aren't arguing against OSAS at all, which is a misnomer. The acronym OSAS represents the idea that once a person makes a confession of faith, e.g. walking forward during a worship service, that person will never loose his salvation. Of course, you and I both know this is not true. People can fall away after they initially believe the gospel and the Bible gives no hope to those who do.

Your focus on freedom of the will, however, misses the essential nature of salvation itself, which is God delivering us from ourselves. If salvation was contingent on a free will choice, no one could be saved. God is saving us from, or in spite of our free will choices. Essentially, we are victims of his grace (if you can dig it.) As Paul says, we are his workmanship, his creation in Christ Jesus.

Again, we cannot form doctrines about individual people based on writings to a group of people. Warnings to a group are not the same thing as warnings to an individual.

Yes, we ARE His workmanship - like a work of art. BUT, unlike a mere work of art, we are NOT inanimate objects.
We RETAIN our free will.;

What good is a love that is coerced? God doesn't have to coerce us into loving him.
He gives us the choice to love Him or to reject Him - at ANY point. THAT is what those verses are all about.

Losing security is an absurd notion.

Either our salvation is secure or it isn't. But I encourage us to rethink our view of salvation, which is present tense, "we are being saved" rather than past tense, "we were saved." Our security is found in the savior, not in our choices. We are not saving ourselves; we are being saved by someone else. We are not depending on our own free choices; we are depending on the free choice of someone else, namely God the father and his son Jesus Christ.

How is this Biblical teaching an "absurd notion"??

2 Peter 3:17
Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and FALL FROM YOUR SECURE POSITION.

This isn't something I just "made up" - it's a SCRIPTURAL warning.
There is NO such thing as "Eternal Security" that is devoid of our cooperation with God's grace.

Matt. 23:37
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and YOU WERE NOT WILLING!"

 

[BarneyFife]

EXCUSE me??

Ummmm YOU are the one who objected to the Scriptural evidence I presented. I didn't make a "huge deal" out of anything.
YOU began putting all of your own limitations on that Scriptural evidence and claiming that it didn't fit YOUR understanding.

All I can do is give you the Scriptural evidence YOU requested.
If you reject it - that's your problem, not mine . . .

This has been fun, but...

 

[BreadOfLife]

Again, we cannot form doctrines about individual people based on writings to a group of people. Warnings to a group are not the same thing as warnings to an individual.

You're focusing on the "group" instead of the language used, which is FAR more important.

I have challenged you and everybody else to deal with "Epignosis". This tells us that the people being written to have a FULL, experiential and relational knowledge of Christ (Heb. 10:26-27, 2 Pet. 2:20-22) - and are being warned not to fall away and LOSE their security.

 

[CadyandZoe]

Yes, we ARE His workmanship - like a work of art. BUT, unlike a mere work of art, we are NOT inanimate objects.
We RETAIN our free will.;

Of course. We retain our free will. So what? I already dealt with this in my previous post.

What good is a love that is coerced?

Who said anything about coercion?

This seems to be your only focus, your only argument, which does NOT deal with salvation. You have target fixation, unable to see other scriptures that bear on the subject. This is why you say, "we are his workmanship BUT . . ." Either we are his workmanship or not. Paul said we are a creation in Christ Jesus. We are a creation. Let that sink in. The choices of those whom God is saving are definitely a reflection of the inwardness he is creating inside them. Thus, the sum and substance of salvation is a supernatural transformation of a person at the core of his or her being. Thus, Biblical warnings become the venue in which the saints demonstrate and practice the sanctification of the Holy Spirit.

You want to argue that the Bible contains warnings; and the presence of warnings logically implies both danger and failure. Given that mankind has free will, and given that mankind is weak and morally inept, then a falling away from the faith remains a logical possibility. Therefore one can lose his salvation.

But your argument side-steps the essential nature of salvation itself, which involves a divine commission, whereby God himself has decided to save someone. He is saving us, we are not saving ourselves. And don't let this view escape your notice. The Bible teaches us that God is an active agent, working constantly on our behalf, giving us enlightenment, moral training, and fruits of the Spirit. Your claim that such a person can fall away is patently absurd.

Your view totally ignores both the power and the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of those whom God is saving.