Hebrews 10:26-31

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Ferris Bueller

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You have this idea that dead faith, or hating Jesus, or no longer wanting to be saved, is how you stop being born again.

C'mon.
Wake up.
If you (anybody) have dead faith you either stopped believeing or you were never saved to begin with (take your pick according to your theology of preference). The point being YOU ARE IN UNBELIEF. YOU ARE NOT SAVED. UNBELIEVERS ARE NOT SAVED PEOPLE. YOU wake up!
 
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Ferris Bueller

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God set His seal of ownership on us. Does anyone really think that any of us can take away from God what He has declared His property?
I don't know. I just know if you don't believe, then you aren't saved. I leave it up to the individual believer to decide if the person who has fallen away into unbelief and, thus, is not saved was never really born again to begin with, or has stopped believing in Christ. Because it doesn't matter. That person is in unbelief. They are on their way to hell. It doesn't matter how they got there. They are on their way to hell. Whether they ever really believed to begin with or stopped believing doesn't change the fact they are in unbelief and if they die in that unbelief they won't go into the kingdom when Christ comes back. Unbelievers do not get to go into the kingdom with born again believers. Unbelievers are not born again.
 

Behold

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Even if you fall into unbelief and a rejection of Christ?

Of course..

See, you and "justbyfaith".... are trusting in Faith, vs, Trusting that God has you and will keep you always = based on the Blood of Jesus.
Philippians 1:6

You and justbyfaith... have this theology, that....your Faith is your Savior, and that is why you always want to put the emphasis on "keeping faith" as how YOU keep yourself saved.
Do you see?

You have : faith in faith.....and that is not correct faith.
Correct faith is to believe that JESUS is why you go to heaven, and not your faith.

The faith that gets us into heaven, God accepted ONE TIME.....and that is the day we are born again..
Proof that God accepted our Faith, ONCE, is because we are only born again ONCE.

We, the believers, are already in heaven....."seated in Heavenly places, in Christ".
We are already there.......
And so, if we we have a bad day down here, a sinful thought, or when a person just grows cold and loses interest in the things of God.....

Well, God knew they would.......... He knew it on the day they were saved, and He saved them anyway..
He saved them anyway.....
So God would be a FOOL to know you are going to lose your salvation later, and then save you anyway.
God is not a fool, and He knows that.... "where sin abounds, GRACE more abounds".
God knows that Jesus became our sin, and He wrote Romans 4:8 that says that whatever you do wrong, after you are saved, He does not charge that sin to you in Eternity, as Jesus has paid for it already, on the CROSS, on earth.

So, : fornication, hate, watching R-rated Cable TV.....downloading porn...... Blaming and hating God because your baby died.....backsliding......dead faith...... all of this.......is all eternally resolved by the Blood Atonement.


So, no matter if you are DEMAS, or if you are Paul who finished his course.....the only reason that any of us are in heaven right now, and will be later after we die, Literally in a new body...., is because we are BORN AGAIN down here, ONCE.

There is no way to stop being born again, and being born again is the only reason that you go to heaven, or to hell, if you are not born again.

This is why Jesus stressed utterly...."you MUST be born again"..
He did not say, you must keep commandments.
He did not say, you must be water baptized.
But JESUS absolutely stressed....."You MUST be BORN AGAIN".
 

Ferris Bueller

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You and justbyfaith... have this theology, that....your Faith is your Savior, and that is why you always want to put the emphasis on "keeping faith" as how YOU keep yourself saved.
And there's something wrong with 'keeping faith'? Is that somehow the works gospel Paul warned us about, lol? Isn't it rather that the works gospel is when you perform works of the law to earn salvation? Paul explains how having faith is the opposite of working to earn salvation. Having faith in the blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sin is not the works gospel, lol.
 

Behold

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Faith IS trusting that God has you and will keep you always, lol!

Yes, and when you actually believe that, you will not believe that faith is why you lose your salvation or keep it.
As then, you will have actually started to believe that God keeps you saved, and you dont keep yourself saved by making sure you dont lose your faith.

See, you believe that if you lose your faith, then you lose your salvation.
So, that is faith .....in faith.........that is not faith that God will keep you saved.
 

Tong2020

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The believer can not live unchanged in his old sinful life. The believer HAS to change, because God's seed is in him and is growing. That's how you know you are really saved.

If God's seed is not growing in you and you are continuing in your old life unchanged you have either never really believed and been born again, or, you have stopped believing (take your pick according to your particular theology, doesn't matter). The point is, whichever is true, you are in unbelief. You have not retained the seed of the gospel. Maybe you think you have but your unchanged life shows it does not remain in you. The church will tell you you're saved no matter what as long as you say you believed. The word of God says you are in unbelief and that the word of God does not abide in you.

24 ...see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25And this is what he promised us—eternal life.
26I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 1 John 2:24-26
I quoted the NKJV which renders 1 John 3:9 different from what you quoted. That is what I was asking of you as to what you can say about that.

Tong
R1485
 

Behold

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And there's something wrong with 'keeping faith'? Is that somehow the works gospel Paul warned us about, lol? Isn't it rather that the works gospel is when you perform works of the law to earn salvation?


Paul says in Philippians that trying to do works or keep commandments or any type of good behavior to try to be accepted by God, is "dung".

So, any type of Christianity that is based on "what i do, is how i keep myself saved" is "dung".

Its the same principle.
Its a person who is trying by self effort to BE SAVED or STAY SAVED.
In both cases, Paul teaches that this is "dung"...... Thats its actual value.
 

Behold

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I quoted the NKJV which renders 1 John 3:9 different from what you quoted. That is what I was asking of you as to what you can say about that.
Tong
R1485

Thats the verse that teaches that there is the part of you that is Spiritually Born again.........that can't sin.
Thats the part of you that is "in Christ".
Thats the born again part of you that exists as....>"As Christ is, so are the born again, in this world"..

So, where a Legalist is in the weeds and in the dark, is found in that verse.....as they do not understand that the REAL THEM....the REAL US......is not our body, or our carnal mind, or our deeds we do in the body, on earth.
But Rather, the REAL US, is the BORN AGAIN SPIRIT that is "One with God and Christ"...... that "can't sin".....as that verse in 1 John explains.
 

Behold

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And there's something wrong with 'keeping faith'? Is that somehow the works gospel Paul warned us about, lol? Isn't it rather that the works gospel is when you perform works of the law to earn salvation? Paul explains how having faith is the opposite of working to earn salvation. Having faith in the blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sin is not the works gospel, lol.


Lets think about it again..

What is "saving faith". ????

Is it that Faith is the Savior? Is it that if we keep our faith, then we keep ourselves saved?
Well, if Faith saves us, then what does the blood of Jesus and the Cross do?

A person says......"but what if i lose my faith"..
Well, God already has it......took it......accepted it, and gave you the new birth.
Jesus became the "author and finisher of your faith"..
So, in all cases...... how your faith feels to you, is not related to what God has done for you, the instant HE took your faith, and gave you His righteousness...as "the GIFT of Righteousness".

"faith is COUNTED as Righteousness"..= ONCE...= born again.
After that "faith", you belong to God and He will never let you go.
ITs done.
Paul says we are "bought with a price"......and BOUGHT, means we are purchased and belong to GOD.
This can't change, as the blood of Jesus makes certain it can't.

So, when we are thinking about the Gospel, and what it means to be a new creation in Christ, then this is a END RESULT of God having already accepted our Faith.....ONCE.

We dont work out our faith,.....we work out our SALVATION......
As THAT is what we have to work out........because we ARE ALREADY SAVED.

Gotta run......talk to you later.
 
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Tong2020

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Basically I'm thinking that before rebirth, we are just waves blown by the sea, we are dead, living dead men's lives. We simply followed the lusts of our flesh and our minds, because we didn't have any other option.

We didn't have the awareness of what sin is that we do in Christ. We committed sin both with and without thought. God selected a certain nation, and gave a list of Laws and remedies which included a remedy for sins committed unintentionally.

Sin in transgression of the Law, and transgression of the Law can be deliberate or not. But I don't think that's the only definition of sin. We also know that which is not of faith is sin. So anything I'm doing outside of faith in God is therefore sin, even things that may seem good to everyone around me.

Like giving money to a poor man, can that be sin? I think it is if I knew that God wanted me to give it to my horrible sister in law or whatever, for instance.

We have our ideas for our lives, and God has His ideas for our lives. If I follow my ideas instead of His, then this is, to me, sin. A much more general approach.

Living in trust in Jesus means I expect His ways to be good, and effective, and all that, so I do those things. If I stop trusting, I stop doing what He leads me to do.

Galatians says that if we walk in the Spirit, we will not do the works of the flesh. So to me, the key here is to remain walking in the Spirit. When I see flesh-works in my life, this means I need to return to walking in the Spirit. It's not so much about, I have to stop yelling at my wife, though that is completely valid. But I don't stop yelling at her by becoming "more zealous" to make that happen, though that can appear to help. The true solution, in my thinking, is remember God's promises, and believe them.

I think the tendency in us is that we see what our flesh still does, we own these for ourselves as if we were still guilty before God - Oh the Scandal of Grace! - though we are not. But we see ourselves defined by what we see instead of what we believe, and that very act is to leave faith in favor of sight.

I can fight and struggle and overcome my propensity to yell at my wife, and I think that's how we often try to address sin.

But what I've come to learn is that the power of sin disappears when I am communing with God. And communing with God comes in realizing how fully reconciled to God that I am. That He no longer even holds me guilty for the sins I may be committing Right Now! With no impediment my spirit flies into His arms!

So there is no impatience, or lack of gentleness, or any such thing, only the peace and love and joy which come from God. And when my wife says that uninformed thing that may have set me off, I respond with what is in me - God's love.

Someone who is not settled in the permanence of their reconciliation to God, well, just to say, many I've known demonstrate the thinking that they have to become zealous for good works, and try to change their behavior to prove to God their fervor, or to buy God's love by being good, or some such. It becomes all about the sins.

But being settled on the matter of my salvation, that I've been redeemed because God did it, it was what He wanted, and now He has what He set out to have - me. Such as I am. But they say, there's no accounting for taste! But then, God already knows what He's forming me into, I only see what looks to me like wreckage.

But again, faith, not sight.

Anyway, these are some of my thoughts on the topic.

Much love!
My thoughts on intentional and unintentional sins.

There was a time, that is, from Adam to Moses, when the law was not yet given so sin is not imputed then. Nevertheless all have sinned. Does it mean all sins then were unintentional sins? I think there are intentional sins as well. They have the knowledge of good and evil in them. What evil they know, when they do it deliberately, that would be intentional sin. And what evil they do that they have no knowledge of, that would be unintentional sin.

Now, fast forward to the time of Moses and the law. The rest of the world then who do not have the law and don’t know the law, sins as it was before the law. But concerning Israel who are under the law, it was not quite the same. They have written laws that God gave them to keep and live by. Nonetheless, just the same, to the Israelites, there are unintentional and intentional sins.

Fast forward again to the time of the gospel and the Christians. Is there such a thing as unintentional sins to the Christians (genuine only of course)? I think there is. No Christian is perfected yet and so don’t have perfect knowledge of what is sin and what is not. So they will one way or another be committing acts that they are not yet of the knowledge that it is sin. The babes in the faith commits unintentional sins the most and the mature in the faith commits the less. Is there such a thing as intentional sins to the Christians? This is the harder question I think. But I think there is, though with qualification. Such intentional sin is one that is not unbelief nor one that is out of unbelief. Examples of intentional sin would be dishonesty, selfishness, breaking a promise or an oath, pride, are some of many.

Tong
R1486
 
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marks

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"faith is COUNTED as Righteousness"..= ONCE...= born again.
After that "faith", you belong to God and He will never let you go.
ITs done.
After God reckons the ungodly to be righteous, who or what can take that away? As if you could go against God!

His counsel will stand, and He justifies the ungodly.

Much love!
 

Tong2020

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Yes, this is the part I want to be clearer about. Because I really do think that we have power over all sins, so it becomes a matter of choosing. But I agree with you that in our experience of life, that doesn't seem to be true. Example, we realize, that thing I did yesterday, Doh!

That's something else I think about, things that I didn't think were sins in the past - completely off my radar, really - I now realize are. And what am I doing now that I won't realize is sin until some years from now?

And then there is Paul, I don't even judge myself, not that makes me self-justified, just that he recognized his lack of qualification to judge himself. So where does that leave us?

So maybe that's where we identify those "sins of ignorance", in that we don't have a full knowledge of sins in our life, again going back to Paul's words, Jesus alone truly knows the motives and thoughts in our hearts. Not even we ourselves know ourselves as well as Jesus.

Your thoughts?

Much love!
My thoughts:

Yes the Christian (genuine of course) have the power to overcome sin. But we can only overcome what we know is sin. We can’t overcome a sin that we don’t know is sin.

What then should the Christian do? Should the Christian strive to know all sin so that he can overcome them? Or what?

Tong
R1487
 

marks

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My thoughts:

Yes the Christian (genuine of course) have the power to overcome sin. But we can only overcome what we know is sin. We can’t overcome a sin that we don’t know is sin.

What then should the Christian do? Should the Christian strive to know all sin so that he can overcome them? Or what?

Tong
R1487
My thinking is that I don't focus so much on the sins, not ignore them, but not make that the center of my focus. I can try to root out every sin I may commit, but I'm more concerned with being in intimate communion with God. God promises me that no matter what my behavior, no matter what my failings, I remain in fellowship with Him, because my fellowship with Him is based on what Jesus did, and not what I do.

When I rest in that truth, then by faith blossoms, my heart opens to God, and I walk in the Spirit, and sin is overcome. Without having to give a thought towards sin.

I can overcome sin by not fighting against sin, but by drawing near to God.

So to me the answer is in knowing the sin issue is done away with, and now I can simply live unto God as one alive from among the dead. Sin and Law are matters for the dead. We are alive in Christ, and can live.

Much love!
 
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marks

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My thoughts on intentional and unintentional sins.

There was a time, that is, from Adam to Moses, when the law was not yet given so sin is not imputed then. Nevertheless all have sinned. Does it mean all sins then were unintentional sins? I think there are intentional sins as well. They have the knowledge of good and evil in them. What evil they know, when they do it deliberately, that would be intentional sin. And what evil they do that they have no knowledge of, that would be unintentional sin.

Now, fast forward to the time of Moses and the law. The rest of the world then who do not have the law and don’t know the law, sins as it was before the law. But concerning Israel who are under the law, it was not quite the same. They have written laws that God gave them to keep and live by. Nonetheless, just the same, to the Israelites, there are unintentional and intentional sins.

Fast forward again to the time of the gospel and the Christians. Is there such a thing as unintentional sins to the Christians (genuine only of course)? I think there is. No Christian is perfected yet and so don’t have perfect knowledge of what is sin and what is not. So they will one way or another be committing acts that they are not yet of the knowledge that it is sin. The babes in the faith commits unintentional sins the most and the mature in the faith commits the less. Is there such a thing as intentional sins to the Christians? This is the harder question I think. But I think there is, though with qualification. Such intentional sin is one that does not constitute unbelief. Examples of intentional sin would be dishonesty, selfishness, breaking a promise or an oath, pride, are some of many.

Tong
R1486
The more I think about this, the more I'm thinking this question is answered in the difference between the theological reality of our freedom from sin, and our experience of life as we aren't always mindful of which mind is filling our thoughts, the mind of the flesh or the mind of Christ.

So when we've slipped into the mind of the flesh, we can find ourselves unwittingly committing sins. But when we resume taking our thoughts captive to Christ again, then we slip back out.

Perhaps the difference between our experience of intentional and unintentional sin has more to do with our knowledge of what sin is, and our self-awareness.

?

Much love!
 

Ferris Bueller

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I was not even arguing. I was simply asking the questions. And it surprises me you seem to not able to give a straight answer.

Well, if you can’t give me a straight answer that I would not be guessing what it is you believe, there’s nothing I can do but guess and not know what it is you believe.

Tong
R1475
I agree with the scriptures I posted that show us genuine believers can in fact stop believing. Does that mean that the Galatians and the Corinthians, for example, could never come back to faith in the gospel? No. It that were so, Paul would not have tried to bring them back. Does the person who has stopped believing always come back to faith? I don't know. You decide what you want to believe about that and I will believe what I want to believe about it. We should leave it at that. Everybody should. What's important is that we are true believers today and on the day we leave the body. Our attention is supposed to be there, not on whether a person is always saved no matter what. That contention has led a lot of people astray.
 

Ferris Bueller

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I’d like to know, do you believe or agree that when God had chosen to save a person, that person will be saved?
Yes, that person is saved the moment they exhibit faith in Christ in response to God's calling.
Will that person continue in that faith to the very end and so be saved when Jesus comes back? I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. The exhortation of the scriptures is for the believer to make his calling and election sure. IOW, make sure of it. And the Bible says you do that by doing works of righteousness. If you can show by your actions that you have the righteousness of God through faith in Christ you can be assured that you have in fact been called and elected to salvation. That's not a works gospel, folks. That's what the Bible says.
 
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