I do. I have failed in trust before, and its always in small things, like worry over provision or over how I have nothing saved for retirement. I have turned from remaining in trust and sunk into a morass of worries. So of course I believe I can turn from trust. I've seen me do it. And not on the big and huge things but rather on temporal and temporary things!
Renouncing My Faith
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I do. I have failed in trust before, and its always in small things, like worry over provision or over how I have nothing saved for retirement. I have turned from remaining in trust and sunk into a morass of worries. So of course I believe I can turn from trust. I've seen me do it. And not on the big and huge things but rather on temporal and temporary things!
If you believe as I do that just like you can't undo being born from your parents, that you cannot undo being born from God, and therefore, we will in fact be His forever, being born His Own children.
Much love!
I don't believe there are any that teach otherwise. We can look at them together if you wish. As you seem fairly settled on the matter, I'll just say, only if you wish.
It's the truth that makes us free, not falsehood.
Much love!
James 5: 19-20
19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
I just don't see how this is possible if it's once saved, always saved.
Waiting on him
Well-Known Member
My opinion as to one saying salvation can be lost is to say God is incompetent to deliver.. but He is in the delivery business and He never fails.
Unlike ups or Fedex.
Let me ask you . . . what is your understanding of this part:
John 15
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
What is the "branch in me that bears not fruit"? When it says, "he takes away", what does that mean?
My question is this . . . Save them from death, which death? The second death? Or an untimely physical death?
Much love!
Waiting on him
Well-Known Member
Waiting on him
Well-Known Member
Does scripture tell us to save money and invest in the stock market or is this the financial institution whispering?
Stumpmaster
Well-Known Member
Hi Renniks, Calvinism wasn't heard of among the early Christians, and freewill and predestination weren't considered mutually exclusive but part of the dynamic that adheres to God's infallible foreknowledge of those who remain faithful and are thus His Elect.
2Pe 1:10-11
(10) Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if you do these things, you shall never fall:
(11) For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
It says the branch will be thrown into the fire, but you left out that part..
If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
They are burned because they don't remain in him. The one who no longer love hims and others (as he commands) will end in hell if he continues on that path. But that's not the verse I quoted.
I don't see any predestination there. I see a freewill choice to be elect or not.
I've come to agree. Been back and forth on this a few times but, too many scriptures seem to pan it out than not.
"and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection." Luke 20:36
"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life." 1 John 5:13
Ephesians 1:13-14
"In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory."
Romans 11:29
"For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable for He does not withdraw what He has given, nor does He change His mind about those to whom He gives His grace or to whom He sends His call."
"...He is able to save us completely..."
So many more too.
Lol...hard to imagine a former "believer"...how can one walk away once they have tasted and seen that He is good? Makes me believe their seeds fell on hard soil....?
No, this isn't the verse, but I think it brings understanding to that verse.
This isn't the branch that is not in Jesus, this is a branch that is in Jesus, but does not bear fruit. The Father, the husbandman, "carries" that branch away, "airei", to take up and carry away.
There are branches that are in Jesus, and those that are not.
John 15
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
There are three. The branch in Christ that does not bear fruit, the Father carries away. The branch in Christ that does bear fruit, the Father purges so it will bear more fruit. And the branch not in Christ is gathered to be burned.
What is the branch that is in Christ, but does not bear fruit? What does it mean that the Father carries this one away, but the branch not in Christ is burned? What is the difference between these?
I understand this to mean that the branch that is actually in Christ, born again, but unfruitful, they may find themselves carried off by the Father, in an untimely death. The born again person who is fruitful the Father will work with to become more fruitful. And those who are not in Christ, not born again, these are gathered and burned.
With this in mind, saving someone from death could be speaking of physical death, not spiritual death, as that person has become fruitful again, showing this to be the purging work.
Much love!
Stumpmaster
Well-Known Member
Think about it, Renniks, freewill and predestination are not mutually exclusive. As an analogy, because I chose to travel a particular road I am predestined to go where that road leads. Those whom God foreknows will be faithful to Him are therefore predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, actually before they are born, that's how synchronised freewill and predestination are. Watchman Nee describes them as "married".
Rom 8:27-30
(27) And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
(28) And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
(29) For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
(30) Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
But that's not what it says. You can't abide if you aren't already in him. You can't be cast out if you were never saved. It clearly states the branch can choose to remain or not.
I have thought about it, extensively. And I don't try to embrace the contradiction. Not anymore. I understand those verses differently than you, but that's another discussion
Stumpmaster
Well-Known Member
Why do you consider there to be a contradiction rather than a complimenting? If God foreknows what choices people will make is He not permitted to decide what the consequences of those choices will be? In Paul's case God decided to intervene because He knew Paul would accept His directing.
I believe Divine Foreknowledge, Human Freewill, Predestination, and Divine Intervention are all dimensions of God's continuum, and compliment each other in alignment with God's Plan & Purpose for His Creation. But everyone must make up their own mind whether to agree with my beliefs or not, such is the dimension of freewill.
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