People who believe a person can be, in some sense or to some degree, saved by Christ but later be damned to Hell are trusting their eternal souls to spiritual dung. This is not a rash claim nor is it an insult. It is the simple teaching of Scripture.
First, if it is granted that one can sin salvation away and end up in Hell, then the ultimate decider of where each of us spends eternity cannot be God. The ultimate decider is the individual, according to how much or how little he sins, and by virtue of what he does or does not do about each and every sin he has committed.
Second, while everyone within Christendom agrees that it is God who saves through Christ, the problem is that many believe He saves us initially but not permanently and definitely not eternally...that salvation is a process that man can thwart...that Christ's work for our salvation essentially stops at the point of our initial faith but, from then on, we must somehow KEEP ourselves saved unto the end, "or else." Most who oppose the believer's unconditional eternal security in Christ by virtue of what HE has done FOR us will deny that they rely on their own works to reach Heaven but there's no logical way around it: If you want to get to Heaven but can't trust Christ alone to get you there, the only way you can stay out of the Lake of Fire is by not only finding something that atones for the sins Christ's death didn't cover, but also by committing to it for the rest of your life. This is the very definition of religious self-effort without God's approval, which can only damn any who trust in it.
Third, you may yet insist on the vital need for "good works" or "necessary works" or "works of righteousness" done by His power, or by His Spirit, or by cooperating with His grace, or by His predestining you to persevere. Call it whatever you want - if you're doing them to be saved, stay saved or to prove you're saved, you're saying your ultimate salvation all comes down to YOU providing one of dozens of possible pieces of evidence that YOU are keeping your post-faith salvation intact. The burden of maintaining your salvation has shifted from God and Christ to YOU, and there's just no two ways about it. Such false gospels are widespread throughout Christendom and have been for 2,000 years, yet it is exactly the same damnable error Paul angrily scolded the Galatians for adopting: salvation that's begun by grace through faith in Christ but is perverted by Satan's false teachers into probation through works by self...an error so grave that by inspiration of Christ, Paul pronounced God's curse upon it TWICE:
1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach ANY other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be ACCURSED.
1:9 As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach ANY other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be ACCURSED.
The Gospel which Paul had already delivered to the Galatians was the Gospel of the grace of God, which Paul sometimes referred to as "my Gospel" because it was given specifically to Him by Christ. Paul's gospel guarantees every believer's unconditional eternal security in Christ for several reasons but one is most relevant here: eternal security in Christ is guaranteed because Paul went out of his way to thoroughly and absolutely exclude all human works from having ANY place or merit in the salvation equation. After salvation? Yes, good works have their place and are not to be neglected. But according to Paul - meaning according to Christ who inspired Paul - salvation itself depends entirely on Christ's work and that work is forever complete. Nothing can be taken away from His work, and nothing need be added to it. Ever. To attempt to do so is to DENY Him.
Further, if one is in Christ, God has declared him dead to the Law. That means he is dead to God's just means of condemning all sin. That places all who are in Christ forever beyond the Law's condemning reach...meaning they're securely, unbreakably, inseparably united with Him for eternity. DUE TO CHRIST'S MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION, GOD - BY HIS OWN DECREE! - CANNOT CHARGE SIN TO THOSE WHO ARE IN HIS SON (2 Cor 5:19). Chastise? Yes, as His beloved children. But punish as sinners? That penalty was laid upon Christ at Calvary. ALL of it.
CONCLUSION: IF GOD HIMSELF CAN NO LONGER JUSTLY LAY A CONDEMNING CHARGE OF SIN AGAINST THOSE IN CHRIST - AND HE CANNOT - THEN IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THEIR SALVATION TO BE LOST.
Here's the main point: If you still want to believe salvation can be lost, then you may think it's Christ you're trusting but, in the end, it has to be your own works that you trust to keep you out of the Lake of Fire...and those works, whatever they are, are the very same "works of righteousness" which Paul used to perform as a devout Jew but discarded as the equivalent to FECES (Phil 3:8, skubalon, 'dung') in comparison to the completed work Christ graciously performed on his behalf. And on my behalf.
And on your behalf!
My friend, if you've believed that salvation can be lost and, therefore, must be maintained by your own religious efforts (there are MANY such false gospels afoot today), then you have been deceived. You've believed a false gospel that cannot touch the very thing that separates you from God: your sin. You are even now, in God's eyes, denying Christ's shed blood in favor of building your eternal fate upon a foundation of dung and filthy rags that are your most righteous works. You are despising the blood of Christ in favor of your own efforts. That is not my opinion - that's God's judgment of the matter according to His Word.
Please repent of it NOW! Simply believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you WILL be saved, now and forever! See for yourself:
5 NOT by works of righteousness which WE have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
6 which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour
7 that HAVING BEEN JUSTIFIED by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
My apologies for the few typos I did not catch.
First, if it is granted that one can sin salvation away and end up in Hell, then the ultimate decider of where each of us spends eternity cannot be God. The ultimate decider is the individual, according to how much or how little he sins, and by virtue of what he does or does not do about each and every sin he has committed.
Second, while everyone within Christendom agrees that it is God who saves through Christ, the problem is that many believe He saves us initially but not permanently and definitely not eternally...that salvation is a process that man can thwart...that Christ's work for our salvation essentially stops at the point of our initial faith but, from then on, we must somehow KEEP ourselves saved unto the end, "or else." Most who oppose the believer's unconditional eternal security in Christ by virtue of what HE has done FOR us will deny that they rely on their own works to reach Heaven but there's no logical way around it: If you want to get to Heaven but can't trust Christ alone to get you there, the only way you can stay out of the Lake of Fire is by not only finding something that atones for the sins Christ's death didn't cover, but also by committing to it for the rest of your life. This is the very definition of religious self-effort without God's approval, which can only damn any who trust in it.
Third, you may yet insist on the vital need for "good works" or "necessary works" or "works of righteousness" done by His power, or by His Spirit, or by cooperating with His grace, or by His predestining you to persevere. Call it whatever you want - if you're doing them to be saved, stay saved or to prove you're saved, you're saying your ultimate salvation all comes down to YOU providing one of dozens of possible pieces of evidence that YOU are keeping your post-faith salvation intact. The burden of maintaining your salvation has shifted from God and Christ to YOU, and there's just no two ways about it. Such false gospels are widespread throughout Christendom and have been for 2,000 years, yet it is exactly the same damnable error Paul angrily scolded the Galatians for adopting: salvation that's begun by grace through faith in Christ but is perverted by Satan's false teachers into probation through works by self...an error so grave that by inspiration of Christ, Paul pronounced God's curse upon it TWICE:
1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach ANY other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be ACCURSED.
1:9 As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach ANY other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be ACCURSED.
The Gospel which Paul had already delivered to the Galatians was the Gospel of the grace of God, which Paul sometimes referred to as "my Gospel" because it was given specifically to Him by Christ. Paul's gospel guarantees every believer's unconditional eternal security in Christ for several reasons but one is most relevant here: eternal security in Christ is guaranteed because Paul went out of his way to thoroughly and absolutely exclude all human works from having ANY place or merit in the salvation equation. After salvation? Yes, good works have their place and are not to be neglected. But according to Paul - meaning according to Christ who inspired Paul - salvation itself depends entirely on Christ's work and that work is forever complete. Nothing can be taken away from His work, and nothing need be added to it. Ever. To attempt to do so is to DENY Him.
Further, if one is in Christ, God has declared him dead to the Law. That means he is dead to God's just means of condemning all sin. That places all who are in Christ forever beyond the Law's condemning reach...meaning they're securely, unbreakably, inseparably united with Him for eternity. DUE TO CHRIST'S MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION, GOD - BY HIS OWN DECREE! - CANNOT CHARGE SIN TO THOSE WHO ARE IN HIS SON (2 Cor 5:19). Chastise? Yes, as His beloved children. But punish as sinners? That penalty was laid upon Christ at Calvary. ALL of it.
CONCLUSION: IF GOD HIMSELF CAN NO LONGER JUSTLY LAY A CONDEMNING CHARGE OF SIN AGAINST THOSE IN CHRIST - AND HE CANNOT - THEN IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THEIR SALVATION TO BE LOST.
Here's the main point: If you still want to believe salvation can be lost, then you may think it's Christ you're trusting but, in the end, it has to be your own works that you trust to keep you out of the Lake of Fire...and those works, whatever they are, are the very same "works of righteousness" which Paul used to perform as a devout Jew but discarded as the equivalent to FECES (Phil 3:8, skubalon, 'dung') in comparison to the completed work Christ graciously performed on his behalf. And on my behalf.
And on your behalf!
My friend, if you've believed that salvation can be lost and, therefore, must be maintained by your own religious efforts (there are MANY such false gospels afoot today), then you have been deceived. You've believed a false gospel that cannot touch the very thing that separates you from God: your sin. You are even now, in God's eyes, denying Christ's shed blood in favor of building your eternal fate upon a foundation of dung and filthy rags that are your most righteous works. You are despising the blood of Christ in favor of your own efforts. That is not my opinion - that's God's judgment of the matter according to His Word.
Please repent of it NOW! Simply believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you WILL be saved, now and forever! See for yourself:
5 NOT by works of righteousness which WE have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
6 which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour
7 that HAVING BEEN JUSTIFIED by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
My apologies for the few typos I did not catch.
