Losing Salvation

[dwilkins]

It seems to me that at the core of your question is how sin can be completely paid for once, but yet the effect of the payment move back and forth between effective and ineffective. That whole approach is based on seeing the topic through the lens of penal substitutionary atonement. What if that paradigm is wrong?

I'd highly recommend that you take a look at the four following books. I'm not endorsing everything in them, but they will jog your thinking on atonement and may help you understand how salvation can be lost.

http://www.amazon.com/Fortress-Introduc ... nt+brondos

http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Transformat ... pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Cross-Recons ... +the+cross

http://www.amazon.com/Redeeming-Gospel- ... pd_sim_b_6

Doug

[Roberto]

Benzoic,

Here's the way I see it:

Romans 6:1-14 (New King James Version)

1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2. Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3. Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4. Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6. knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7. For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9. knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11. Likewise you also, reckon (i.e. consider) yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

IMO Paul is comparing our pledge to Jesus (baptism), to Jesus' death and resurrection. Through the act of baptism we are united with his death in that we become united with him and receive the propitiation of our sins. We are now an adopted child. And like His resurrection to new life, so too, when we raise up from our buriel in water, we have a new life, leaving our old life behind. Notice that Paul says to "reckon" yourselves to be dead...."

If we fall into a life of persistent sin, we have a danger of losing the benefit of Christ's death for us:

Hebrews 10:26-27 (New King James Version)

26. For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.

The writer of Hebrews tells us if we keep on willfully sinning, we are lost. "Dead", if you will; a dead child (but not totally unable ). But like the prodigal son, if we come to our senses, and come back to our father, He will forgive us.

1 John 1:9 (New King James Version)

9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

That's my take on it anyway. (Ducking barrage of rocks thrown by Calvinists and OSAS, among others)

Homer,
What do you mean by "persistent sin"? Since we all sin after baptism, at what point are we "persistentlysinning"? That seems too subjective to mean anything practically helpful.

[Homer]

What do you mean by "persistent sin"? Since we all sin after baptism, at what point are we "persistentlysinning"? That seems too subjective to mean anything practically helpful.

Perhaps "willfully sinning" or sin becoming characteristic of your lifestyle would better describe what I mean. It would not mean sins of weakness that you strive against, nor would it mean sins of ignorance, nor sin that is repented of.

[dwilkins]

I think the passage below describes the dynamic of sin and the loss of salvation:

Hebrews 3:12-14 (ESV)
12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

The point here is that continual sin results in a hardening of the heart, and that eventually a hard enough heart causes a failure of belief. It's an analog, relational dynamic, not a digital, scientific one.

Doug

[Singalphile]

I think the passage below describes the dynamic of sin and the loss of salvation:

Hebrews 3:12-14 (ESV) "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away [apostēnai] from the living God. .... "

I think that's the best verse to describe it. That passage uses aphistémi. It was used 14 times in the NT. Look at all the different ways that the NASB translates it:

• Luke 2:37 "She never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers.
• Luke 4:13 "When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time.
• Luke 8:13 "... they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away."
• Luke 13:27 "and He will say, 'I tell you, I do not know where you are from; DEPART FROM ME, ALL YOU EVILDOERS.'"
• Acts 5:37 "After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census and drew away some people after him."
• Acts 5:38 "So in the present case, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone, ...."
• Acts 12:10 "... and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel departed from him."
• Acts 15:38 "But Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along who had deserted them in Pamphylia ...."
• Acts 19:9 "But when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, ... , he withdrew from them ...."
• Acts 22:29 "Therefore those who were about to examine him immediately let go of him;"
• 2 Cor 12:8 "Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me."
• 1 Tim 4:1 "But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, ...."
• 2 Tim 2:19 "... and, 'Everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness.'"
• Heb 3:12 "Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God."

I have to say that it annoys me when a Bible translation translates the same Greek word with so many different English words or phrases. A form of "withdraw [from]" or "draw away [from]" would work perfectly well in all the verses above.

Anyway ...

The point here is that continual sin results in a hardening of the heart, and that eventually a hard enough heart causes a failure of belief. It's an analog, relational dynamic, not a digital, scientific one.

I would tend to agree, but Hebrews 6:6 does make it seem like there's some kind of technical reason why a person couldn't or can't be restored to repentance after defecting from God.

I'll ask again in case anyone missed it, does anyone personally know someone who seems to fit the description of Heb 6:3-6, who completely left God but then came back to God/repentance? I don't think I do.

[Homer]

I'll ask again in case anyone missed it, does anyone personally know someone who seems to fit the description of Heb 6:3-6, who completely left God but then came back to God/repentance? I don't think I do.

I think I might be one. But what do you mean by "completely left"? Become an atheist, agnostic, indifferent? For me in about a 20 year hiatus I put God aside, out of my life, yet in the back of my mind I intended to come back some day, just "not now". But He didn't give up on me.

[Singalphile]

I think I might be one. But what do you mean by "completely left"? Become an atheist, agnostic, indifferent?

I'm looking for that worst case scenario [edit: i.e., anti-Christ]. I'm looking for someone who was very close with God who no one would ever have dreamed was not a Christian, but who then turned away and became truly anti-Christ for a time, and who then repented of that and came back to Christ as before.

I'm not saying that that never happens, nor am I saying that that's necessarily what that passage is talking about. However, since Hebrews there says that it's "impossible" (adunatos) for something like that to happen, I am thinking that it must be quite rare, and so I am curious if anyone knows or is someone like that.

[Paidion]

Spot reserved

[psimmond]

I wrote a blog post on abandoning the faith last year: http://www.simmondsfam.com/blog/faith/2 ... the-faith/

My understanding led me to conclude this way:

In conclusion, although I believe scripture clearly holds out the possibility of apostasy, I do not believe that the Holy Spirit leaves every time we sin and returns when we confess our sins. I also do not believe that a person who causes the Holy Spirit to leave them as a result of a lifestyle marked by deliberate sinning was ever counted as one of the elect. Since God in his omniscience knew they would abandon their faith, they were never considered God’s elect in spite of the fact that they were for a time marked by God’s Spirit as his children.

[mattrose]

I wrote a blog post on abandoning the faith last year: http://www.simmondsfam.com/blog/faith/2 ... the-faith/

My understanding led me to conclude this way:

In conclusion, although I believe scripture clearly holds out the possibility of apostasy, I do not believe that the Holy Spirit leaves every time we sin and returns when we confess our sins. I also do not believe that a person who causes the Holy Spirit to leave them as a result of a lifestyle marked by deliberate sinning was ever counted as one of the elect. Since God in his omniscience knew they would abandon their faith, they were never considered God’s elect in spite of the fact that they were for a time marked by God’s Spirit as his children.

So there are likely people on this planet right now filled with the Holy Spirit who aren't part of God's elect? That seems like a strange belief to me.

Personally, I think it makes more sense to view election as PRIMARILY corporate and only secondarily individualistic. We are elect in the Son. Anyone in Christ is elect by connection to Christ, the Elect One. They are elected individuals on account of their corporate connections. If they become apostate they are no longer part of the right corporation and, therefore, forfeit their individual status as elect as well.

My open-theism leanings make your last sentence unnecessary, but I can see where your non-open-theism would lead you to where you went.