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Originally Posted by twin.spin
I understand we will not agree, but let me just respond so if only for others to benefit and that they can determine for themselves.
1) Person (soil) #2 .... " receives it with joy". - this can be no other than a person who ( as decision theologists would phrase it) "accepted Christ" for who but believers find joy about God's salvation
- Unbelievers\those who reject Jesus do not "recieve it with joy"
- conversely being the claim that "falling away" never means then loss of eternal life, then by default "accepting Christ" also never means eternal life.
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Falling away does not mean to fall from your salvation, but to fall away from whatever degree of spiritual growth you had as a believer. It means to fall away from grace orientation - from your understanding of what grace is.
Grace is the policy of the justice of God in blessing mankind based on the finished and completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Grace means that God has done all the work which made eternal salvation possible. God is able to treat man in grace because of the Cross.
The maximum expression of God's grace is the Cross. Jesus Christ fulfilled the righteous demands of the Father. He eliminated sin as a barrier. The only issue in eternal salvation is placing your faith in Jesus Christ to provide that salvation. And it is a one time decision to trust in Jesus Christ in response to the gospel message which secures the believers legal, eternal and unbreakable position in Jesus Christ.
In order for a believer to grow spiritually he must orient to the grace of God. To orient means to adjust to the facts or principles. To orient to the grace of God means to understand that God deals with man on the basis of His (God's) own Perfect Integrity. It means to be familiar with God's plan of grace by adjusting to the principles and doctrines found in the word of God.
The believer will never be grace-oriented until he understands that there is absolutely nothing he can do to earn his salvation, maintain his salvation, or lose his salvation. God's plan does not depend upon us, but upon the Perfect Character of God.
To fall from grace is the opposite of to grow in grace. The believer is commanded to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
(2 Tim 3:18).
To fall from grace means to lose your grace orientation - your understanding of what grace is, to become disoriented to God's grace plan. To become legalistic. To fall from grace means to think human viewpoint rather then divine viewpoint. To fall from grace means to reverse your course toward spiritual growth and begin to retrogress or retreat from spiritual growth. There is no standing still in the Christian life. The believer is either growing or he is regressing from some stage of spiritual growth.
But to fall from grace never means to lose your eternal salvation.
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2) There is no basis for that other than predetermining that it doesn't.
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Here are forty reasons which establish the basis that 'Falling away' never means loss of eternal life.
In the dispensation of the Church, when any member of the human race believes in Christ for salvation, God does at least forty things for that person at the moment of his salvation. These forty things that belong to the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. These are things,
forty grace gifts, that you need to be aware of in order to execute God's plan for your life. Forty grace gifts from God that the believer needs to understand in order to properly orient to - to properly understand the grace of God and understand that the believer cannot lose his eternal salvation. The grace gifts of God are irrevocable.
Romans 11:29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
1)Access to God (Rom. 5:2; Eph. 2:18; Eph.3:12)
2)The Baptism of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor.12:13; Gal.3:26-28; Eph.4:5)
3)The Unique Availability of Divine Power (Eph. 6:10; Acts 1:8)
4)Efficacious Grace (Eph 2:8-9; 2 Cor.6:1-2)
5)Election (Eph.1:3-4; Col 3:12-17)
6)Equal Privilege and Opportunity (Gal. 3:26-28)
7)Escrow Blessings (Eph. 1:3)
8)Eternal Life (1 John 5:11-13)
9)Eternal Security (John 10:29; Rom.8:31-32; Rom. 8:1; 2 Cor. 5:17; 1 Peter 1:5; 1 Cor. 12:21; John 10:28)
10)The filling of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18; Gal. 5:16; John 4:24)
11)A Secure, Immovable Foundation (1 Cor. 3:11; Eph 2:20; Deut. 32:4)
12)Being Presented as a gift from God the Father to God the Son (John 10:29; John 17:2; John 17:6; John 17:9; John 17:11; Rev. 19:7-10; Rev.19:16)
13)Deliverance from the Great White Throne Judgment and the Lake of Fire (John 3:18; Rom. 8:1)
14)Identification with God the Son in Biblical Analogy (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 15:17; Col. 1:18; Heb. 13:20; John 15:5; Eph. 2:20; 1 Peter 2:5-6; Heb. 4:14; 1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 19:7; Rev. 19:14-16)
15)The Indwelling of God the Father (John 14:22-23; Eph.4:6; Phil. 2:13; 1 John 4:15; 2 John 1:9)
16)The Indwelling of God the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:11;1 Cor. 3:16; 1 Cor. 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16)
17)The Indwelling of God the Son (John 14:20; John 17:22-23,26; Rom. 8:10; 2 Cor. 13:5; Gal. 2:20; Col.1:27)
18)An Eternal Inheritance (Heb. 9:15; Eph. 1:14; 1 Peter 1:4)
19)Justification (Gal. 2:16; Tit. 3:7; Rom 3:28)
20)Transference into the Kingdom of God (Eph. 2:3; Col. 1:13)
21)Deliverance from the Kingdom of Satan (Col. 1:13)
22)The New Spiritual Species (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal 6:15)
23)Positional Sanctification--adopted as Adult sons (Rom. 8:15; [Rom. 8:23-future]; Eph. 1:5)
24)Predestination (Eph. 1:5)
25)The Ten Problem-Solving Devices of the Predesigned Plan of God ( Refer to the link that I will provide at the bottom of this list.)
26)Propitiation (Rom. 3:24-25; 1 John 2:2, 4:10)
27)The Unique Predesigned Plan of God for the Church-age (Gal. 5:16; Eph 3:18. Refer to link for greater detail)
28)Reconciliation (2 Cor.5:19; Rom. 5:10)
29)Redemption (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14)
30)Regeneration (John 3:5-16; Titus 3:5)
31)The guarantee of a Resurrection Body (John 11:25; 1 Cor. 15:43; Phil. 3:20-21)
32)The Imputed Righteousness of God (Rom. 3:22; 2 Cor. 5:21)
33)The Royal Ambassadorship (2 Cor. 5:20; Phil. 3:20)
34)Entrance into the Royal Family of God (Rev. 1:6; Acts 1:5; Rom. 6:3-4; 1 Cor. 6:19-20)
35)The Royal Priesthood (1 Peter 2:5; Rev. 1:6; Rev. 5:10)
36)The Removal of all Scar Tissue from the Soul (Isa. 43:25,44:22)
37)The Sealing Ministry of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13-14)
38)Deliverance from the Power and Influence of the Old Sin Nature (Rom. 2:29; Phil. 3:3; Col. 2:11; Eph. 4:22; 1 John 1:9; John 8:34; John 8:36)
39)The Distribution of Spiritual Gifts (1 Cor.12:7-11; Eph. 4:11)
40)The Unlimited Atonement (2 Cor. 5:14-15; 1 Tim. 2:6;4:10; Titus 2:11; 1 John 2:2; Rom. 5:6)
A description of thes forty grace gifts is given at the following site...
The Grace Gifts given at Salvation - Publications - Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries / Grace Bible Church - bible doctrine truth in Christ
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No one falls away to having eternal life. Jesus said: (speaking of Satan and his demons)- Revelation 12:8
But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.
when Jesus speaks of "falling away" it certianly does mean to include the loss of eternal life \ the possibility of it. It happened to Satan and his demons.
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You cannot compare the fall of Satan and the angels who rebelled against God with the principle of a believers falling from grace which has already been explained above.
It was because of the fall of Satan that God created man for the purpose of demonstating His Justice. God sentenced Satan to the eternal lake of fire. But the sentence will not be carried out until the end of human history. God created man lower than the angels for the purpose of showing that if a lower creation who had not enjoyed the advantages that angels had - having seen God, having had access to heaven, could choose for God, then the angels who rebelled were without excuse.
When Satan got to Adam through the woman, causing him to disobey God, Satan thought he had won his case against God. But God had always known that Adam would sin, and in eternity past He designed a plan
(Acts 2:23). That plan involved the Second Person of the Godhead coming into the world as a member of the human race, living a perfect life, free from sin, fulfilling the requirements of the Law, and therefore qualified to go to the Cross and take upon Himself the sins of the world, and pay for them.
God's plan was that when a person simply trusts in Christ for eternal life, he is entered into an eternal unbreakable relationship with God. A relationship which is different from Adam's relationship with God BEFORE the fall.
Before Adam fell, his relationship with God depended on his obedience to the command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. His relationship with God could be lost through disobedience, resulting in spiritual death. But after falling, God immediately gave the gospel message to Adam of the Messiah who would come. Adam and Eve believed the promise and were immediately eternally saved, never again to be in danger of spiritual death.
And so it is that once a person simply trusts in the finished work of Christ, he enters into an eternal relationship with God which is based on, and secured by the integrity of God.
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3) Jesus also said:Luke 21:19
By standing firm you will gain life.
The only way for a person to stand before God perfect after death, is a person who that is Jesus spoke of the "standing firm" in a different way when he said:"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock."
Once again, anyone who claims that "falling" has the same result as "not falling" is not or wantonly not agreeing with Jesus pov. Only by "standing firm" on "the foundation on the rock" will one endure to the end of life to have eternal life.
That is why Jesus said: "He who stands firm to the end will be saved"
That then is how we understand the opposite when Jesus says:"everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. (one who is not "standing firm"... [soil #2] )The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
It is unfortunate that you're taking the UR approach to the word "fall" ... for it is very clear that "falling away" does not mean what OSAS theology is claiming.
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Twin.spin,
Luke 21:19 is a parallel passage to
Matthew 24:13 which refers to the Tribulational believer's entrance into the Millenial kingdom physically alive.
In a
positional sense, because of his position (positional sanctification) in Jesus Christ, and because he has been imputed with God's own Perfect Righteousness, God sees every believer as perfect.
In an
experiential sense, the believer must advance spiritually after salvation to be experientally sanctified. As a result of his spiritual production after salvation, the believer will receive blessings and rewards at the judgment seat of Christ which are over and above the normal blessings of eternity.
I will ask you to carefully read post #63 which describes the three phases of salvation. And also explains 3 passages which people misunderstand and attempt to use as 'proof texts' that eternal life can be lost.
And last, the believers eternal security has nothing to do with Universalism.
The believers fall from grace is not a fall from eternal salvation, but is a falling away from his understanding of the grace plan of God, and a retreat from spiritual advance in the Christian way of life.
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