Re: Robert Harris (MidnightsCryBook@aol.com)
http://www.midnightministries.com/
Quote Originally Posted by Robert Harris
Shall I just erase several Scriptures in the New Testament which identify the Holy Commandment? The commandment given to Christians alone, which can make them holy by obedience? (2 Pet. 2:21)
The commandment you speak of is not something you can keep yourself in. You are just a man, high and mighty, thinking you can, but you can't. At some point you will falter, but God is so wonderful that if you believe in Him the One True God, He will keep you if you received truly to be made a new creation.

"For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them" (2 Pet. 2.21).

These people came so close (like Calvinists) to God but still rejected Him. It is not that they lost salvation. Actually, they never had it. 10 years prior to being saved I actually thought I was saved for 30 days. Then at the end of that 30 days, I said enough of this and didn't think about it for even once to my recollection for 10 years until that day I was actually born-again once-saved-always-saved. Praise the Lord!

I realized I was never born-again at all those 30 days ten years prior. That is my experience which agrees with God's word.

This is an assumption on your part--for I have faith that God will keep me; however, many Christians are living after the flesh--and they won't repent. In this vein, they will eventually transgress 1 Peter 2:21, which describes a turning from the faith--the Holy Commandment which has its roots in 1 John 3:23!, knowing you are just a man and can't keep yourself once-saved-always-saved.

Robert
How can you have faith God will keep you, because you very well may lose faith tomorrow and admit you could potentially lose salvation then. You may have faith God can keep you, but you don't have any faith you can keep yourself, because that is the demand you place on yourself in order to remain saved. The reason you hold this view of non-OSAS is because you don't know the level and extent of what a sinner (not having been touched by God to know this yet) you are that even if you made a choice for Christ, even still, you would not be able to remain faithful. You would surely stumble against an eternal God. Therefore, to truly be saved you will need to repent and believe in Christ, the Christ who by the Spirit and with the Father will keep you even when you are faithless. "If we are faithless, He remains faithful" (2 Tim. 2.13). That is a God I pray one day you receive and believe in for you to be born-again a child of God.

Christians living after the flesh will repent sooner or later towards the New City, but many will lose the reward of reigning during the 1000 years, for they are not deemed overcomers (Rev. 20.4). Perhaps you are assuming those who do not repent who you thought were once-saved, in fact, actually were never saved to begin with. When God gives eternal life, He gives it so it can never be lost. Christ guarantees, "him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6.37), not at new birth nor after new birth. You can have that kind of God too, if you are willing.

"And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment" (1 John 3.23).

This verse doesn't say anything about a person losing eternal life they received at new birth, or a God who is so impotent that He does not foreknow whom to give eternal life to, or He knows, but He is so fickle He takes it back, gives it again and removes it yet again, over and over like a flip flopper. Perhaps you are worshiping God in your own image and character.

The reason you work so hard for your salvation (e.g. like William Lane Craig, the Roman Church, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, etc.) is because you can never really know if you will remain what you deem as being saved, just like Calvinists never really know if they are saved, because it was never their choice. These are two false salvations! The way God saves is to predestinate by foreknowing your free-choice: a conditional election, unlimited atonement, resistible grace, for preservation of the saints (OSAS).

Praise the Lord, initial salvation is not by works lest any man should boast! It is a free and permanent gift.