| Once Saved, Always Saved? |
| New Articles |
| 18 June 2010 |
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by Jeremy
This topic may have already been covered somewhere on this forum, so my apologies if I am just re-hashing the issue. The thought occured to me recently that the churchies often use the passage below in the book of Acts to say that once someone has "confessed Jesus as lord", that they are completely sealed and saved by God, regardless of whatever they may (or may NOT) do after their proclamation: Acts 2:21 And it shall come to pass [That] whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved. What stuck out to me with this passage is that it is written in the present tense by using the word "calls", instead of just saying something like "whoever has called on the name of the Lord shall be saved". The word "calls" alone seems to indicate an on-going relationship with God, and not just a one time ritualistic act that can guarantee that person a spot in heaven, so that it lines up even more so with Jesus' own teaching that (Mark 13:13 ) ...you will be hated by all for My name's sake. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. This also seems to dismiss the churchie argument that if a person has "called on (or confessed) Jesus as their Lord" and returns to their old ways, even possibly turning completely against God, was, in their reasoning, never "saved" to begin with. We've got an entire life to live before the "prize set before us" (being saved) can be won, and it will take a continual dependence and an ever deepening relationship with the "Most High" until the reward of eternal life will be given to us as the precious gift from God that it really is. No matter how appealing the "once saved, always saved" doctrine sounds, let us all continue to daily "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" lest we be counted among the "goats" that Christ will send away from Himself, saying that He "never knew us", since we didn't keep in constant communion with Him and the Father by calling on them and continuing to "confess" or witness to the rest of the world all the light of God that Christ revealed to us through his teachings. |
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