Calvinist Eternal Security (Once saved always saved)

[stephe1987]

I was listening to a radio show by a five-point Calvinist on podcast and he said that he knows he is saved because of the following verse (King James Version):

1 John 2:19
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

Basically, he says he knows he is going to heaven, and people who lose their faith were never saved to begin with. But he will never lose his faith because he is saved.

How do you answer this? I think his logic here is circular, but maybe I am just confused. Thanks!

 

[mark_a]

I was listening to a radio show by a five-point Calvinist on podcast and he said that he knows he is saved because of the following verse (King James Version):

Basically, he says he knows he is going to heaven, and people who lose their faith were never saved to begin with. But he will never lose his faith because he is saved.

How do you answer this? I think his logic here is circular, but maybe I am just confused. Thanks!

I think you have to be a lawyer or politician to say it or understand it.

 

[mwok]

Why would you lose faith if you knew you were saved to begin with. It still doesn’t make sense in a Calvinistic perspective, because aren’t we all predestined by God to go to heaven or hell? How would we know for sure what God had in store for us?

 

[christosdavid]

Why would you lose faith if you knew you were saved to begin with. It still doesn’t make sense in a Calvinistic perspective, because aren’t we all predestined by God to go to heaven or hell? How would we know for sure what God had in store for us?

Calvinist’s believe the Holy Spirit gives faith (Eph 2:8-9) and it is vindicated by good works (Eph 2 :10).

Despite the exegetical skipping over passages in Hebrews 6 & 9 there are many Biblical passages which in fact do talk about our security in Christ.

“No-one can take them from my hand”, “If God is for us, who can be against”, “those he Predestined he also justified, those he justified he also glorified”.

For the elect, they are most comprehensively saved and God grants them the grace of perseverance.

The trouble the council of Trent had with this isnt either Predestination, nor perseverance of the saints but in knowledge of our election without special revelation (ie only through Scriptual argument).

 

[mwok]

Calvinist’s believe the Holy Spirit gives faith (Eph 2:8-9) and it is vindicated by good works (Eph 2 :10).

Despite the exegetical skipping over passages in Hebrews 6 & 9 there are many Biblical passages which in fact do talk about our security in Christ.

“No-one can take them from my hand”, “If God is for us, who can be against”, “those he Predestined he also justified, those he justified he also glorified”.

For the elect, they are most comprehensively saved and God grants them the grace of perseverance.

The trouble the council of Trent had with this isnt either Predestination, nor perseverance of the saints but in knowledge of our election without special revelation (ie only through Scriptual argument).

Yeah, I think that’s what I was trying to get at. If you received revelation of your “guaranteed Salvation” why turn away? Then again, if you knew beyond a doubt that you were going to heaven, why fear the consequences of sin?

To me, it sounds like holding God to His Word.

 

[MarkBrown]

I was listening to a radio show by a five-point Calvinist on podcast and he said that he knows he is saved because of the following verse (King James Version):

Basically, he says he knows he is going to heaven, and people who lose their faith were never saved to begin with. But he will never lose his faith because he is saved.

How do you answer this? I think his logic here is circular, but maybe I am just confused. Thanks!

Calvinist do not believe in OSAS. Perservation of the Saints is God will perserve the elect, ie God will save and keep them. A 5 point Calvinist would never presume he is one of the elect. He would hope and pray, but would not find out until judgment.

That said, there are different types of Calvinists. 3 point, 4 point, hyper etc. Calvinist, like protestants in general, are varied. There is no protestant theology, but protestant theologies. There is no Calvinist theology, but Calvinist theologies.

I attended a Calvinist Seminary, there are no cookie cutter calvinist.

As to this guy…yeah, it appears he is dizzy from going around in circles way too much. If he was a calvinist, the Elders would not be happy and would haul him in for a sit down talk.

How would I respond to him. Ask him to show me from Augustine, to Calvin, to Hodge to Berkhof to Sproul or in any of the Confessions (London, Westminister) or the Catechism where calvinist have taught this. Part of the reason for the First Great Awaking in the States back in the 18th Century was the fatalism that had infected the grandchildren of the puritans. No matter what they did, their path was set to either heaven or hell. Nothing would change it and you did not know on which path God had placed you.

Mark

 

[Holly3278]

Once saved always saved which is also known as eternal security is a false doctrine. I fear that it has lead many people into the pits of Hell because they believed they could sin all they want without having to pay the consequences.

That said, there are plenty of verses that prove this false doctrine wrong. Here are a few:

For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt. For land which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed; its end is to be burned.
(Hebrews 6:4-8 RSV)

They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, The dog turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire.
(2 Peter 2:19-22 RSV)

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
(Philippians 2:12-13 RSV)

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest remains, let us fear lest any of you be judged to have failed to reach it.
(Hebrews 4:1 RSV)

For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off. And even the others, if they do not persist in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.
(Romans 11:21-24 RSV)

 

[fhansen]

Yeah, I think that’s what I was trying to get at. If you received revelation of your “guaranteed Salvation” why turn away? Then again, if you knew beyond a doubt that you were going to heaven, why fear the consequences of sin?

To me, it sounds like holding God to His Word.

When Trent speaks of “special revelation”, it means a direct revelation from God, not, using the councils’ words, the “vain confidence” or “rash presumptuousness” of heretics, which is different from private revelation as understood in Catholicism and is essentially simply faith in ones faith. I guess, if someone loses faith in their faith, they must have never had any to begin with according to such a belief system.

 

[mwok]

When Trent speaks of “special revelation”, it means a direct revelation from God, not, using the councils’ words, the “vain confidence” or “rash presumptuousness” of heretics, which is different from private revelation as understood in Catholicism and is essentially simply faith in ones faith. I guess, if someone loses faith in their faith, they must have never had any to begin with according to such a belief system.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[christosdavid]

Calvinist do not believe in OSAS. Perservation of the Saints is God will perserve the elect, ie God will save and keep them. A 5 point Calvinist would never presume he is one of the elect. He would hope and pray, but would not find out until judgment.

That said, there are different types of Calvinists. 3 point, 4 point, hyper etc. Calvinist, like protestants in general, are varied. There is no protestant theology, but protestant theologies. There is no Calvinist theology, but Calvinist theologies.

I attended a Calvinist Seminary, there are no cookie cutter calvinist.

As to this guy…yeah, it appears he is dizzy from going around in circles way too much. If he was a calvinist, the Elders would not be happy and would haul him in for a sit down talk.

How would I respond to him. Ask him to show me from Augustine, to Calvin, to Hodge to Berkhof to Sproul or in any of the Confessions (London, Westminister) or the Catechism where calvinist have taught this. Part of the reason for the First Great Awaking in the States back in the 18th Century was the fatalism that had infected the grandchildren of the puritans. No matter what they did, their path was set to either heaven or hell. Nothing would change it and you did not know on which path God had placed you.

Mark

Actually, the WCF (Westminster Confession of Faith) says we can work out from Scripture that we can know that we are among the elect in this life.

Ch. XVIII.3

“This infalliable assurance … being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of the ordinary means, attain thereunto…”

1 Cor 2:12; 1 Jn 4:13; Heb 6:11,12; Eph 3:17-19 are given as proof-texts.

 

[Karen1960]

I was listening to a radio show by a five-point Calvinist on podcast and he said that he knows he is saved because of the following verse (King James Version):

Basically, he says he knows he is going to heaven, and people who lose their faith were never saved to begin with. But he will never lose his faith because he is saved.

How do you answer this? I think his logic here is circular, but maybe I am just confused. Thanks!

There is no answer to this.

This is the typical loophole used when one of their church members leave and fall into sin and refuse to repent.

I live in Athens TN, where 90% of the people claim to be OSAS, I have heard this circular tale over and over again.