Faith alone negates OSAS

[zz912]

While in a discussion on another site, I realized that Faith Alone negates Once Saved Always Saved.

Faith Alone posits that salvation is by faith alone, and no good works are necessary to maintain the Lord’s New Covenant. Scripture also tells us that we are commanded and required to do good works. FA counters that for those with a “real” faith, these are notnot commands but a natural byproduct of that “real” faith. So the works play no part in their salvation.

And not one faith alone believer I’ve come across believes that God takes away a person’s free will. So they must all admit that, even though they have “real” faith, they all have the free will to choose not to do good works. So if they could choose not to do good works, they would violate commands Our Lord gave us.

OSAS cannot stand unless you believe a person loses their free will after becoming “saved”. This is mandatory, otherwise OSAS falls apart. If works play no part in salvation, and you can refuse to do good works, you have the ability to do good works and violate direct commands Our Lord gave us, commands that came with the promise of hell if we violate them. But if OSAS is true, this is not possible and Jesus lied.

Enough to make your head spin, isn’t it?

 

[Hesychios]

Pretty good.

 

[William_Pitts]

ZZ912 you have a good perspective on OSAS. I want to add something that has always clarified this for me and something that most people who believe OSAS have not considered.

When I studied Koine Greek in college I had a professor who did his daily devotions in Greek.
He pointed out something very common in the language that really puts a bind in OSAS.

Look at John 3:16

Joh 3:16 'For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (NRSV-CE)

The underlined verbs in this verse have two different actions. The first two, loved and gave, are aorist and can be translated as a simple past tense. The third verb, believes, is a present tense verb that has a continuous action associated with it. It could be translated with a helping verb, is believing.

In the Douary-Rheimes and KJV the translators used believeth to indicate this relationship.

In the NRSV-CE there is an ‘s’ on the end of verbs that have continuous action. It is not as clear as the earlier versions. Look throughout the earlier versions and and you will see that salvation does not occur at one point in a persons life. Salvation, repentance, faith, believing is a continuous process the goes on throughout our life. It is never finished, never completed. It is a momentary thing that must always be tended to.

This has made a lot of things clear for me.

God bless you.

 

[Publisher]

While in a discussion on another site, I realized that Faith Alone negates Once Saved Always Saved.

Faith Alone posits that salvation is by faith alone, and no good works are necessary to maintain the Lord’s New Covenant. Scripture also tells us that we are commanded and required to do good works. FA counters that for those with a “real” faith, these are notnot commands but a natural byproduct of that “real” faith. So the works play no part in their salvation.

And not one faith alone believer I’ve come across believes that God takes away a person’s free will. So they must all admit that, even though they have “real” faith, they all have the free will to choose not to do good works. So if they could choose not to do good works, they would violate commands Our Lord gave us.

OSAS cannot stand unless you believe a person loses their free will after becoming “saved”. This is mandatory, otherwise OSAS falls apart. If works play no part in salvation, and you can refuse to do good works, you have the ability to do good works and violate direct commands Our Lord gave us, commands that came with the promise of hell if we violate them. But if OSAS is true, this is not possible and Jesus lied.

Enough to make your head spin, isn’t it?

The “security of the believer” aka OSAS is rooted also in the idea of predestination…God’s “elect” are “chosen”…once you are one of the “elect”…you cannot become one of the “unelect”…for a Calvinist stance your supposition doesn’t work…for an Arminian…it does…but those who accept “eternal security” are Calvinist.

 

[JonNC]

=zz912;7840026]While in a discussion on another site, I realized that Faith Alone negates Once Saved Always Saved.

I pretty much agree.

Faith Alone posits that salvation is by faith alone, and no good works are necessary to maintain the Lord’s New Covenant. Scripture also tells us that we are commanded and required to do good works. FA counters that for those with a “real” faith, these are notnot commands but a natural byproduct of that “real” faith. So the works play no part in their salvation.

I think you misunderstand sola fide. Sola fide does not say good works are not necessary. It says that good works do not merit justification. We access grace only by faith. But faith cannot be void of good works, if it is a saving faith.

And not one faith alone believer I’ve come across believes that God takes away a person’s free will. So they must all admit that, even though they have “real” faith, they all have the free will to choose not to do good works. So if they could choose not to do good works, they would violate commands Our Lord gave us.

It seems that in the TULIP, *irresistible grace *does mean that, once regenerate, one cannot resist, and therefore free will is lost, but I might be wrong about this. So I’ll let the Calvinists correct me.

OSAS cannot stand unless you believe a person loses their free will after becoming “saved”. This is mandatory, otherwise OSAS falls apart. If works play no part in salvation, and you can refuse to do good works, you have the ability to do good works and violate direct commands Our Lord gave us, commands that came with the promise of hell if we violate them. But if OSAS is true, this is not possible and Jesus lied.

And this is the point about sola fide; while works do not justifiy, the necessity of good works is related to following the commands of God. Failure to do good works is sin, and unrepented, repeated sin leads to a loss of faith.

Jon

 

[ConsciousCoward]

The idea behind Once Saved Always Saved is that once you are truly saved, your faith is at a point where nothing will make you lose it. Your faith is so strong once saved that nothing will even shake it in the slightest.

That said, I’m not a Calvinist. I don’t believe in predestination. I just wanted to point out that OSAS, like most of the idea of predestination, is almost always misunderstood by people that don’t believe in it.