Robert in SD:
I did not cite these verses to support my position. You cited them to support your position. I simply pointed out that they do NOT support your position… not in the slightest. And I am not arguing from silence. I am moving rationally and logically from all of scripture scripture to doctrine, based upon the texts and centuries of Tradition and teaching authority.
You weren’t moving anywhere in the post, Robert, but offered this statement:
“But nowhere does it say that a person is shackled to the gift and cannot spurn or even kill it.”
And as I responded, other than that, the best thing you can do is infer that one can lose salvation based upon stern exhortation.
Robert in SD:
How does one ignore passages like this? This is clearly addressed to true believers, to urge them to remain in Christ and avoid the sin that separates one from the state of justification and exposes one to a “fearful prospect of judgment” and a “fury of fire” meant to consume the adversaries.
One doesn’t ignore them (Heb 10:26ff), but understands from the whole of scripture, and the strength of various statements how such an exhortation and warning fits into the whole.
No “preacher” knows the heart of those to whom he preaches; thus, he proceeds on the assumption that all in his hearing are truly a part of the church; the same is true of the writers of Scripture. Nevertheless, both know that within the group being addressed are those who
do not believe.
There are various reasons they know that. In this particular case, the reason is the desire of those who left Judaism to return to it.
They are not true believers.
Those “adversaries” spoken of in the passage are those who believe contrary to, or, who are opposed to God’s program of salvation—the true believer is not opposed to God’s program of salvation, and he
never will be opposed to it, but he will persevere in his faith to the end, based upon God’s grace toward him in the beginning of his faith.
In the beginning of the book, the writer makes this statement:**Hebrews 3:6
but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.**As a Catholic, you will draw the inference,
”If we do not hold fast, then we shall cease to be Christ’s house and shall be lost.”
However, the verse doesn’t say that. It says that, if there is no perseverance of faith in the future, we are
not now Christ’s house. The failure to meet the future condition is due to not experiencing the past conclusion (v14):**Hebrews 3:14
For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end**I pointed that out as well, using Col 1:21-23 earlier in this thread.
IOW, anyone meeting the destructive end described in Heb 10
never was a member of Christ’s house to begin with.
Robert in SD:
My point was that Jn 6:38-39 ([38] For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; [39] and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day.) Does not exclude the possibility of a professing Christian to fall away and thereby spend eternity in Hell as described in Hebrews, supra.
Depends upon what you mean by “professing Christian.”
Robert in SD:
My contention is that human beings are not given absolute knowledge of their ultimate destination. OSAS is false in that regard. Dangerously false.
I know that’s what your 2000-year-old infallible teaching magisterium says, however, that’s not what the apostle John said.
I’m going with John.
Robert in SD:
No. It is not. It is salvation by grace, and not apart from Christ. Sadly, you have been trained to be blind to that fact, even though others more eloquent than I could hope to be have also pointed it out to you, on this very thread.
If you can lose salvation by bad performance, or sin, that’s
not salvation by grace, but salvation by works, no matter how your church spins it for you.
Robert in SD:
Once again, I am not attacking the meaning of this scripture. I am asserting that no person can know - with the absolute certainly that you ascribe to OSAS - that their final destination is heaven. Salvation is determined at the end of life… not at some point in the midst of a life that can change by an act of free will. The fact that God knows who he has predestined does not support the conclusion that WE can KNOW (as does God) that we are predestined for salvation. At best, we can have a moral assurance that those who remain in Christ will be saved.
Again, that’s what your 2000-year-old infallible teaching magisterium says, however, that’s not what the apostle John said.
