Non- Catholic Christians: can you lose your salvation?

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Julius_Caesar said:
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JonNC:
But that doesn’t exclude the freedom of the will to reject grace
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Your text is one among many.
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Well, sure, But it states the opposite of what you describe about monergism.
 
Not the opposite really, when it’s also quoted by Luther that man is a donkey that can either be ridden by God or Satan.

And let me ask you a question: Is it love of God when under OSAS you can’t do otherwise?
 
Scenario:
A Catholic has faith in God, loves Jesus and loves his neighbor in word and deed, confesses his sins and tries to live a holy life with God’s help.

A Protestant has faith in God, loves Jesus and loves his neighbor in word and deed, confesses his sins and tries to live a holy life with God’s help.

The only difference is that the Catholic (and certain Protestants) believe he can potentially lose his salvation through serious and repeated sin, whereas some Protestants believe they cannot ever lose their salvation.

Does this difference about whether a Christian can lose his salvation matter to God so long as everything else is the same?
 
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Only by the grace of God. Now I’ll ask again: how much credit do you take for your holiness?
 
Yes.

Because it explicitly states in Holy Scripture you can.

The beef I have with OSAS is that it makes God serve you instead of you serving God.
 
Julius_Caesar said:
Not the opposite really, when it’s also quoted by Luther that man is a donkey that can either be ridden by God or Satan.

And let me ask you a question: Is it love of God when under OSAS you can’t do otherwise?
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I’ll defer to someone who professes OSAS.
 
I’ve answered your question - you owe me an answer. I’ll ask again: How much credit do you take for your holiness?

Do you look at your life and think you are actually holy or righteous? How righteous are you?

Reformed Christians look at our lives and, the more we grow in our faith - the more sinfulness we see. We are convicted more and more of our need for a savior.

Do Catholics do the opposite? Do you find yourself getting more holy and less in need of a savior? None of my Catholic friends do. Quite the opposite.

So again - how much credit do you take for your righteousness. Is it 10% you and 90% God? 1%? Half you (You and God are equal partners in your salvation?). Simple question.
 
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TULIPed said:
The Perseverance of the Saints - is thus a doctrine which at its core asks a question - the most important question any of us can ask - “Am I a true follower of Christ?”
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The doctrine always seemed a bit presumptuous at worst-or a moot, academic point at best. Because we can never have 100% certainty that we’re numbered among the elect, or that we’ll persevere to the end. We can only say that, if a person is elected, then of course they’ll persevere, they will be saved. We can have a sort of guarded assurance, knowing God’s promises and trustworthiness combined with a consideration of any fruit in our lives that should result from fellowship with Him. But humility is called for in light of our limitations, human weaknesses, and sin.
 
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TULIPed said:
I’ve answered your question - you owe me an answer. I’ll ask again: How much credit do you take for your holiness?
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And that’s my answer: Do you or do you not have to say Yes to God?
 
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TULIPed said:
Reformed Christians look at our lives and, the more we grow in our faith - the more sinfulness we see. We are convicted more and more of our need for a savior.
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Every Calvinist I have met thinks they are of the elect.

So Calvinism didn’t inspire the same humility you have.
 
Julius_Caesar said:
Every Calvinist I have met thinks they are of the elect.

So Calvinism didn’t inspire the same humility you have.
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You are too kind Gaius. And any humility I have is false at best. My pride is legendary (ask my wife).

Good Calvinists live with fear as a constant companion. We look at our lives, we see sin and we wonder where we will spend eternity. Every now and then though, something unexpected happens - we give sacrificially; we love somebody who’s hard to love; we give up an addiction - and we have hope.

Ok - that’s overly dramatic - but you get the idea.
 
fhansen said:
Because we can never have 100% certainty that we’re numbered among the elect, or that we’ll persevere to the end.
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Yes - but that’s not the point of the doctrine. The point is to influence how we actually live our lives. Are we constantly seeing the Holy Spirit active in our lives? Are we actually dying to ourselves and our selfish, sinful desires?

We know that we can’t without Him. But we also know that with Him, we can do all things - including persevere to the end.
 
JonahJones said:
So there is some form of salvation/baptism that allows you to stop sinning? 😮 I don’t think so.
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You keep asking this question when it’s already been answered in the negative. There is no such thing as sinless perfection. There is such a thing as sanctification and the fruit of the Spirit and the love of God spread abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

In short, when God justifies us by faith he also regenerates us (makes us spiritually alive and therefore dead to sin), he makes us a new creation (the old man has passed away and we are “born again” of the Spirit), and the Spirit begins his sanctifying work in us–conforming us to the image of Christ so that we might be holy as he is holy.

Living a life of deliberate sin is incompatible with living a born again life. Christians are called to die to sin, die to self. Our life is not our own anymore, but we owe it to Jesus(who delivered us from the power of sin and death through his sacrificial death on the cross) who lives within us and works through us.

In Romans 6, Paul says:

12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Jesus shed his blood and gave his life so that we might not only be forgiven from sin but that we would be free from the power of sin. When we continually commit the same sins over and over we are profaning the Covenant he gave his life to establish.

As Paul says in Hebrews 10:

26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
 
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ltwin said:
You keep asking this question when it’s already been answered in the negative. There is no such thing as sinless perfection.
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We agree on this - we’re just drawing different conclusions.
 
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