Once saved always saved?

[Robert_in_SD]

O.S. Luke:

I doubt it. OSAS leans toward a strict Calvinist interpretation of salvation.

O+

OSAS believers also tend to lean towards the “Bible-believing” churches and Lutheranism does not, generally speaking, meet that category.

Peace,
Robert in SD,

P.S. Does O.S. stand for “once saved”

 

[conrad01]

Chazemataz:

What exactly is this? Do protestants have any scripture to back that claim up with?

The whole of the N.T. backs this up.

 

[chb03c]

conrad01:

The whole of the N.T. backs this up.

I find this very amuzing.

 

[Kevan]

deb1:

I have to take issue with the statements that OSAS believers are more devout. I have known Protestants on both sides and I have seen a great love for Jesus from the non OSAS people also.

I was careful to put the word “generally” in boldface italics. I, too, have known exemplary Christians who rejected the doctrine of OSAS. And I’ve known some real scumbags who believed it.

But in general, I have found the OSAS crowd to outperform the others.

This fact (if it is, indeed, a fact) is not too important. I’m just trying to share some perspective from out here on the lunatic fringe of Fundamentalism. I believe that the less we misunderstand one another, the better our chances of pleasing God.

 

[EA_Man]

Liberian:

Porthos,

No. Judas exorcised demons in the Name of Jesus, and through Jesus’ power. Even the once-saved-always-saved people will agree to this. What they will not agree to is the fact that he was “saved.” The one does not imply the other; Matthew 7:21-23 says specifically that people will ask Jesus “Did we not drive out demons in Your Name?” and He will answer them “I never knew you.” Note that this is not “I don’t know you now,” it is “I never knew you.”

• Liberian

Actually, this is an excellent point in favor of OSAS.

Jesus says to those He sends away “I never knew you”. If you can be saved and then not saved, then saved, then not saved etc…how can Jesus say to these “I NEVER you” if they had at ONE POINT been saved?

It would seem that none of those that He sends away were ever saved. How could it be possible that all of those that Jesus sends away He never knew unless they were NEVER saved?

Thank you

 

[Philthy]

ahimsaman72:

The focus of the belief in OSAS is Christ and His total atonement for sin. Basically, the OSAS crowd views His death and resurrection as final. Once you choose to follow Him and pray for forgiveness then your faith is sealed along with your salvation. After that, Christ holds their salvation and place in heaven from that point on.

I would give the verses, but cannot right now. If you would like to see them let me know and I will provide them later.

The reason I added this was because of your comment about the OSAS crowd looking down on the nonOSAS. The OSAS crowd would view non-belief in OSAS as a lack of belief in the total atonement and sufficiency of the blood of Christ. So, it’s not a matter of judgement, but one of salvation.

Hope that helps.

Peace…

But dont you think thats stretching the romans 10:9-10 verse a little beyond what it says? Thats the pet verse. All it says is if you confess Jesus is Lord and believe God raised him from the dead - you’re saved. doesn’t seem like there is a line in the sand regarding the sufficiency of the atonement they way they would like to portray it. Even more dramatic is Rom 10:13 “Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” Very generic. No discussion of atonement or your level of understanding.

Phil

 

[Philthy]

Philthy:

But dont you think thats stretching the romans 10:9-10 verse a little beyond what it says? Thats the pet verse. All it says is if you confess Jesus is Lord and believe God raised him from the dead - you’re saved. doesn’t seem like there is a line in the sand regarding the sufficiency of the atonement they way they would like to portray it. Even more dramatic is Rom 10:13 “Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” Very generic. No discussion of atonement or your level of understanding.

Phil

My point being that excluding others(ie Catholics) based on theological nuances is not true to the very verse that most use to justify OSAS.

When I read over the book of Romans and tried to make sense of it some things popped out at me. Pauls emphasis in chapters 9, 10 and 11 of Romans is not on the HOW of salvation, it is on the WHOM of salvation. WHO gets to be saved, Jews or Greeks? Paul is trying to emphasize that Gods salvation is offered to ALL. “For there is NO DISTINCTION between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of ALL,…”

Another verse frequently used to support OSAS through the concept of predestination is Rom 8:29 “For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son… And those he predestined he also called; and those he called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified.”

This seems to strongly support the OSAS concept of predestination, no? But we must be careful about making assumptions -
Q: Who, exactly, are “those he foreknew”?

Well, in my reading that question got answered a few chapters later:
Rom 11:1-2 “…has God rejected his people? Of course not! I am an Israelite…God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.”

A: The people of Israel. The entire section of Romans 9 through 11 seems to be dealing with the reality that ALL people are open to God through Christ - not simply Jews, not simply Greeks. Paul in the “foreknew” verses is not talking about all believers per se, but is addressing the issue of whether or not God has turned his back on the Israelites in his plan of redemption. Paul is making it clear that He has not.

To further nail the coffin shut on OSAS, here Rom 11:22
“See, then, the kindness and severity of God: severity towards those who fell, but…kindness toward you, provided you remain in his kindness - otherwise you to will be cut off. And they also, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in AGAIN.” Sounds a lot like going into and out of a state of grace to me…

gotta run,

Phil

 

[E.E.N.S]

Philthy:

To further nail the coffin shut on OSAS, here Rom 11:22
“See, then, the kindness and severity of God: severity towards those who fell, but…kindness toward you, provided you remain in his kindness - otherwise you to will be cut off. And they also, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in AGAIN.” Sounds a lot like going into and out of a state of grace to me…

gotta run,

Phil

BAM! You read my mind here!

 

[deb1]

Robert in SD:

OSAS believers also tend to lean towards the “Bible-believing” churches and Lutheranism does not, generally speaking, meet that category.

Peace,
Robert in SD,

P.S. Does O.S. stand for “once saved”

Yes, O.S stands for once saved.

I am always confused by the term “Bible -believing” My sister believes in the bible and I know that I certainly do. She is Lutheran and I am in RCIA classes. So, are we not “Bible Believers”?

 

[Kevan]

deb1:

I am always confused by the term “Bible -believing” My sister believes in the bible and I know that I certainly do. She is Lutheran and I am in RCIA classes. So, are we not “Bible Believers”?

Code words come and go. We don’t make them (probably), we just learn them. They may not be very accurate, but language does that sort of thing sometimes.

“Bible-believing” gets used in two ways over in our parts.

The most common use is as a synonym for “evangelical.” That is, it refers to a person or church that is Protestant and conservative/traditional in its beliefs. For instance, they would reject homosexuality and they would believe that Isaiah wrote the prophecy of Isaiah.

A second, really small usage would be among many who accept only the King James Version of the Bible. That issue is an interminable squabble for those folks and its intricacies will fry the mind of an outsider, so I recommend that you run quicky in the other direction if you see or hear something about it. Anyway, those people call themselves “Bible believers” to distinguish themselves from compromisers like Bob Jones, Billy Graham, or Jerry Falwell.

Except for vibrant anticatholics, most of us would gladly concede that an average Catholic or Lutheran believes the Bible. We would not use the term “Bible-believing” to distinguish one of our churches from yours. Instead, we would use the term to distinguish a church of orthodox beliefs from one that allows heresy to be taught in its pulpits and schools, as in the statement “It would surprise most Fundamentalists to hear that the Wisconsin Synod Lutherans are Bible-believing.”

 

[O.S.Luke]

Robert in SD:

OSAS believers also tend to lean towards the “Bible-believing” churches and Lutheranism does not, generally speaking, meet that category.

Peace,
Robert in SD,

P.S. Does O.S. stand for “once saved”

I’m a Methodist… so for me it’s, “I was saved 2000 years ago, I am being saved today, and I will continue to need to be saved tomorrow.” Salvation is a process, not a one-time event.

The “O.S.” actually stands of “Order of St. Luke,” the religious order I am a member of.

O+

 

[april_hosen]

Yay!

I was just about to start a thread on this! John 3:16! Surely ya’ll who went to AWANA or any form of Sunday School have this ne memorized! But if not "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." Hmm what other verses can we dig up? Aaaah, Isaiah 25:8,Mathew 25:46, Luke 20:36, John 4:14, John 5:24,25,29,39, John 10:10, John 12:25,50, Romans 2:7, shall I continue? ok! Romans 5:21, Romans 6:22,23, 2Titus 1:2, 1John 2:25, 1John3:15, 1John 5:11-13,20, Jude 21, Revelations 1:18. Okay ya’ll I’m done. But if you insist I can find more. But I’ll do it later I’m tired. The thing is though. God is bigger than time and He is definantly bigger than sin. So it doesnt matter wether we commited sin yesterday, 5 minutes ago, 50 years ago or if we are gunna commit one sometime in the near future. He has it covered.

 

[gardenswithkids]

deb1:

The Protestants that believe in OSAS tend to judge whether another individual is ‘saved’ by that person’s belief in OSAS. I’ve never understood this. If I have faith in Jesus and his saving grace, but don’t believe in OSAS then an OSAS believer will view me as a person that still needs to accept Jesus. This has always struck me as odd.

I’ve observed that in some Protestants too, and it struck me as odd. While denying a Christian can commit “mortal sin”, some say doubting your salvation is the only way to loose your salvation, (but then they go onto say that those who doubt, never really believed in the first place.) Yet they somehow all feel confident that they can predict the future and know they will never doubt. On top of all of this, some are completely convinced that the person who claims to believe in Jesus but who goes onto commit every form of sin condemned by St. Paul in Romans is assured of salvation, while also convinced that a Catholic who prays daily and strives to do what Jesus says is unsaved.

 

[E.E.N.S]

april_hosen:

Yay!

I was just about to start a thread on this! John 3:16! Surely ya’ll who went to AWANA or any form of Sunday School have this ne memorized! But if not "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." Hmm what other verses can we dig up? Aaaah, Isaiah 25:8,Mathew 25:46, Luke 20:36, John 4:14, John 5:24,25,29,39, John 10:10, John 12:25,50, Romans 2:7, shall I continue? ok! Romans 5:21, Romans 6:22,23, 2Titus 1:2, 1John 2:25, 1John3:15, 1John 5:11-13,20, Jude 21, Revelations 1:18. Okay ya’ll I’m done. But if you insist I can find more. But I’ll do it later I’m tired. The thing is though. God is bigger than time and He is definantly bigger than sin. So it doesnt matter wether we commited sin yesterday, 5 minutes ago, 50 years ago or if we are gunna commit one sometime in the near future. He has it covered.

Then one must ask, “what does it mean to ‘believe’ in Jesus Christ?” Certainly if you have read the Bible, then you know that we are saved by grace with faith working in love…not by saying a sinners prayer, or believing in OSAS or something silly like that which is unbiblical and unhistorical. Why else would Paul say to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling…” or “…run the race to win?” Also James tells us that we are “saved by works, and not by faith alone”…and that “faith without works is dead.” Also in Romans it talks about being grafted into the vine and cut out again…how can this happen if we are OSAS?!

I am starting to think that some people are reading scripture with a blindfold on.

 

[gardenswithkids]

april_hosen:
Yay!

I was just about to start a thread on this! John 3:16! Surely ya’ll who went to AWANA or any form of Sunday School have this ne memorized! But if not "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." Hmm what other verses can we dig up? Aaaah, Isaiah 25:8,Mathew 25:46, Luke 20:36, John 4:14, John 5:24,25,29,39, John 10:10, John 12:25,50, Romans 2:7, shall I continue? ok! Romans 5:21, Romans 6:22,23, 2Titus 1:2, 1John 2:25, 1John3:15, 1John 5:11-13,20, Jude 21, Revelations 1:18. Okay ya’ll I’m done. But if you insist I can find more. But I’ll do it later I’m tired. The thing is though. God is bigger than time and He is definantly bigger than sin. So it doesnt matter wether we commited sin yesterday, 5 minutes ago, 50 years ago or if we are gunna commit one sometime in the near future. He has it covered. Hi April! You posted lots of Bible verses, and I looked up most of them. If anyone teaches you those verses point to “once saved always saved”, they are mistaken. Especially Matt 25:46, which is proceeded by Matt 25:32-45 that discusses how God will judge us based on our actions and not our words. Our belief in Jesus should not be merely words—God who knows our hearts will also look at our actions when He separates the “sheep from the goats”.

I love John 10:10 “…I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Jesus indeed wants to give us life abundantly, and He wants us to accept His life. He saves us from our sins so that we can live such a life. He doesn’t just save me from the sin I committed 30 years ago or 3 minutes ago; He also saves me from the sins I will *never *commit because He gives me the grace not to commit them. Jesus is the One who gives me the grace to live out my belief in Him. If I refuse to accept that grace and live the abundant life that He wants for me, do I really believe?

Believing is not merely an intellectual exercise that we do once and never again. Belief in Jesus is something that we must live daily. That is why Catholics who learned John 3:16 just as you learned it, do not automatically conclude that they will be saved. We know Jesus wants to give us everlasting life, but we also believe He will judge us by the standards of Matt 25:32-45 to determine if we believed in Him or not. We look to Him for grace to do that “so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:21)

 

[CheesusPowerKid]

I am always drawn to the passage in…hmmm…I honestly cannot think of the exact passage right now, but I’ll quote it to the best of my ability, and hopefully someone can help me out

Jesus said “Amen, Amen, I say to you. Whoever does not eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of His blood shall not inherit eternal life.”

Sounds like the Eucharist has a lot to do with it too, huh?

In Him,
Britty

 

[E.E.N.S]

CheesusPowerKid:

I am always drawn to the passage in…hmmm…I honestly cannot think of the exact passage right now, but I’ll quote it to the best of my ability, and hopefully someone can help me out

Jesus said “Amen, Amen, I say to you. Whoever does not eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of His blood shall not inherit eternal life.”

Sounds like the Eucharist has a lot to do with it too, huh?

In Him,
Britty

It is John 6:54.

 

[deb1]

CheesusPowerKid:

I am always drawn to the passage in…hmmm…I honestly cannot think of the exact passage right now, but I’ll quote it to the best of my ability, and hopefully someone can help me out

Jesus said “Amen, Amen, I say to you. Whoever does not eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of His blood shall not inherit eternal life.”

Sounds like the Eucharist has a lot to do with it too, huh?

In Him,
Britty

This seems like such an explicit verse that I wonder how non Catholics get around it. It seems that as literal as many are that they would be partaking of the Eucharist at every single chance that they got.

When I was baptist, we just avoided this verse.

 

[CheesusPowerKid]

deb1:

This seems like such an explicit verse that I wonder how non Catholics get around it. It seems that as literal as many are that they would be partaking of the Eucharist at every single chance that they got.

When I was baptist, we just avoided this verse.

This was actually the one verse my Protestant friend could not counter

 

[april_hosen]

E.E.N.S.:

Then one must ask, “what does it mean to ‘believe’ in Jesus Christ?” Certainly if you have read the Bible, then you know that we are saved by grace with faith working in love…not by saying a sinners prayer, or believing in OSAS or something silly like that which is unbiblical and unhistorical. Why else would Paul say to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling…” or “…run the race to win?” Also James tells us that we are “saved by works, and not by faith alone”…and that “faith without works is dead.” Also in Romans it talks about being grafted into the vine and cut out again…how can this happen if we are OSAS?!

I am starting to think that some people are reading scripture with a blindfold on.

Hi E.E.N.S,
I see where you’re going but I think I missed a part of the Bible. Do you remember that part where it says something along the lines of “I stand at the door and knock.”? Its our job to open the door, when He’s knocking at our hearts. We do that by telling Him that we want Him to come in and such. But how do we talk to Him, we pray.
Now if you want to get into works there are a TON of verses that back up the fact that they are useless in our salvation. They are useful in strengthening our relationship with Christ because some of them do bring us closer. But if our heart and mind is to save ourselves from eternal damnation then our attempts are futile and worthless. Might I add that by saying that we are saved by works and faith you might as well be telling Jesus “Your sacrice isn’t good enough.” Wow, what a great way to spit in the face of Your Savior.
If you want those verses I’ll be glad to give them to you. By the way maybe everyone else isnt the one with the blindfold on.