I like to listen to theological debates on YouTube. Most of the time the topics are various aspects of Calvinism – how sinful is humanity? do humans have free will? would God send a baby to hell?<\/p>\n\n\n
The one topic I have absolutely no interest in is “once saved, always saved”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
For one thing, it doesn’t take long to find strong proof texts on both sides of that debate. So if you’re just looking at individual verses (ripped out of context), it is going to be tough to get any traction for your side in the debate.<\/p>\n\n\n
But what really bothers me is the nature of the question itself – in that it\u00a0springs from a strictly transactional conception of salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n
If I do this or that thing correctly<\/b><\/u>, then God will allow me into heaven. Maybe if I say the magic prayer? Or “confess with my lips”? But what exactly do I confess with my lips?<\/p>\n\n\n
The trick, apparently, is knowing the correct way to do that thing that needs to be done.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
And a lot of people get very anxious because they think (most days) that they are probably doing it correctly, but in their darker moments they are afraid they are not.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
But faith, in the end, isn’t about saying the magic words or verbally assenting to a handful of propositional truths.<\/p>\n\n\n
Jesus is inviting you and me into a relationship with Him, and the Father, through the Holy Spirit. That’s a completely different sort of arrangement.<\/p>\n\n\n
So can you lose your salvation?<\/p>\n\n\n
Well, can a relationship fall apart even when one side is perfectly loving and forgiving?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
You betcha.<\/p>\n\n\n
Ever met someone whose spouse – 25 years into the relationship – decides to cheat and then permanently chooses the fling over the loving spouse?<\/p>\n\n\n
I have.<\/p>\n\n\n
Does it happen often?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Thankfully, no.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I like to listen to theological debates on YouTube. Most of the time the topics are various aspects of Calvinism – how sinful is humanity? do humans have free will? would God send a baby to hell? The one topic I have absolutely no interest in is “once saved, always saved”.\u00a0 For one thing, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8378,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8377\/revisions\/8378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}