Contendah, my Friend,
If you wanted to discuss "eternal security" -- you should have been more clear. When you bring up the issue of Paul and "brethren" -- I have to assume that is what you want to discuss.
My Friend, it seems like you are pointing to the left -- and saying, "Turn right."
However, if you are truly interested in discussing "eternal security" -- why have you been ignoring the discussion I began on that subject three days ago?
Does the man speak with forked tongue -- or with muddled thinking?
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
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Bill,
With each successive post, you show yourself to be more confused. It was YOU who introduced the OSAS business into this string. You did so in your fourth post, above, where you piled on these favorite verses (attempted "proof texts") of the OSAS persuasion:
"How would you fit Ephesians 1:13, Ephesians 4:30, Ephesians 2:8-9, John 6:47, and John 10:28-29 into that discussion? Or would you? Keep in mind that these teachings are also part of Scripture. And, none of these Scripture verses/passages contradict the verses/passages you suggest. The [sic] complement and complete the teachings of those verses/passages."
In subsequent discussion, you have totally declined to answer the arguments I made showing that there is indeed a possibility for a Christian to sin so as to be lost.
Your misunderstanding of scripture concerning "eternal security" arises from your insistence that a saved person is absolutely unconditionally saved. The passages I discussed demonstrate clearly that this is not so. You and other OSASers dwell on words like "sealed" and "earnest" without recognizing that in discussions involving these concepts, the salvific and preservative actions contemplated are those of God. You refuse to recognize that God, in our age and time,as in every age and time, deals with His creature, man, within a covenant relationship the terms of which are set forth by God.. God will NOT break that covenant, but men sometimes do, and in so doing, by their own free will, abrogate the covenant and forfeit their salvation.
You can not just cavalierly dismiss the powerful teaching of scriptures such as Hebrews 6: 1-6 and Hebrews 3, which without question describe the apostasy that can ensue when man so sins as to depart from the living God (see Heb. 3:12). Your flawed strategy is to insist that those scriptures could not possibly be describing a Christian who has lost his salvation since there are other scriptures that counter-argue that point. But those other scriptures--your favorite OSAS attempted proof texts--don't work that way unless you read into them something that is not there, namely that they teach an absolute and unconditional guarantee of salvation of the "Christian believer". They do not do that, Bill, and it will not do for you to continue to play little puerile word games in an attempt to make them say what they do not.
God's warranty is a limited warranty, Bill. He assures the saved person that He (God) will keep his part of the covenant, but the "Christian believer" has covenant obligations as well and when he defaults on these, the covenant is broken, notwithstanding the faithfulness of God to keep His part.
Just try, Bill, to deal with the fact situation in Hebrews 6, where the writer identifies persons who have become "partakers of the Holy Spirit" and who nevertheless is found to be in such a spiritual state that he is said to crucify afresh the Son of God and put him to an open shame".
You have thus far shown by your continued silence that you are not able to cobble up even a lame defense of your OSASness that would overcome that compelling characterization of just how a saved person indeed can become lost!
"