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Olaolu Oladosu
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Once Saved Always Saved?
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First of all, according to the bible what qualifies a man for heaven and everything tied to salvation is believing in Jesus, John 3:16 ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life’
John 5:24 ‘Verily, verily I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death to life’.
From this 2 scriptures, the qualification for everlasting life is believing in Jesus.
When we believe in Jesus we believe that his death was full payment for our sins and we are accorded ‘righteousness’ in simple terms righteousness means to be ‘right’, in order words you are not wrong. This simply means you are a saint and have no sin recorded to your account, this is because you have accepted that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross of calvary was full payment for your sin. This is Paul’s argument in the book of
Romans from chapters 1-5, he argues that both jew and gentile are under God’s condemnation and need a saviour, Jesus death on the cross of calvary was the full payment for sins for as many that believes whether jew or gentile
Rom 3:22 ‘’Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference’’.
Paul uses strong words like the fact that God justifies the ungodly Rom 4:5.
So the question begs, is once saved always saved? Can righteousness be lost? Can a man lives the way he pleases (in sin) and still be considered righteous? We will pick this from the last question and trace it upwards.
Even though righteousness has nothing to do with works, a righteous man will do right, because along with the gift of righteousness came the nature of righteousness.
When Jesus died on the cross, his death was full payment/propitiation for our sin Rom 3:25, he justified us regardless of our works Rom 3:24, in this case he died for us and became our replacement, this gave us the gift of righteousness. However, he not only died for us on the cross, we died with him on the same cross Rom 6:1-4. We died with him we were buried with him and rose with him into newness of Life. This means whoever claims to have received the gift of righteousness must also have received the nature of righteousness too, the two came together in one package.
Rom 6:6 ‘Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin’
1 John 3:9 ‘Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God’
The new nature that comes with believing in Jesus makes us live right. If a person claims to possess the gift of righteousness, along with it came the nature of righteousness.
Jesus gave a parable in the book of Matthew 13:1-23, he talks about the parable of the sower (kindly read the scripture) the first seed fell on the way side and the birds of the air came and devoured them Matt 13:4, the second fell in stony places and were scorched because they had no depth, the third amongst thorns and they were chocked by the thorns and the last fell on good ground, by Jesus explanation, these are people that hear the word of God and how the Devil steals the word from them, the first group of people heard the word and they did not understand and it was stolen from them, this group of people are those who were convinced out of what the believed, they once believed the gospel until they heard what seemed to be a superior argument and they got convinced out, the second group of people are those who faced persecutions for their faith, and because they could not stand the persecution they reneged on their faith, the third group of people are those that believed and got entangled in the cares of this world, sin, wealth e.t.c and they walked out on their faith.
These examples that Jesus gave happened in scripture and still happens today, you have to realise that when there is a call for salvation and several people make their intentions to get saved and say the sinners prayer there is a race to keep what they have received, many have lost it, many will loose it.
Some of the new testament books were written to strengthen the faith of believers and to encourage them to keep the faith cause it might be lost.
The book of Galatians was written by Paul to a church in Galatia who were being intruded by some jews and subtly trying to make them embrace a Christianity mixed with Judaism. Gal 1:6 ‘I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel’, this whole Church was about to be deceived away from the gospel of the kingdom
The book of Corinthians was written to a church that was surrounded by a lot of immorality and were beginning to conform to the immorality around them 1 Cor 5:1 ‘It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you’, Corinth was a major Greek city, it was said to have 2 ports a lot of strangers and plenty immorality, the Church had been planted by Paul only to discover that the immorality outside the church was creeping into the church. The church was on the verge of a complete backslide, Paul gave severe warning in chapter 10 of 1 Corinthians.
The book of Hebrew was written to jews who had embraced Christ but were going through severe persecution, the severity of the persecution had made many to go back to Judaism, it is widely believed that the reason the author of the book is unknown is because of the persecution that they were going through, the author was trying to avoid being killed.
Heb 10:26-27 ‘For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries’
Sin in the scripture quoted is simply going back to Judaism as that was the sin being committed by the audience addressed.
According to scripture there are 2 things that take people to hell
Rejecting salvation: Salvation was presented to you and you rejected it. John 3:16 says whosoever believes in him should not perish, simply means whosoever does not believe will perish.
Neglecting Salvation: Heb 2:2-3 ‘For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; how shall we escape if we NEGLECT so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him’.
Neglecting salvation means you had it and you walked away from it, which is very possible. It means once saved is NOT always saved.
Heb 3:12-13: ‘Take heed brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin’
Shalom.
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