Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Once Saved Always Saved Message-ID: Date: 15 Dec 89 06:38:46 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada Lines: 84 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article jamesa@amadeus.wr.tek.com (James Akiyama) writes: >I believe, as stated above, that "predestination" and "freewill" are not >mutually exclusive. God may give us a freewill, but then elect those whom >He predestined by presenting an enticing offer He foreknows you will not refuse. >He may present His offer to others as well (as I previously gave from a quote >in Hebrews 6:4-6). But, again, He knows that these offers will be refused. >To others, He may never explicitly reveal Himself, although the Bible makes >clear that revelation is found in all of creation. The scenario you describe is, as I see it, almost correct. There is but one missing element which, when taken into consideration, makes everything fall neatly into place. Unless one is aware of this missing element, it is easy to understand how he would consider free will to be a necessary factor. The missing element is, that as part of becoming saved, God gives a person an entirely new, sinless soul. Being sinless, this new soul does love God with all its heart, all its mind, and all its strength. It is, therefore, incapable of rejecting God. This fact is what permits me to confidently declare that a saved person does not have the free will to reject God. This fact also reveals the mechanical description of why we can never lose our salvation. Before we were saved we had completely sinful souls. Ephesians 2:1-3 tells us that we were dead in our sins, and were exactly like those who will never become saved. I believe your interpretation of God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart is not only correct but also a marvelous illustration of this truth. When God removes His hand of restraint then man automatically falls deeper and deeper into sin, and there is no apparent bottom to this fall which is what will make hell so unbearable. Unsaved man can only do what little good he does if he is sustained by God's restraining of his natural tendancy to do nothing but sin. This is why I confidently declare that an unsaved man does not have the free will to accept God. A person who is dead does not have the free will to choose to live. I think it is worth noting that, while terms related to predestination do appear in the Bible numerous times, the term free will never does. Free will is a concept that has been introduced by man in an attempt to explain a spiritual truth which they either could not see or did not want to acknowledge (before anyone gets to angry, be it known that I believe that most people fall into the "could not see" category). It is, however, a position which denies that salvation is entirely the work of God and in absolutely no way whatsoever the work of man. In a very abstract sense one might say that we are making choices, but in a much more real sense we are following the only alternative that is available to us. An unsaved person can do nothing but sin were it not for God's restraint; his sinful soul and his sinful flesh are in complete harmony with one another. while the flesh of a saved person still, for the time being, lusts after sin, his brand new soul is no longer capable of sin. God only gives new, sinless souls to those whom He saves. NOte that He does not do this lightly. It is for those people's sins that He took upon Himself the penalty of eternal damnation that they so rightly deserved. He had to satisfy His own judicial requirements before He could exercise His ability to rescue them. Let me know if you would like me to post a proof of the fact that salvation involves the replacing of ones sinful soul with a sinless one and I shall do so. I thought I'd limit myself to giving you a brief response in case you really did not want to continue this discussion. If you want to research this issue on your own then I suggest that you begin by trying to determine what the phrase "first resurrection" (Revelation 20:5-6) refers to and when the implied second resurrection of a saved person is, analyzing the past tense references to the raising of a person who has become saved, trying to determine exactly what is meant by being born again, and trying to resolve the apparently incorrect declaration that one who is born of God cannot sin. This latter statement can be found in 1 John 3:9 which says "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.". A small hint on the latter two points is that our soul becomes born again when we are saved while our flesh is not born again until the last day when we receive our new, spiritual bodies. It is our soul, therefore, that not only does not but also cannot sin right now, even though our flesh, as I'm sure you well know, still wants to. It is this conflict between our sinless soul and sinful flesh that creates the inner war that we experience as our flesh continually tries to do things which our soul now hates. Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3