Results 1 - 4 of 4
|
|
|||||
Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | One example of loosing salvation NT | Luke 8:13 | gracefull | 88855 | ||
"So, in light of everything Peter lays out in the context of the letter, we have here a set of false teachers who once had escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Savior who are now back to their old ways" I am taking neither side of this subject, but as I read your post I did have one observation.. The above scripture does not indicate that these had mere knowledge about or a religious understanding of, but states that these 'escaped the defilements of this world'. That sounds like salvation to me. 2 Peter 1:2-4 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in (2) the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; 3 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the God's nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. It is through knowledge of Him (spiritual revelation and not mere mental facts) that producs His character in us, His divine nature. These scripture indicate this is a process of becoming because verse 4 says THROUGH THE PROMISES (plural so not just The Promise as in Jesus' sin offering) we come to share in God's nature and escape the corruption which evil desires have brought into the world. In light of these verses one must ask, is Peter saying these have been partakers of the promises that form the divine nature which enables us to escape the corruption that is in this world? If indeed it is only THROUGH this type of KNOWLEDGE that one can escape.. 2 Peter 2:15 CJB These peple have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Bil'am Ben-B'or.. So, is it possible to having once tasted the grace of God to actually chose to turn back and not merely backslide..but to go to enemy camp against God? God knows! God bless |
||||||
2 | One example of loosing salvation NT | Luke 8:13 | Joseph3 | 88896 | ||
Greetings gracefull! Thank you for your comments! Maybe a couple parables of the Lord Jesus Christ will help in the discussion, they have certainly helped me in the time I have studied this topic. Matthew 25:14-30, the parable of the talents. In this parable, the servants were each given a measure of talents while the master was gone. Upon the master’s return we see that the first two servants were obedient and did what the master wanted, they invested their talents and gave back more to the master than what the master had given them. The master then rewarded them equally, not basing the rewards on the talents, but on the heart of obedience. The hearts of the first two servants were in humble obedience to their master, and the master was very pleased! Then comes the third servant. Rather than invest, he just dug a hole in the ground, hid his talent, and waited for the mater’s return. When the master returned, the servant gave an excuse, saying he knew the master was a hard man, so he was afraid and then gave the one talent back. What was the master’s response? Well, let’s just say he was not pleased. He accused the servant of being lazy and being afraid of his master, therefore the master threw the servant into outer darkness (We know Christ would never throw a regenerate believer into outer darkness…). So, we have here three servants, all given a measure of talent. Two were obedient; the other was not and was punished. What this shows is the hypocrisy of the third servant, he never really knew his master, for if he truly knew his master, he would have shown the obedience of the first two servants. Therefore, he is exposing himself to the truth that he was a fraud, and the master knew this and punished him for it. How this ties into 2 Peter is simple. The false teachers showed no obedience to Christ. They clearly were part of this body of believers and partook of the blessings that come with being in a body of believers (i.e. the visible church). But, ultimately they showed no obedience to Christ and it showed in their sinful teachings and actions. 2 Peter is clearly divided between the first chapter, in which the subject is true believers, and the second chapter which deals with the false teachers, people who never really knew the true Savior. The second parable is the parable of the wheat and tares. This clearly states that in the visible church, there are people who are not true believers, the tares, among the true followers of Christ, the wheat. I think this parable is very clear in it’s teaching that there are folks who claim to be Christians, but their hearts are not truly regenerated. To answer your question, it is most certainly possible for people to partake of the blessing s of Christian fellowship. In fact, it is possible to accept the principles of the Gospel. BUT, there are fruits and there is obedience that comes with following Christ. I am not saying works salvation, by no means! My point is that the mark of regeneration is that we love God’s law and we are obedient to Christ (Heb. 8:10). The following quote is taken from a work on this subject by Loraine Boettner. It synthesizes well the point I am trying to make: “Mere church membership, of course, is no guarantee that the persons are real Christians. Not every member of the Church militant will be a member of the Church triumphant. To answer certain purposes, they make an outward profession of the Gospel, which obliges them for a time to be outwardly moral and to associate themselves with the people of God. They appear to have true faith and continue thus for a while. Then either their sheep's clothing is stripped off, or they throw it off themselves, and return again to the world. If we could see the real motives of their hearts, we would discover that at no time were they ever actuated by a true love of God. They were all this while goats, and not sheep, ravening wolves, and not gentle lambs. Hence Peter says of them, "It has happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog turning to his own vomit again, and the sow that had been washed to wallowing in the mire," 2 Peter 2:22. They thereby show that they never belonged to the number of the elect.” (http://www.ccel.org/b/boettner/predest/14.htm) I hope this has been of some help to you. Please check out my other posts on this topic at #88279 and #88451. Let me know what you think! ;-) In Christ, Joe |
||||||
3 | One example of loosing salvation NT | Luke 8:13 | gracefull | 88966 | ||
Hi Joe, thank you for the observations of these parables. However, this does not address the observation in my post. IF the teaching of eternal security for the believer is fact, then the passage in 2 Peter 1 must be addressed. And in studying scripture for truth it must be addressed without preconceived ideas, objectively. Thank you again for the observations of the parables. God bless |
||||||
4 | One example of loosing salvation NT | Luke 8:13 | Joseph3 | 89663 | ||
Greetings gracefull! I want to apologize for not answering your question, please accept my apology. I’ll try and answer more directly this time. But, do keep in mind those parables, they have helped me when understanding this portion of Scripture. I think your point is that the same knowledge that the audience Peter is addressing in chapter one is the same knowledge that the false professors had, therefore because they all had the same knowledge of the Lord, they all must have been saved. This is what I gather from your post, but correct me if I am wrong. You quote 2 Peter 1:2-4. So, let’s continue onto the rest of chapter 1 and into chapter 2. I touched on this in my prior post, you may remember. Peter, in the rest of chapter 1, specifically vs. 5-11 describes the logical progression of growing in faith, producing fruit. If you read these verses, Peter lays out a list of attributes in which we as people who profess Christ are to strive for, like: virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love. Peter then states that if you have these things, you will not be barren or unfruitful in your knowledge of Christ. Peter then makes the point to continue to be diligent lest we lose assurance of our salvation, which he then comes to his conclusion in verse 10. Peter states “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make you calling and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble.” The point that Peter is making is that if we practice the above list of fruits, diligently striving to be obedient to Christ, we will be sure of our calling and election, i.e. salvation, and we will never stumble. Never is a strong word!! (Note, God is sure who His elect are and the eternal security He gave them (Rom. 8:31-39), but a professing Christian may not always have assurance, this is the area Peter is dealing with…). So, from this Peter them moves into chapter 2 where he deals with the false teachers, who, even though they have the knowledge of Christ, DO NOT produce the fruit that Peter lists in vs. 5-8. They slander Christ, they practice sexual immorality, they deny that Christ will comes back, they abuse liberty in Christ, on and on they simply trample underfoot the cross of Christ. Therefore, they show themselves to be hypocrites, false professors that never strived to be obedient to Christ. A good cross reference to this would be 1 John 2:19. I think the next point you were asking about was the subject of escaping the defilements of the world, escaping the corruption of the world. I don’t think this is too hard to understand. When a person enters a visible body of believers, like a local church, that person is escaping the stench of the world. They come to a church and hear the gospel preached, they have escaped the world, they are in the care of the church, where the defilements of the world won’t be glorified. Do they truly believe? Do they have a desire to follow Christ in humble obedience? We don’t know, we can only tell by their fruits, that’s all, and that is the point Peter is making. These false teachers came into this body of believers, and for all intensive purposes believed the gospel. But, as we see in chapter 2, it has become terribly clear these false professors never truly believed because their fruits are flat out wicked. They denied Christ! That is the classic definition of an apostate (Luke 11:24-26, 12:47, 48; 1 Cor. 10:1-12; Heb. 3:12-18, 6:6, 10:26; Jude 4-6). To top it off, Peter describes these false teachers as dogs going back to their vomit. This picture shows how someone could get rid of the worldly defilements, i.e. the vomit, yet because they never truly believed, they would go back to that vomit!! As well, a sow; which is a pig, swine, or a hog. What is the nature of a pig? You can clean the outside, but inside it’s true nature is for the mud, the dirt, the slop. I could spray a hog clean, but in time he’ll head back to the mud pit. This picture shows that the false teachers’ nature NEVER CHANGED, they where never regenerated, they never truly believed Christ. They put a façade of being believers, but in time their true nature was exposed, their outside was “clean” for a time, but their inward nature was still corrupt. Ok, I owe you an apology. I told you I would be short, and I was not. Please forgive! : ) I hope I have been of some help. Greetings… In Christ, Joe |
||||||