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NASB | Luke 8:13 "Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Luke 8:13 "Those on the rocky soil are the people who, when they hear, receive and welcome the word with joy; but these have no firmly grounded root. They believe for a while, and in time of trial and temptation they fall away [from Me and abandon their faith]. |
Subject: One example of loosing salvation NT |
Bible Note: 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 |