Subject: Renewal AGAIN to repentance? |
Bible Note: Dear Joe! Greetings and peace in the name of Jesus! My friend, I am so much in agreement with what you wrote to GloriaLynn just 15 minutes after this post! But I cannot but ask you how we are to discern if one has 'fallen away?' If it is from our lowly vantage, can we know that a person was never truly saved because he now appears to not be serving Christ? In other words, if a person 'seemed' to be a Christian, but now has 'fallen away' from his 'apparent' walk with Jesus, do we assume that he is unsaved? I may be overly simplistic, or naive, or maybe even have a 'mercy flow' which blinds me to reality (something I have NEVER been accused of! :-)), but In such a case I would rather err on the side of God's grace than err on the side of condemnation! You see, it seems that what you are saying is that we are, in the eyes of man, condemned unless proven saved. Now if I have misjudged you or misinterpreted your meaning, I apologize. Or, if you are speaking of salvation from God's lofty vantage, I would have to agree with you. But if salvation is proved before man by pious works or actions, then we are, as you said in another post, ALL in trouble! I know that good works SHOULD follow faith, but I cannot state unequivocally that they WILL. Do you? Much like what I asked GloriaLynn, at what juncture do we count a person's lack of continuing proof of salvation as proof that they were never saved at all? Blessings, peace and amicable curiosity :-) In Christ Jesus, charis |