OSAS, Another Look

Q

First I just want to say that I really enjoy your website and what you guys are doing. I especially like your articles on the fulfillment of prophecy in present day.

My question pertains to eternal security. I understand that as a Christ follower that God continually forgives us of our sins because if not then no one could be saved (because as sinful humans we fall time and time again) and Christ would have died in vain. However my question is… Can someone who believes in God, repented of his/her sins, and has been born again, actively choose to lose their salvation? Why anyone would want to do that I don’t know. I believe that you can because God has given us free choice. If we can’t then God gave us free choice to choose to love him but once that is done not free choice to choose not love him. I believe that this is the unforgivable sin that is spoken about in Matthew 12:32. I also think that this is the meaning of Hebrews 6:4-6.

I read your article on Hebrews 6:4-6, “You’ll be Safe Here … A Commentary on Hebrews 6” but I don’t understand where you got “falling away” to mean going back to the rituals of the law. Where do you get this information from?

A

Scriptures for agency (the ability to choose) and security (the inability to unchoose) are equally clear. John 6:39 says that the Son will lose none of those the Father has given Him. John 10:29 says no one can snatch us out of the father’s hand. Romans 8:38-39 says that nothing can separate the believer from the love of God. Neither John nor Paul exempt ourselves from this promise.

2 Cor. 1:21-22 is perhaps the clearest. It says, “Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”

There is not even the slightest hint anywhere in Scripture that the Holy Spirit can be unsealed and the guarantee voided, by God or anyone else. We are either forever saved or we were never saved.

As for Hebrews 6, The Letter to the Hebrews is God’s bridge from the Old Covenant to the New. It was written to Jews who had converted to Christianity and were under intense pressure to go back under the Law. Everything in the letter has to be read from that perspective.