Perseverance of the saints
In Reviewing this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseverance_of_the_saints
It states the following, “The central tenet of the Arminian view is that believers are preserved from all external forces that might attempt to separate them from God, and further that God will not change His mind about their salvation, but that these same believers can themselves willingly repudiate their faith (either by a statement to that effect, or by continued sinful activity combined with an unwillingness to repent). Thus, their salvation is conditional on remaining faithful.
Traditional Calvinists do not dispute that salvation requires faithfulness, and the point of difference between these Calvinists and Arminians is over whether God allows true Christians to fall away. Free Grace advocates agree with traditional Calvinists that salvation cannot be lost but with the Arminians that true Christians can backslide or fall away. However, the Free Grace advocates and the Arminians do not define repudiation in the same way: the former sees backslidden believers as merely “carnal,” hindering their sanctification process, whereas the latter sees them as having fallen from the saving grace they once possessed.”
My personal opinion is probably close to Armianism but more targeted. Grace is freely offered to all BUT one must choose to accept the grace; One must WANT the life that God offers (we must knock then he opens the door; grace is freely given but we must choose to recieve) and not just use grace as licence. To me “backsliding” or the sin of believer is covered by grace because that person desires the life God offers. If a person states “I don’t care what God wants I’m going to do what I want. Forget Gods way of doing life, I want to do life the way the rest of the world does it”, and this is truly the condtion of thier heart then I would say it is possible they are not covered unless they later (prehaps sometime later) come back and ask for grace in earnest.
Additionally are we truly preserved from all external influence? Of course not! There are daily challenges to our relationship with God.However no external force on its own can separate us from God. It would be only of our own volition.
Practically this has issues; if a person says they’re done with God, they walk outside after ’sinning’ and get hit by a bus; are they saved? My answer is that only God knows the true condition of their heart and THAT is what he will judge.
An even more difficult situation would be the one where an person is incarcerated for their faith and tortured, or worse made to be addicted to mind altering drugs; and there by renounces their faith or does sinfulacts while under the influence. What of this person? How then will they be judged? If evil men were to “break” a believer, would this man in fact be saved? Or since in some way the man might have acquiesced, is he then responsible for his own actions? It maybe then that only God can know the answers to these questions since it is he that will judge the heart.
And of cource this immediatly goes back into the freewill discussion about how much frewill do you have, and if God is pursing you can you still tell him no etc. But hey, food for thought.
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