John 15:1-6 and loss of slvation

[JLB]

but the key word is 'believe'.

Two things to consider:

• The condition that must be met, to be saved is believe.
• What does believe mean to Jesus in the original language of the Bible?

JLB

 

[civilwarbuff]

I stand corrected.
I did say "bet."
And you are clueless.
Now, I will ignore any more of you off-topic posts as they are a serious distraction from the topic of the OP.

Yes we have drifted off topic; fortunately I have not demeaned you in the process......

 

[civilwarbuff]

Two things to consider:

• The condition that must be met, to be saved is believe.
• What does believe mean to Jesus in the original language of the Bible?

JLB

Well, the scripture describes no conditions other than to believe so I think that is a good starting point....no conditions unless you see some that are given......
John 3:15-16 both use the same word for believe:
Original: πιστεύω

Transliteration: pisteuō

Phonetic: pist-yoo'-o

Thayer Definition:

1. to think to be true, to be persuaded of, to credit, place confidence in
   1. of the thing believed
      1. to credit, have confidence
   2. in a moral or religious reference
      1. used in the NT of the conviction and trust to which a man is impelled by a certain inner and higher prerogative and law of soul
      2. to trust in Jesus or God as able to aid either in obtaining or in doing something: saving faith
2. to entrust a thing to one, i.e. his fidelity
   1. to be intrusted with a thing

Origin: from G4102

TDNT entry: 08:54,8

Part(s) of speech: Verb

Strong's Definition: From G4102; to have faith (in, upon, or with respect to, a person or thing), that is, credit ; by implication to entrust (especially one's spiritual well being to Christ): - believe (-r), commit (to trust), put in trust with.

 

[Jim Parker]

Two things to consider:

• The condition that must be met, to be saved is believe.
• What does believe mean to Jesus in the original language of the Bible?

JLB

The word "believe" is meaningless without action that bears witness to the belief.
Thus: Mat 3:8 Bear fruit that befits repentance.

 

[civilwarbuff]

The word "believe" is meaningless without action that bears witness to the belief.
Thus: Mat 3:8 Bear fruit that befits repentance.

Luke 23
39 And one of the malefactors who were hanged railed at him, saying, If you are Christ, save yourself and us.
40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, seeing you are in the same condemnation?
41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man has done nothing amiss.
42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto you, Today shall you be with me in paradise. KJ2000
What action did the thief take other than to believe? He did not even ask forgiveness......

 

[Nathan]

Luke 23
39 And one of the malefactors who were hanged railed at him, saying, If you are Christ, save yourself and us.
40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, seeing you are in the same condemnation?
41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man has done nothing amiss.
42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto you, Today shall you be with me in paradise. KJ2000
What action did the thief take other than to believe? He did not even ask forgiveness......

He believed he needed forgiveness. Also believed Jesus could forgive. Otherwise he would not have mentioned that Jesus was fixing to go to His kingdom. Jesus was hanging on the cross next to him, and obviously was going to die.

 

[Nathan]

I've never understood why people say a person has to ask for forgiveness.

 

[civilwarbuff]

I've never understood why people say a person has to ask for forgiveness.

From the Masters own lips.....
Luke 11
2 And he said unto them, When you pray, say, Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.

3 Give us day by day our daily bread.

4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. KJ2000

 

[Nathan]

From the Masters own lips.....
Luke 11
2 And he said unto them, When you pray, say, Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.

3 Give us day by day our daily bread.

4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

True. I messed up once again, I was referring to the post I made above it. As in, why they say to ask forgiveness of sins when "becoming" a believer - "the sinners prayer"

 

[civilwarbuff]

True. I messed up once again, I was referring to the post I made above it. As in, why they say to ask forgiveness of sins when "becoming" a believer - "the sinners prayer"

Maybe it is for our own healing that we acknowlege our sinfulness and helps us move past it......
Psalms 32
1 A Psalm of David. A maschil. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputes not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

3 When I kept silence, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long.

4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me: my strength is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.

5 I acknowledged my sin unto you, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah.

 

[Nathan]

I think aknowledgment is a good thing for sure. If you don't think your a sinner then there would be no reason to need a savior.

 

[atpollard]

He can work in us AS LONG AS we ALLOW Him to.
If we fall away, how can He work in us?
2 Peter 2:20-22

All of 2 Peter 2 is about the evil of False Teachers ...

2 Peter 2 [NLT]
1 But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. 3 In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction will not be delayed.
4 For God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into hell,[fn] in gloomy pits of darkness,[fn] where they are being held until the day of judgment. 5 And God did not spare the ancient world—except for Noah and the seven others in his family. Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with a vast flood. 6 Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people. 7 But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him. 8 Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day. 9 So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. 10 He is especially hard on those who follow their own twisted sexual desire, and who despise authority.
These people are proud and arrogant, daring even to scoff at supernatural beings[fn]without so much as trembling. 11 But the angels, who are far greater in power and strength, do not dare to bring from the Lord[fn] a charge of blasphemy against those supernatural beings.
12 These false teachers are like unthinking animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed. They scoff at things they do not understand, and like animals, they will be destroyed. 13 Their destruction is their reward for the harm they have done. They love to indulge in evil pleasures in broad daylight. They are a disgrace and a stain among you. They delight in deception[fn] even as they eat with you in your fellowship meals. 14 They commit adultery with their eyes, and their desire for sin is never satisfied. They lure unstable people into sin, and they are well trained in greed. They live under God’s curse. 15 They have wandered off the right road and followed the footsteps of Balaam son of Beor,[fn] who loved to earn money by doing wrong. 16 But Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey rebuked him with a human voice.
17 These people are as useless as dried-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind. They are doomed to blackest darkness. 18 They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception. 19 They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. 20 And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. 21 It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. 22 They prove the truth of this proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.”[fn] And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.”

... Can you reasonably claim this is talking about people who were once saved and have chosen to walk away from the truth? This looks more like wolves in sheep clothes leading the lost deeper into sin. More like the seed that is snatched away by the birds. What 'Repentence' is there for someone whose heart sees God's love as nothing more than an opportunity to commit far greater sins than even the most carnal of merely worldly sinners would commit?

 

[Nathan]

All of 2 Peter 2 is about the evil of False Teachers ...

2 Peter 2 [NLT]
1 But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. 3 In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction will not be delayed.
4 For God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into hell,[fn] in gloomy pits of darkness,[fn] where they are being held until the day of judgment. 5 And God did not spare the ancient world—except for Noah and the seven others in his family. Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with a vast flood. 6 Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people. 7 But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him. 8 Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day. 9 So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. 10 He is especially hard on those who follow their own twisted sexual desire, and who despise authority.
These people are proud and arrogant, daring even to scoff at supernatural beings[fn]without so much as trembling. 11 But the angels, who are far greater in power and strength, do not dare to bring from the Lord[fn] a charge of blasphemy against those supernatural beings.
12 These false teachers are like unthinking animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed. They scoff at things they do not understand, and like animals, they will be destroyed. 13 Their destruction is their reward for the harm they have done. They love to indulge in evil pleasures in broad daylight. They are a disgrace and a stain among you. They delight in deception[fn] even as they eat with you in your fellowship meals. 14 They commit adultery with their eyes, and their desire for sin is never satisfied. They lure unstable people into sin, and they are well trained in greed. They live under God’s curse. 15 They have wandered off the right road and followed the footsteps of Balaam son of Beor,[fn] who loved to earn money by doing wrong. 16 But Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey rebuked him with a human voice.
17 These people are as useless as dried-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind. They are doomed to blackest darkness. 18 They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception. 19 They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. 20 And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. 21 It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. 22 They prove the truth of this proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.”[fn] And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.”

... Can you reasonably claim this is talking about people who were once saved and have chosen to walk away from the truth? This looks more like wolves in sheep clothes leading the lost deeper into sin. More like the seed that is snatched away by the birds. What 'Repentence' is there for someone whose heart sees God's love as nothing more than an opportunity to commit far greater sins than even the most carnal of merely worldly sinners would commit?

How does a person escape the wickedness of the world? Is there another way but through Christ?

Enslaved by sin again? That means they had escaped sins enslavement. Can you escape sin by another means than Christ?

 

[atpollard]

Okay, that's fine, but what about 1 John 2:24-25 NASB and how it fits, or doesn't fit, in with your traditional OSAS view of vs.19 in the same chapter?

"19They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.

24As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.

25This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life."

(1 John 2:19,24-25 NASB bold mine)

Why is John warning the anointed believers who know the truth to let "that abide in you which you heard from the beginning" if OSAS is true and there is no possibility whatsoever of them losing their salvation/ eternal life? Vs. 25 makes it clear that the abiding John is talking about is the matter of abiding unto eternal life, not just fellowship as some claim. This passage shows us that the one who does not abide (continue) in the faith does not remain saved. What's your take on this?

It starts out in the very top of the chapter ...

1 John 2:1-6 [NLT]
1 My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. 2 He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.
3 And we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. 4 If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. 5 But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. 6 Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.

(I chose NLT because I want to keep this simple and stick to the most basic meaning stated in the clearest possible language without splitting hairs on specific words. This is a topic that requires a large brush.)

John is writing all of this to his dear children ... that means all of the people in the visible church, to me. He is writing to keep us (ME) from sin, and acknowledges that some of us are really going to struggle with this more than others.

Then we get to verse 3 where John tells ME that I can be SURE that I know Him (Jesus) if I keep His (Jesus') commandments. I don't know about you, I am barely qualified to speak for me and certainly not qualified to speak for the soul of any other man, but with MY past and MY struggles, being SURE means a great deal. Being sure matters to me. So I do not approach obedience to God's commandments as a prerequisite for obtaining God's forgiveness, frankly, the empirical evidence of my salvation contradicts such a view. God chose and forgave me when I was utterly reprobate, thus my initial salvation can only be described as monergistic. It was all about what God did and not about what I did. I claim the honor of being unable to resist the offer of love from the great I AM. Hardly an accomplishment on my part.

So what about my walk? My progressive sanctification. Do I need to continue to obey in order to abide in God's love and forgiveness? I don't know for certain. I don't think so. Like the Prodigal Son or the Lost Sheep, I am already God's child, God's sheep, thus even if I wander (because he is God) I cannot escape him completely and so God will find me and correct me and bring me home. There is a part of the story about the young sheep that wanders and is found that is not covered in scripture, but is known to everyone who was a shepherd. It was not uncommon for the shepherd to break the leg of the sheep (usually a young lamb, because a mature sheep would not wander from the herd) and carry it on his shoulders until it healed. During this time, the lamb bonded with the shepherd and when it was able to walk on its own again, it never strayed from the shepherd. Those God loves, he corrects, and when we return, we do not desire to wander away again. That is because Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are His sheep.

You speak of hypothetical people who do not want or need to follow and obey Jesus, but that is not me. I am free from the need to obey out of any sort of fear. God will not allow me to wander too far away that He cannot and will not bring me home. Instead I want to obey because I want to be sure. I want to show how completely I love Jesus. I want to know, experientially and not just intellectually, that I am living in Jesus (and Jesus is living in me).

To his children, the visible church, John also writes "If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth." I take from this the serious warning and reality that not everyone sitting in a pew is what they seem. Some of the church are liars and not living in the truth. My wife says that as Christians, we are called to be 'fruit inspectors'. If someone has none of the Fruit of the Spirit, they need to be warned and handled with caution.

So how can I tell the difference between a Prodigal Son, a Lost Sheep and a Liar (not living in the truth)? This question gave me some trouble at first, but now I have the definitive answer: I can't. God can, but I have no way to know a man's heart looking from the outside. This turned out to be less of a problem than I had first feared, since I am not called to sit in judgement on any heart but my own. I can judge their actions by the yardstick of scripture and let scripture condemn or acquit them, but God will judge their hearts.

I can tell you, that has been a tremendous relief to me. I really didn't want that job anyway.

 

[atpollard]

I hope that I have been clear. Since I have rambled more than enough, let's bring it to a close with your specific verses:

1 John 2:19 I see this talking about the same two groups as 1 John 2:1-6. The visible church is the little children to whom John is writing and some of the members of the visible church were not, are not and will never be part of the invisible church. The person who claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth (v.4) ... so it should come as no real surprise that such people ... went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. (v.19).

1 John 2:24 Here we have the real heart of John's letter. Yes, John wanted and needed to warn the visible church about the danger of the liars in our assembly, but John was not really concerned about the welfare of the liars. As Jesus told his disciples to shake the dust off their sandals, so John says of those who left let them go, they were not of us (first century for "don't let the door hit you in the rear on the way out"). However, John's real concern was that Jesus' sheep not wander. I don't know where this idea comes from that Calvinists are opposed to abiding in Christ. As I stated in the beginning, I am all for abiding in Christ. It benefits me every day and in many ways. I just find myself perplexed at this view of abiding that makes it sound like I am in God's hand, but God's hand is open, Palm down and I am clinging to God's fingers with all of my might less I be shaken into the fire ... sure God scooped me up, BUT (there is always a 'but' or an 'if').

1 John 2:25 This just makes me want to sing. Along with every other verse that focuses on the promises of God and, thereby, serves to reinforce the universal truth throughout all of scripture that God is trustworthy. I don't know how much or little this means to you, but it me and everything to me. In my old life, lies were our native language. If someone told you something, you could take it to the bank that it was a lie. So when God came along and presented me with truths that were not sugar coated or smoke and mirrors, that made an impression. God said that if I followed him, I would suffer and be hated and my friends would turn on me and family would stab me in the back. He also promised two things, God would never leave or forsake me, and when I got to heaven, God would make things right. So this is just another reminder that the God who does not lie, has made a personal promise to ME of eternal life. I have no idea if you can lose your salvation, but my God does not lie, so I cannot.

CONCLUSION:
The way I see it, the people of the golden chain (Romans 8:28-30) will abide because God has the power to finish what he started (Philipians 1:6) and has promised to do so (John 6:36-47). I don't know where you or anyone else got the idea that eternal security means Christians do not abide, but it is not what I believe. I believe that Christians have eternal security because God will empower us to abide. It is the unsaved, the non-elect, those who are not his sheep who cannot abide. Here are some quotes from the fathers of Reformed Theology on the subject:

"The argument is sophistical and the refutation is resolved grammatically. In the major premise, "faith" ought to be placed with the word "justifies" and the portion of the sentence "without works justifies" is placed in a predicate periphrase and must refer to the word "justifies," not to "faith." In the minor premise, "without works" is truly in the subject periphrase and refers to faith. We say that justification is effective without works, not that faith is without works. For that faith which lacks fruit is not an efficacious but a reigned faith. "Without works" is ambiguous, then. For that reason this argument settles nothing. It is one thing that faith justifies without works; it is another thing that faith exists without works." (Martin Luther)

"I wish the reader to understand that as often as we mention Faith alone in this question, we are not thinking of a dead faith, which worketh not by love, but holding faith to be the only cause of justification. (Galatians 5:6; Romans 3:22.) It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone: just as it is the heat alone of the sun which warms the earth, and yet in the sun it is not alone, because it is constantly conjoined with light." (John Calvin)

 

[Jim Parker]

What action did the thief take other than to believe? He did not even ask forgiveness......

sigh
Do you really think that is the kind of question an adult would ask?
He did everything that someone who was nailed hands and feet to a cross could do.
The average believer is not literally nailed to a cross and unable to move.

 

[JLB]

Is there an extra 'not' in here?......

Yes, to many not's. thanks for pointing that out.

 

[atpollard]

How does a person escape the wickedness of the world? Is there another way but through Christ?

Enslaved by sin again? That means they had escaped sins enslavement. Can you escape sin by another means than Christ?

For a definitive answer to questions so far above my pay grade, you will need to kick that question upstairs to the big Trinity Himself. I can only offer speculation based on personal experience:

Q. How does a person escape the wickedness of the world? Is there another way but through Christ?
A. For me, it required all three persons of the Trinity. I know of no other way to escape the world.

Q. Enslaved by sin again? That means they had escaped sins enslavement. Can you escape sin by another means than Christ?
A. Yes. No. Sort of, but not really. (That will probably need some explanation).
There are different degrees of enslavement by sin. It is not the 'enslavement' that varies, each person is completely enslaved to his personal sin. It is the sin that differs. (Romans 1:24-28) God appears capable of withdrawing restraint and giving us over to still more depraved minds and lusts and desires. Thus it is possible to break free of some sins for a season and yet never be free of sin's enslavement or know the bloom of grace that comes from the breath of God transforming a dead heart into a living heart. Thus one can be enslaved by sin again, even though one has not actually escaped sin's enslavement.
This brings us to escaping sin by another means than Christ. I have found that it is quite possible to be utterly enslaved by sin, unrepentant, even a God hater, and to find some small measure of warmth at the fire of the faith of another. To be damned and in the fellowship of the saved is a very strange state. It is possible to draw a brief moment of hope, a crumb of fellowship, love and even grace, from the assembly of believers ... without actually being a believer yourself. If you do not think this is true, then ask yourself why all those people show up at church only on Christmas and Easter? They can't possibly be abiding on a twice a year feeding and fellowship. Yet they must leave with something if they keep coming back year after year. When your soul is hungry enough, even a crumb is a feast.
So they are (and I was) escaping some of the sin for a while ... sort of by Jesus and sort of not. However, let there be no mistake, it was not something that could last. A quick 'fix' of good before returning to a life of sin.

Those are my experiential answers.
No more and no less.
(Does this have anything to do with 2 Peter 2 or losing salvation?)

 

[Nathan]

For a definitive answer to questions so far above my pay grade, you will need to kick that question upstairs to the big Trinity Himself. I can only offer speculation based on personal experience:

Q. How does a person escape the wickedness of the world? Is there another way but through Christ?
A. For me, it required all three persons of the Trinity. I know of no other way to escape the world.

Q. Enslaved by sin again? That means they had escaped sins enslavement. Can you escape sin by another means than Christ?
A. Yes. No. Sort of, but not really. (That will probably need some explanation).
There are different degrees of enslavement by sin. It is not the 'enslavement' that varies, each person is completely enslaved to his personal sin. It is the sin that differs. (Romans 1:24-28) God appears capable of withdrawing restraint and giving us over to still more depraved minds and lusts and desires. Thus it is possible to break free of some sins for a season and yet never be free of sin's enslavement or know the bloom of grace that comes from the breath of God transforming a dead heart into a living heart. Thus one can be enslaved by sin again, even though one has not actually escaped sin's enslavement.
This brings us to escaping sin by another means than Christ. I have found that it is quite possible to be utterly enslaved by sin, unrepentant, even a God hater, and to find some small measure of warmth at the fire of the faith of another. To be damned and in the fellowship of the saved is a very strange state. It is possible to draw a brief moment of hope, a crumb of fellowship, love and even grace, from the assembly of believers ... without actually being a believer yourself. If you do not think this is true, then ask yourself why all those people show up at church only on Christmas and Easter? They can't possibly be abiding on a twice a year feeding and fellowship. Yet they must leave with something if they keep coming back year after year. When your soul is hungry enough, even a crumb is a feast.
So they are (and I was) escaping some of the sin for a while ... sort of by Jesus and sort of not. However, let there be no mistake, it was not something that could last. A quick 'fix' of good before returning to a life of sin.

Those are my experiential answers.
No more and no less.
(Does this have anything to do with 2 Peter 2 or losing salvation?)

It has to do with 2 Peter because of what he said. That they had become entangled in sin again. The "again" means they had been set free from sin.

I believe the Bible, God, is clear that the only way to be free from sin is through Christ.

John 8:31-38
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,
32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
33 They answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?"
34 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.
35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.
36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
37 I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.
38 I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father."

 

[Jim Parker]

It has to do with 2 Peter because of what he said. That they had become entangled in sin again. The "again" means they had been set free from sin.

There you go getting all logical and rational on us!

(heh heh heh heh heh)