Another angle to see things from -
OSAS believes so because they are opposed to working for your salvation. So, in order to preserve the gift of salvation, once a person "believes" thats it. Done deal. Seal it and forget it.
The loophole in this, what most wont admit, is that OSAS looks at that "belief" as a work. You can see this from the fact that they look back on the "event" as something they did.
You could say, they look back on the "event" as something God did. But if that's the case - why is it not looked at as something God started, instead of something God did?
Philippians 1:6 - And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Nathan, you demean yourself by making a statement you know to be incorrect....you can do better.
As promised, my first act of the day will be to clarify myself.
I was once a staunch believer in OSAS. I do, after all, attend a Southern Baptist congregation.
However, when I started studying it for myself - and by myself - I quickly understood what being "saved" meant, and what salvation was.
I remember one of the pastors at the church, great guy, talking about it one time. He would always say, "Do you know, that you know, that you know you are saved" - He would also say he was so sure he would have no problem swinging out over hell on a rotten grapevine.........yea, that one always made me raise my eyebrow.
The thing is, OSAS looks to eternal salvation as the gift given once a person believes. When, in fact, Faith is what is given - even though that Faith looks forward to salvation. I do understand that because Faith is assurance of things not seen, one can honestly say "I have salvation". However, it is never presented - from all the OSAS people I have ever come in contact with - that salvation is only assured through Faith. Although, I suppose if you can get past the aggravation that always comes up when talking about it, the OSAS people would probably agree that it is through Faith they are assured salvation.
OSAS does believe its a done deal - sealed. I made the comment of "forget it" only because OSAS says there is no
need for anything else once a person is saved. I DO NOT mean that OSAS says you can stick a ticket to heaven and walk away with it. I know that a lot of people who have a hatred toward OSAS think that people actually believe that. I never did, and no one I can remember talking with ever did either.
OSAS does believe there is more to the Christian life than just saying a prayer. However, they do not believe that turning away from God, from His Son, will result in not obtaining the end result of our Faith - salvation. The reason for this, I believe, is because they do not differentiate between Faith and Salvation.
I really do see the upside to OSAS because they absolutely do not believe you can do ANYTHING to keep salvation. However, as I stated before, it is a trap because if you believe that because of something you did, in a moment and place in time - like saying a prayer - then that becomes what your Faith is based in. I was once there. I remember being called, and I was sincere that I knew I needed to be saved. For a while I held onto that moment in time(it was an Easter Sunday) as my "know that I know that I know".
Thank God He did not leave me there. A while after that I came to the point of constantly seeing my sin. No amount of trying to assure myself that I had "believed" in Jesus made that realization of sin go away. Then one night, in my own house, God saved me. He gave me Faith to believe that Jesus paid it all. I still believed in OSAS though......I just chalked it up to the fact that I had not been really saved before.....
This time I knew though. Not because of the moment in time or anything(although I still remember that night), but because of the constant witness of The Spirit. As all young'ns do though, I still found myself sinning on occasion. Of course, when you sin as a believer, your always disciplined by God. It does not feel good. If your anything like me, you can also be stubborn. So there were honestly times when I kept on sinning, knowing I was sinning.....constantly understanding that God was not happy. I would not say that it was a 24hr a day kind of sinning because there were still those times when I would sit down and desire to read the Bible and have fellowship with God.
Of course, as you know, God cannot have fellowship with sin. I did not understand it at the time like I do now, but because I had repented of my sins, Faith does say that its a
life of repentance. So those times I sinned, I always found myself turning away from the sin. Not in a go down front to the altar, or going into a confessional, just a simple yet sincere desire to not sin. Back and forth I went for years. I always found myself turning away from sin, but never understood why in totality. Just that I "needed" to.
However, without having a firm understanding of Faith - true doctrine - sin does have a way of enticing people like me. There were times when I would sin "greatly"(as if one sin is worse than another in God's eye), and those times were harder than the white lie sins. I would feel myself being secluded from God, probably like it was being put in a corner as a kid, but in a spiritual way. In order to remedy it, I would remind myself of that night. After all, it was the real deal - zero doubt.
Each time that would happen, I would feel a little more "disconnected". Then I had to revert back to my teaching. That God would not ultimately let the one who "believed" loose their salvation, but rather would take them out of this world. Trust me, I did not want that either, but for a while I used it as a "comfort" blanket to base my belief of salvation in. Do you see a trend?
Eventually I came to the point that I was basing
my faith on things that
I knew. I cannot point to a specific time, but eventually there was a point when I needed to understand that Faith, saving Faith, Faith that leads to Salvation, was not something I owned because of something I did, but was because God gave it to me -
and continually gives it to us.
That's the #1 problem with OSAS. The "once" part of that doctrine means there cannot be more. The doctrine looks at Faith as a past event. I have heard it refuted this way though, that
if you were saved then you will always be saved. Most OSAS people will look at people who most assuredly have left all semblance of the Faith, and just say "they were not really saved to begin with". How pompous is that? Besides that, who would want to live like that - wondering, was I really saved?
Its a real thing. I have met many like that. Their number one response to that question is, I know I said a prayer - or, I know that there was this one time..... They look back to that "event". The Bible is full of passages that deal with present Faith, continual Faith - not a Faith event. There in lies the trap. Looking back at something that happened, instead of looking to Him who continually works in us.
I don't mind debating/talking about OSAS, but I personally don't get upset like I used to. I realize that if God can reach a stubborn person like me with the truth, He can with others. I will still always defend the Faith, because that is what we are called to do. But I do not let it get under my skin and effect me personally.
:amen
