Nathan
Member
To me the danger of thinking you can loose your salvation (Once accepted) lies with thinking then, that you can keep it. To do so would mean some sort of effort on your part beyond the faith we are called to have.
Here is a quote from Adrian Rogers on this.
"If you think you're going to get to heaven by your good works, I
guarantee you will always wonder if you've done enough. You will not
have a "know-so" salvation. You will have a "hope-so" salvation. Rather
than standing up straight in confidence like an exclamation point, you
will be bent over and wondering like a question mark. That is, until you
understand that it's all by grace. Suppose everybody who wanted to be
saved had to run around the block. Some can't run. What if you had to
read a chapter in the Bible to be saved? Some can't read. But there is
one thing that can make the promise sure, and that is grace." - Adrian Rogers
This is indeed how I used to really consider the salvation thing. In fact, Adrian was one of the guys I learned a lot from. But I always found myself not being able to resolve the passages that spoke against it. I can say with all certainty that I do not have a 'hope-so' Salvation. I can also say with all honesty that I do not in the least believe that I can 'keep' my Salvation. And I can also say with all truthfulness that I do not believe that one can 'loose' Salvation.
But I can say with complete certainty, no shadow of doubt, that a man or woman can 'forsake' or 'abandon' their faith, which will result in their 'loss' of eternal life. How do I rationalize these beliefs in my head? Well to me its this simple. He keeps me. He lives in me. He guides me. He cleans me. He paid it all, all to Him I owe.
But with all the things He does for me, He also gives me free will. He gives me the choice of obeying Him or disobeying Him. He also warns that although His love for me is there till the end of time, if I allow sin to overtake me after being set free from it, it can, and I will harden my heart to His love in doing so. I will turn to a life of unbelief. How does that work? I have no clue and I do not want to know...lol. I do think I have had a glimpse though. This is not the time or place to discuss it, but I once found myself going down that road and it scared me to death.
But at the same time I can almost say that I was more aware of His Lordship over my life more than ever at that time. There is so much to the topic of Salvation it had a whole book of books wrote about it(Him). Its called the Bible. And while I am not saying ANYTHING negative about you or your studies, please hear me; I am saying it is impossible to fully grasp the richness of the depth contained about Salvation in the Bible with out taking ALL of it into account. And I do mean ALL of it. From the book of Numbers, to the book of Jude.
And while many will argue that security should not be taken for granted. I disagree. We should be extremely secure in our faith in Christ. In fact, we are admonished to make it a sure thing. My heart goes out to those who secretly are unsure and not secure, who do not want to mention it because they think it makes them look faithless. I found in my own life it was not till I reached that point that I fully came to the security that I longed for.