redpill, nonon, etc....
Perhaps you are misunderstanding the purpose of the warning verses addressed to believers as a
means used by God for His
ends.
To wit:
http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4348822#post4348822
To claim a possessing believer can lose that which the Lord attained by His active and passive obedience, and His continued intercession on behalf of those for whom He atoned, is to argue our High Priest in Heaven is impotent. Sigh.
Rather than cherry-pick verses and read into them more freight than they can bear, consider the full counsel of Scripture and it good and necessary consequences regarding the perseverance of those that believe:
Isaiah 43:1-3, Jeremiah 32:40, John 3:16, John 3:36, John 5:24, John 6:35-40, John 6:47, John 6:51, John 10:27-30, John 11:25, John 14:21, John 15:1-11, John 17:12, John 17:15, Romans 8:29-30, Romans 8:35-39, Ephesians 1:5, Ephesians 1:13-14, Ephesians 2:10
God's workmanship, Ephesians 4:30, Hebrews 5:11-6:12, Philippians 1:6, Philippians 2:12-13, Philippians 3:12-15, 1 Corinthians 1:8 , 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, 2 Timothy 1:12, 2 Timothy 4:18, 1 Peter 1:3-5, 1 Peter 1:23, 1 Peter 5:10, 2 Peter 2:10, 1 John 2:19, 1 John 2:25, 1 John 3:9, 1 John 5:13, 1 John 5:18, Jude 24-25.
AMR
A. The purpose of a warning is to inspire a measure of
fear about a
potential negative consequence. In the word, warnings were meant to influence the person to change his
choice on a certain matter or matters. Warnings are often used in human communication and in those instances we always assume the other person have the
capacity to listen,
understand and
change their minds (make a different decision). We do not assume our words are incidental to their change of mind. Since God knows exactly how man thinks we must assume that He communicates with us in a way we understand. Otherwise, His communications would have no certain meaning.
B. If I were to warn my child "Don't cross the Interstate there is too much traffic and you could be killed" if he believes I am telling the truth he will heed my warning and not venture out onto the Interstate. If he later examines the Interstate and finds it has been completely blocked so that
no traffic is possible in either direction he might return to me and ask "Why did you say it was dangerous?" If I answered, "That was just a
MEANS to an END. My real END was to keep you close to home." No matter how noble my intentions respecting my child he, in his childish simplicity, would know I was guilty of telling a lie. When God issues warnings He is not playing a game. He is telling the truth. It was the veracity of the OT prophecies that differentiated true prophets from false. Yet you say God issues warnings to his children which He knows are not valid since they are eternally secure - just to manipulate them.
C. Warnings are often used in the context of
persuasion. The appeal is to the mind, the emotions and the Spirit. When people see the potential consequences of rebelling against God their instinct of self-interest and self-preservation might motivate them to submit to the truth. This is the common-sense understanding of warning someone. Since a Calvinism posits irresistible grace, persuasion is not essential to a person avoiding danger. The warning is
just an avenue, a means, God
happens to have chosen. He might as well have ordained that a person be saved by performing some ritual performed in a foreign language he does not understand.
D. You accused another poster of "cherry picking" verses yet in this post you have supplied a whole bushel of "cherries" Amassing a number of scriptures may overwhelm your opponent but it does nothing to prove your point unless the scriptures are vetted as both
pertinent to the subject at hand and
rightly divided.
E. Taking at random the first (NT) scripture on your list - the very familiar
John 3:16 let me examine it to see if it supports OSAS.
16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but
have everlasting life. (NKJV)
Now if we will inherit eternal salvation
because of a single salvation experience the word "
believes" would need to be conjugated on the
aorist tense, to emphasize that our believing was a
past event. The aorist is a
simple snapshot of the past. OSAS could also be expressed if the verb "believes" were conjugated in the
perfect tense. This would even be a better choice (imo) in that it would indicate that the action of believing
began and was completed in the past and has a
resulting state in the present "We believed and are still believing." However, neither of these tenses is used. Instead "believe" is a
present tense participle which by definition denotes
current ongoing faith in Christ so that it could be translated, "everyone who
continually believes." Since I do not expect you to take my word for it here is the opinion of an expert linguist:
Professor of NT Greek at Dallas Theological Seminary, Daniel Wallace translates the present participle in John 3:16 as "everyone who continually believes."
Wallace Daniel B., Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, p. 620
So the promise is to those who have
ongoing faith in Christ. This agrees with John's emphasis on the necessity of
ABIDING REMAINING and
CONTINUING in Him found elsewhere in His gospel.
Whatever you might make of this verse it is
NOT saying a person who has believed in Him once upon a revival shall never perish. Thus it cannot be used as evidence to support OSAS
