Our condition was we were in a fallen state when we were born. When we Accept Jesus as Lord and Savior He washes our sins away.
Satan did not have the Holy spirit like we do. We can drift away from the body of Christ but the Holy Spirit will make us come to our senses and return to our Fathers house.
The Scriptures repeatedly employ the term “eternal life” in reference to the believer. But this is much more than merely having eternal existence. Eternal life refers not only to the duration but to the quality of an eternal existence. Consider again the meaning of “eternal.” Words lose all meaning if eternal does not mean eternal.
One more thing, God has given us the gift of “eternal life” with Him. He does not take the gift back.
Eternal nullifies all time, and thus if at any point one can be said to possess eternal life, by definition this life cannot be less than eternal. In other words, it cannot be temporal.
In His encounter with the woman at the well, He makes an interesting statement using the present tense. In His effort to show the woman the superiority of living water over the water found in Jacob’s well, He says,
Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again.
John 4:13
The term drinks is present tense, which confronts us with a curious situation. If the present tense always communicates continuous, uninterrupted action, Jesus is saying that those who are continuously drinking from Jacob’s well will thirst again!
That doesn’t make any sense. First of all, no one who is continually drinking gets thirsty. Second, it would be physically impossible for someone to drink continuously from Jacob’s well—or any well for that matter.
But Jesus’ meaning is clear. He is referring to the normal practice of drinking until one’s thirst is quenched, then after a period of time returning to drink again. His point is that the water from Jacob’s well would quench one’s thirst temporarily.
Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that the "water" He gives will be a "spring of water welling up to eternal life" and that the person who drinks it will never thirst again.
As you can see, it would be absurd, even contradictory, to understand the present tense to mean continuous, uninterrupted action. That is simply not a normal rendering of the verb tense. Certainly it can mean that, but in most cases it does not.
Therefore, to interpret John’s use of the present tense to mean continuous, uninterrupted believing is to make more out of the present tense than he intended. That would be like sitting all day praying Hindu Mantras.
When a man or woman believes, they are given eternal life right then and there. It is a gift. At that moment in time the transaction is completed. As mentioned in your post #20, if one must continue to work in order to retain possession of the gift, it is not a gift.
