Then they were only a lip-service Christian for a true believer would never become an apostate.
Not according to Stanley and many many others who teach the false idea.
Stanley says one can throw away his faith and still be saved while other says if one loses his faith heve never really had faith. An OBVIOUS CONTRADICTION contained with the false teaching os OSAS, ES,POTS for a person cannot be at the same time "saved anyway" and 'never really saved"
If OSAS.ES.POTS were true then the could be no thing as an apostate. Apostate from the Greek:
defection, apostasy, revolt.
It implies a deliberate abandonment of faith or a turning away from previously held beliefs.
apostasy – literally, "a leaving, from a previous standing."
apo = move away from....stasia = from a previous standing. Hence an apostate was a person in a saved state but how now moved from that previous saved state to a lost one. The word 'fall' means to change location...fall from a tree to the ground..fall from a saved position to a lost position. An always lost fallen person cannot fall, is not an apostate for fall and apostate mean change of position and one does not fall from a lost state to a lost state but from a saved state to a lost state.
those in Thessalonia tho't Christ's return was imminent yet Paul told them;
"
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first,.." yet according to OSA,ES,POTS 'falling away' is impossible hence Christ will never return
Calling oneself a Christian does not make you one.
the issue is about those who are Christians and become apostates.
There was a woman interviewed on the street, a few years back and she was asked what her faith was. She looked at the interviewer and paused for a moment and said. "Well, I am not Jewish , I guess I am Christian". (Believe that was a man on the street episode of fox news... )
There is a neighbor who is certain his deceased wife is in heaven and he plans he will be too, but this , now 82 year old, man when sitting in our kitchen and the subject came to baptism piped up with... "I was baptized in my teens, with a number of other who were at the same time. I have no idea why." !!!!!
I have no idea what Stanley does or does not preach but there definitely are many who get it all wrong.
Stanley says the Christian can never lose salvation, he can throw away their faith and
still be saved....in that salvation is
permanent and cannot be lost under
ANY circumstance.
Other Baptist preachers say:
Sam Morris, First Baptist Church, Stamford Texas,
Do a Christian’s Sins Damn His Soul?: “
We take the position that a Christian’s sins do not damn his soul. The way a Christian lives, what he says, his character, his conduct, or his attitude toward other people have nothing whatever to do with the salvation of his soul . . . All the prayers a man may pray, all the Bibles he may read, all the churches he may belong to, all the services he may attend, all the debts he my pay, all the ordinances he may observe, all the laws he may keep, all the benevolent acts he may perform will not make his soul one whit safer; and all the sins he may commit from idolatry to murder will not make his soul in any more danger . . . The way a man lives has nothing whatever to do with the salvation of his soul . . . The way I live has nothing whatsoever to do with the salvation of my soul.”
Hoyt Chastain was a Missionary Baptist preacher who defended, in public debate, the idea that a child of God cannot fall from grace. In one debate Chastain affirmed that he could abandon his wife and children, move in with a sixteen-year-old girl, and the Lord would take the situation and “work it out for his good.”
Baptist preacher, 54-year-old J. L. Pettit, seduced a fourteen-year-old girl. He was arrested and brought to trial. The girl swore on the witness stand that the minister told her their sexual activity was merely a “matter of the flesh,” and it would not “bother the soul.”
Bill Foster, Baptist preacher in Louisville, KY commented: "
If I killed my wife and mother and debauched a thousand women, I couldn't go to hell -- in fact, I couldn't go to hell if I wanted to. If on the judgment day, I should find that my loved ones are lost and should lose all desire to be saved, and should beg God to send me to hell with them, He couldn't do it" (
The Weekly Worker, March 12, 1959).
If salvation were truly
UNCONDITIONAL and can never be lost then what the above "preachers" says would be
100% correct. Yet for one to murder his wife and mother, rape women, molest young children and yet still be saved sounds awful to some hence they claim those that do such things were "never really saved".
Hence there is the contention claiming they will be "saved anyway" using 1 Cor 3:15 as "proof text" and the other contention claiming they were "never really saved" using 1 Jn 2:19 as "proof text". So there is an obvious
mutually exclusive contradiction among these two contentions. In reality neither 1 Cor 3:15 or 1 Jn 2:19 even remotely teach the idea of OSAS,ES,POTS and hence the contradiction exist over the false idea of OSAS.
These two contentions must come together and find agreement for as it stands, the contentions prove OSAS,ES,POTS is wrong, unbiblical.
If you are a Christian as it says in
Romans 10:9-10 says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” A true Christian is unashamed to say Jesus is Lord and believes Jesus was resurrected from the dead.
Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us that a person becomes a Christian by faith, not by following a list of rules or good works... and not because he was chosen before time began... it is a free will choice.
no one will be saved apart from obeying God's will....no obedience = no salvation, Hen 5:9; 2 Thess 1:8
Well, I digress but
A true, born again Christian will never fall away.
A true born again Christian will recognized the Holy Spirit working in his or her life correcting, and convicting us until one day you will see you no longer are the same but are so changed you never want to go back. However, this is an ongoing work of the Spirit but is so very welcomed if you are a true born again Christian.
OKAY... I'll stop because I can already sense resistance..
But your " The issue is not about a Christian becoming 'unborn' but about dying....dying spiritually........which can happen when a Christian falls becoming an apostate." is false.
a test for you:
you say a true born again Christian will be never fall away.
---the Christian will never fall away even if he turns to live and die in homosexuality? Yes? No?
---or does his becoming a homosexual proves he was 'never really saved'? If you answer 'yes' here then you are saying the Christian must live a
perfect sinless life for if the Christian sins his sinning proves he was never really saved? Yes? No?
---if you claim a Christian can sin and
still be saved, then why can't the Christian sin by being a homosexual and
still be saved?
