Baptism

I'm not saying anyone can earn his salvation, nor can anyone ever do anything to deserve it. I'm just saying that the Bible states a person can lose that gift if he renounces allegiance to Christ, effectually undoing the very thing that made the gift available to him in the first place. To reject Christ is to reject grace.

 

Yes, think so.

 

Originally Posted by the apostle Paul
Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. --Hebrews 10:28-31

I believe this is referring to those who reject Christ. They hear the message and choose not to accept it.

 

Sometimes my kids tell me they hate me. They do not really mean it even if they think they do at the time. I believe a Christian rejecting his faith is much the same. They will not stand by that in the long term, if they do they probably never accepted Christ to start with.

The bible is full of stories of people who serve God and then fall astray. Peter denied Christ three times in one night.

 

I agree, but I don't think it only applies to the initial choice. What is more insulting to the Spirit of grace -- rejecting the offer after hearing for the first time, or rejecting it having known the value of it from accepting it before? My guess would be the latter. What's more, that interpretation fits with the statute outlined in Romans 2.

 

That's right. He also came back to be Jesus' staunchest follower, preaching in the heart of downtown Jerusalem about 5 minutes after Jesus ascended back into heaven, and ultimately crucified upside down for his efforts.

 

I think we've got neighboring thoughts on it, though not the same. The angle I'm going to take on Sunday is based on the definition of righteousness.

Jesus said to John that he should be baptized by John to fulfill righteousness. I'm taking a page from Will Willimon, the former dean of the chapel (and professor) at Duke, and now the bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church. This comes from sermon on the topic he preached back in 1999:

Here's a link to the whole sermon, FWIW: http://www.chapel.duke.edu/worship/sunday/viewsermon.aspx?id=29

 

I agree that salvation is a gift, in no way earned. But receiving the gift transforms the recipient. Here's a couple of youtubes from John Piper that address salvation and works (works as a result of salvation, not works earning salvation):

 

I believe that anyone who accepts Christ will be inclined to do good works. Not everyone does follow that prodding though.

I can not really back this up in the bible but my personal belief is that if a person really accepts Christ and then fails to live a Christian life or recants his faith then that person will be given a certain amount of time to return to his faith with some prodding by the Holy Spirit. If they do not come back after that then God will punish that Christian and even kill him. God will only allow his children to stray so far.

Anyway our beliefs on this are not really that far apart. Neither of us believes you can just accept Christ and then live a sinful immoral life for many years and then go to heaven.