Short But Profound

The pastor said something in his sermon a week or two ago that struck me. Although I already believed in the concept of "once saved, always saved", his logic on the topic was very simple and made great sense to me. Salvation is only gained by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. If there is nothing that we can do to earn salvation (and there isn't; we're all sinners, and the wage of sin is death), why then would there be any way to lose salvation? We are called as believers to be Christ's witness in this world, and that includes doing good works. But that's something we should be doing, and the Holy Spirit should be working in the lives of believers in this and many other ways. We still sin even though we believe, although we are being sanctified (actively, I would posit, as opposed to passively) by the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of us believers. We still live by grace and thus are able to confidently believe that the work of Jesus Christ by his death and resurrection cannot be lost - otherwise it would be scarcely better than living under the Law alone.

Of course, I do have a question about OSAS. What about apostates? How can we clearly define apostasy? Is the heart of apostasy essentially a renunciation of one's faith (saying to God, "I reject what Christ allegedly has done for me and what He allegedly calls me to do")? If so, it would make sense that apostasy would not fit under the once saved, always saved category because it would be the only real way to undo what you once claimed. Are prodigals once and always saved? The simple answer is that only God truly knows their hearts, if they are questioning or rejecting or if perhaps they never truly believed.

Some might argue that any who commits sin is rebelling against God. By so doing they would claim that the sinner willfully rejects God by rejecting His will. Thus sin (notice how I'm avoiding defining it?) would be sufficient grounds for loss of salvation. That's why it's so important to work at it after we have it. But if sin causes us to fall from a right relationship with God, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ brings atonement of our sins and brings us back into a right relationship. Would we lose and gain our salvation so easily as to sin, repent and believe time and time again? I guess that's how the living by grace comes into play. Nonetheless, I'll stick to the belief that there's only one Way to be saved. If we can't earn it, why would we possibly to able to un-earn it?