Quote:
Originally Posted by bearbear
I believe once you repent and are truly born again by the Holy Spirit, God won't lose you until the end. The question is how do you know you truly belong to God and are born again? I believe the answer is in the whole book of Galatians which gives us specific tests to see if we are bearing fruits according to the Holy Spirit (peace, love, joy etc.) and not living in sin. This I'm not certain but I think it's possible to have assurance.
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Yes we can have assurance, although I'm not sure that we are ever told that as clearly as we would like.
This was one of the reasons that Martin Luther nailed his "topics for discussion" to the door. He saw a lot of good Christians doing their regular thing but having no assurance that it would ever "stick." It was not that the way of the RCC was entirely bad or wrong. It just never stated that you could every know. Luther thought differently. He knew better. And he was sure that so many of them should also know better.
To the extent that (as I suggested) that I am not a die-hard OSAS adherent, I do believe that we can still know. And it is not so hard. You don't have to be able to point to your "taking of the cross" or reckoning of yourself as dead. Just know in whom you have believed and who you continue to follow and obey.
And when it comes to "obey," despite the passages concerning the cross, there are many more that point to righteousness in living, justice, and peace with our fellow man as the commands. Why do we latch onto the unclear metaphorical commands in two verses and skip by the obvious commands? I understand love God and your neighbor. When you try to insert "take the cross" into that, so many of the definitions don't fit. So if all the law and prophets is summed up in that simple statement, then there must be something missing in the understanding of "take the cross."
I am not going to continue to argue about it. My position is that less is more. It would seem that yours is only more is more. We disagree. That is OK. It does not exclude either of us from salvation.