[OBW]

I will throw something out that has been bothering me for some time on this issue of salvation.

Since salvation is used in talking about much more than some simple thing that happens because a prayer was said, or a decision to believe was made, is it possible that the whole problem is in what is salvation? And what it takes to be saved.

We like John 3:16 because it seems to make it all about belief. But is belief that simple? Is belief said and done? Or it is seen by acting as if you believe? Can you believe if you don't act like it? Can I believe now and be on track for "not perish, but have eternal life" and then at another time not believe, and since I am not at the point of experiencing eternal life, find myself without it because I do not believe?

With so much put in about how we live, and how we progress in the faith, how much does "said and done" undermine the very requirement. Jesus said that teaching less than all the law was to find yourself at the bottom of the heap. So where does that put those who believe but do nothing about it?

Doesn't this make the whole quest for sanctification pointless? I don't believe that an act of sin sends you spiraling toward Hell until you repent and return. But I'm not sure that the verse in Hebrews about there being no more sacrifice meant you couldn't need to return to faith. Isn't that verse talking about the animal sacrifices for sin? Of course they are no longer of any benefit since Christ provided the one sacrifice. But does that mean that an individual cannot find themselves to be no longer in a state of belief (actual and practical, not just mental) and have a need for renewal? That is not to re-sacrifice Christ, but to renew your participation.

My concern is not really for my salvation. While I know that even if where my questions lead turns out to ultimately be true, I do not think that I have failed in belief that matters. But might it be a better position to accept that this is possibly true and live by it than hang on to the notion that "I said it, so I'm saved for eternity" and risk being wrong?

This is arguably not a problem for assurance of salvation. If I am believing, then I am assured that I am saved. If I am not believing, then what right do I have to claim that I have assurance of something that I am not in agreement with? Have we turned assurance of salvation into the very "ticket to heaven that cannot be relinquished no matter how the $*&^#$ I live and how little, if any, I ever consider it again" that we so despise in easy believism? Should I have assurance in that case? If I am not believing? Even if I did believe, and actively so for some period of time?

Have we taken it farther than Luther ever intended?

The alternative is to insist on some kind of purgatory that ripens those who remained as mere buds on the vine.

Don't just trot out the "no one can snatch them from my hand" line. Otherwise there is virtually no way to understand the parable of the soil.

Understand that I am not trying to paint a bleak picture. I am trying to paint a picture in which the very thing that we consider important is actually important. If it takes nothing but a prayer to "get to heaven," then why all this fuss about how we live now? Even if the Bible commands it, the simplistic "saved by grace" easy believism diminishes the importance of those commands to the point that they almost have no teeth. And if we start to argue that it is not really so easy to be saved, then aren't we back-dooring the same arguments just phrased differently? Argue that you can't really tell if someone is saved until way later on, or at the end of their life. Isn't that just allowing for the "loss of salvation" without admitting they ever had it?

Is there free will? Or is the most extreme Calvinist position true and it is all according to His election? (In which case there is no reason to worry about any of this because we don't have a say in the matter.) I believe that there truly is free will. And more consistent with the Arminians than the Calvinists, I believe that we must participate in our believing. Grace is required to make the gift of life available, but our will is required to reach out and take it. I do not think that "loss of salvation," even if possible, is simple. But I am having trouble with getting it and keeping no matter what. I have not yet seen the verse that clearly and expressly makes it permanently certain. And I think we are fools to continue on is if it is really that simple.

I would love to discover that I am wrong.