A New Year’s resolution dealing with someone’s health is the major contributor to the number of gym memberships purchased in January. But the gym never gives free memberships to the individuals who are overweight and unhealthy. Nor does the gym allow individuals to continue using the gym with a one-time purchase. In order to attain a gym membership, individuals have to pay a flat rate for every year he or she wants to be a member. The gift of salvation is a totally different experience then a gym or club membership. For one thing salvation is a gift. No one has to do anything for eternal life; Christ took care of it all on the cross. Although this part of theology is not a debate between the Calvinists and the Arminianists, the matter of eternal security is. This paper will present to views on eternal security, perseverance of the saints and conditional perseverance. I will then conclude, with scripture, what view I believe to be true.
The Calvinist view on eternal security is, “All those who respond will preserve in the faith” (Wright). When God sent Jesus to die for the sins of the world, the payment of death was fully satisfied (Chafer, Walvoord 225). Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, He was the spotless lamb. Therefore, “the work of Chris was perfect” (Chafer, Walvoord 226). The Calvinists believe that because Christ was perfect and because He was the only satisfying sacrifice, Christ bore all the sins on Himself. Christ didn’t just die for the first one hundred sins a believer would- commit, He paid for all of them (Chafer, Walvoord 225). The Calvinists also hold to the fact that because our salvation rest solely on His sacrifice and is not the work of the believer, “all condemnation is forever removed”, Romans 8:1 (Chafer,...
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...orary it’s hard to imagine something that will last forever. But, I believe when Christ was on the cross and He said, “Is is finished...” (John 19:30) He truly meant it. Once an individual accepts Christ as his or her Savior he or she is His child for all eternity.
Works Cited
Chafer, Lewis Sperry, and John F. Walvoord. Major Bible Themes; 52 Vital Doctrines of the Scripture Simplified and Explained. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1974. Print.
"Classical Arminian." Conditional Perseverance Briefly Defended ~. N.p., 04 Feb. 2014. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
"The Doctrine of Perseverance." HubPages. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
"The Doctrine of Perseverance." HubPages. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
Gromacki, Robert Glenn. Salvation Is Forever. Chicago: Moody, 1973. Print.
Wright, David. “Soteriology”. First Baptist Christian School, Elyria. March 2014. Lecture
Walvoord, John F., Roy B. Zuck and Dallas Theological Seminary. The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985.
Calvin begins the argument in the right place. He begins by addressing important issues of true understanding of Christianity. Calvin has already formed the doctrine of providence in chapter 16. In this chapter, he confronts the wrong understandings of providence. In the first premise stated above, it can be seen as a different way to understand why things take place. People view events as a result to fortune instead of accounting them to be controlled by God. It was a great idea for Calvin to bring up this first point because it is one of the major alternatives of the
Nichols, John. The. The Very Fundamentals of Christian Faith. Core 9 Lecture - "The. Shen Auditorium, Rensselaer, Germany.
Calvin’s devout interest in theology was practical. He regarded theology as a practical science. The original purpose of his Institutes was to provide a handbook which would be an aid to piety. The true task of theology was not to give answers to speculative questions, but to contribute to the edification of Christians. So, in his book John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life, author John H. Leith writes, “The conduct of the Christian, not verbal assent to doctrine and ceremony, is the decisive test of religious convictions” (26). Heith continues, “The Geneva Catechism opened with the question, What is the chief end of human life? The answer to this question was the burning mission of Calvin’s whole theology.
Walvoord, John F., Roy B. Zuck, and Norman L. Geisler. The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures. Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1983. Print.
John Calvin was a pastor and theologian during the Protestant Reformation. He was born on July 10th 1509 in Picardy France. John’s parents both died when he was a young age, which caused his four older brothers to take care of him when he was growing up. Calvin attended the College de la Marche in Paris where he was taught Latin, Greek and philosophy. In autumn of 1533 he had a sudden change of mind he described as brought by God where he got a taste of the knowledge of true godliness. This change in mind made him want to peruse theology and try to know as much about God as possible. Two and a half years later in March 1536 Calvin published his most famous book Institutes of the Christian Religion. This book was his first expression of his own theology and in it he writes about his view on eschatology.
Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition Bible. Eds. Dom Bernand Orchard, Rev. R. V. Fuller. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1966. Print.
Of all the debates that concern the Christian faith, the most important lies in the understanding of the very one whom the faith professes to follow: Jesus Christ. Who was Jesus Christ, and what did He do here on this earth? In noting the importance of these issues the apostle Paul goes so far as to make the startling claim that the Christian faith is useless if predicated on a false assumption of Christ’s saving work (1 Cor. 15:14). Indeed, there are no truths more central to our faith than the personhood and work of Jesus Christ, and yet serious disagreements exist regarding the nature of these tenets. Jesus lived here on earth as fully divine and yet fully human in one and the same person, and His death on the cross served as a perfect sacrifice and substitute for the necessary punishment of death that all sinners deserve.
New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997. Osborne, Grant R. Revelation. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002.
Metzger, B.M. & Coogan, M.D. “The Oxford Companion to the Bible”. Oxford University Press. New York, NY. (1993). P. 806-818.
In John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion he spends a great deal of time expounding his doctrine of God's Divine providence in all of creation. He explains not only how God continually governs the laws of nature, but also how God governs man's actions and intentions to bring about His own Divine Will. Calvin believes that God's providence is so encompassing in creation that even a man's own actions, in many ways, are decreed by God. Because of this belief there arises the question, "Does Calvin leave room for the free will of man?"
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Holy Bible: Contemporary English Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1995. Print. (BS195 .C66 1995)
Some view their Christian liberty as a license to sin. As Bible-believing Christians, we know this is absolutely not the case! Indeed, we are saved by grace, and not through our good works. But what happens when a Christian falls from the path, into his old ways? A Calvinist would say that a true believer cannot lose his salvation, while an Arminian would say that one can lose his salvation (Dunham 41). The purpose of this paper is to look at the issue of eternal security, and to determine whether “once saved, always saved” does hold true, or whether a Christian can lose his salvation.
The doctrine of salvation contains various aspects. The intent of this research paper is to provide a general overview of salvation from the angle of justification, propitiation, grace, redemption, and sanctification.