Transcription
For those of you that have a close relationship with Jesus, I need your help. I'm a puppet and I'm here to help. What's up?
Me and my husband are having a little bit of a debate. Actually, this is the main debate that we have as Christians with one another.
Okay. Now, whenever you're having a debate with your spouse, one thing you have to be open to is the idea that you both could be wrong. So, let's see what's going on.
My husband holds on to this verse. And she posts 2 Peter 2:20. If they escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. Okay? No context and no paragraph. What do we say about that, guys? That's what you need. Who's the they? It doesn't even tell us that.
And I would hold on to this verse. And her verse is Luke 17:3-4. So, watch yourselves. If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying, "I repent." You must forgive them. Okay? That one doesn't really require much context. That one's pretty self-explanatory, but you do have to understand he's talking about relationships, like person to person, not you to God.
My husband is a born-again believer in Jesus Christ and I don't want to get too personal, but he truly believes that his sins have been too great and that he is going to hell.
I mean this respectfully. By definition, he's not a born-again believer. You cannot be born again and believe you're going to hell. That's not how this works. You are born again when you are trusting God to save you. You're allowing the Holy Spirit in you and he gives you new life. That's the whole point. You are born of the spirit. First, you're born of the flesh or born of the water, then you're born of the spirit. New life, new birth and that comes by trusting God to save you. By trusting in what Christ did on the cross. So, he might believe in Jesus, but if he believes he's going to hell, he's not trusting God to save him, therefore he's not born again. Just by definition. And to make one thing clear, half the Bible was written by murderers. I highly doubt his sins are so great that they outweigh David or Moses or Paul.
He consistently says it. That first verse that you saw is the scripture that he tightly holds onto. But I counteract it with that second scripture to tell him that if he truly repents and sins no more, then God will not hold him accountable for his past.
And so this is one of those cases where you're both wrong. It's not about you sinning no more. Yes, Jesus told the woman who was caught in adultery to go and sin no more, but look at the situation she was in. She was in that situation because she sinned. So, hey, knock it off and you won't get caught, will you? Had nothing to do with salvation. When Jesus was explaining how we're saved to Nicodemus, he said nothing about good behavior whatsoever. It is simply trusting Christ to save you. That's all it is. You are saved by grace, that's a gift, through faith, that's trust, in Christ. He's the sacrifice. He paid the price for you. It's as simple as that. Everything that we do in good behavior, out of obedience, is out of gratitude for the salvation already given.
For if he did, then none of us would be saved. This is more than a once saved, always saved argument.
No, actually I'd say that's the core of it. Because most people don't understand eternal security or as the opponents like to call it, once saved, always saved. It's not, "Yeah, I said the words, now I can do whatever I want." No. By no means, as Paul says in this passage. He said, "Can we go on sinning that grace may abound more?" By means, God forbid. No. Because you're representing Christ. If you have that mentality, you're not actually trusting him to save you. You're just looking for an out so you can continue sinning. Repentance isn't "God, I'm sorry." It's "I choose you with all that I am." It means to turn or to change your mind. So, if you haven't done that, then you don't actually trust him to save you. You don't trust him to be the Lord of your life. That's important. That's part of it. So, that's at the very heart of this. Not the way you think it works, but the way it actually works. I personally believe that a born-again Christian knows when they are sinning. They do feel condemnation, and they must repent. Yes, absolutely. I agree. If you are genuinely saved, you're going to feel guilty about what you did, but that doesn't say that it takes away your salvation. You have a relationship with God you need to maintain. If you hurt someone, you say sorry to them. You're not divorced the minute you call them a poopy head. As Paul says in Romans 8:1, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. He doesn't say unless you slip out, unless you do too much bad. That's not in there.
And if they don't, if they do sins with the idea that God is just going to forgive them anyway, then you don't have Jesus truly in your heart space.
And that's absolutely true. And those of us who teach eternal security and trust what the scripture says about that, never teach that, ever. And that's the only argument that people who don't like once saved always saved and don't like eternal security, that's the only argument they can ever bring to us. Something we don't say.
I want to hear your guys' opinions.
That's my opinion. I really do hope it helps. But it sounds like you both need to study a little more.