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Originally Posted by umsami  I got into a discussion with a friend regarding salvation (from a Christian perspective... asking forgiveness, accepting Jesus, etc.).... and she mentioned that some churches believe that salvation is forever. So, the key is that you accepted Jesus into your heart, honestly, at one time in your life. She also mentioned that other denominations believe that salvation can be lost... but she wasn't sure if they believed it was because the person wasn't honest in the first place... or if it was possible to lose it, even if one was a good Christian, but got off track and kept moving further and further away from God.
I'm not sure if this gets into the whole infant baptism vs. baptism as an adult or not. If you think it's relevant, please include it.
What do you think? (It can be your opinion or the opinion of your denomination... or a combo of both)
Thanks  |
it is a bit of a complex question, but your friend is essentially right. Different churches do see it in the ways she describes. Additionally, many don't really use that terminology at all, which is definatly a post-Reformation way of speaking.
The pre-Reformation way of thinking about it is the best place to start. It's still held by the Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, and some others.
According to this, humans all suffer, as a result of the Fall, a kind of limited separation from God. God is perfect, and we are imperfect, and although our natural desire is for God, we cannot seem to work our way to him, or refrain from imperfect behaviors. We have free will to choose God or not, but even sometimes when we want to choose God, we can't live up to what that means.
However, God has also said that he loves his creation and wants it brought back into a kind of unity with him. He does this through his Grace, one aspect of which is the Incarnation, the Word made flesh, who unifies God and creation and bridges the gap between them. (There are huge sections of theology devoted to what that all means.) In this way, God offers salvation for all humankind and even all creation - that is, he saves them.
The caveat to this is that God does not over-ride anyone's free will to compel them to accept salvation. Humans always have the option of choosing not-God. God offers grace for salvation, we choose over time to work with it or not. At the end of our life when we face the final judgement, we will have made our choice, wittingly or unwittingly.
So when you ask members of churches who take this POV if they personally are saved, they often don't know quite how to respond. Also, this POV typically baptists infants, as it sees Baptism as an important way Grace is offered to all people.
Now, after the Reformation, there came an emphasis on justification by faith alone. It was by our faith, our acceptance of God's help through Christ, that we are saved. So a person who really accepts that at a personal level can be said to be saved. God will give him the grace to live out what that means in daily life.
Now, this caused some conundrums. If a person accepts that saving grace through Jesus, shouldn't God give them the grace to continue to live that out? What if they accept it, but continue to be a sinner? Does it mean that they were never saved in the first place, really? Or perhaps they thought they were saved, but they weren't? Or they were saved but now they aren't?
The difficulty in these groups was and is that this acceptance of Gods grace is seen by some as a one-time life changing event, rather than a continual action over time. "If you accept Jesus right now you are assured of his saving grace!"
God of course exists outside of time - so he sees a person's whole life in an instant. So for God, it is clear that a person is saved or accepts his Grace, or they don't. We are in time, and so it can be less clear to us.
There were a few different approaches that became popular and are still used - the ones your friend mentioned. Some groups say that we are once saved always saved, but that we don't know until we have lived our whole lives. This is closest to the traditional position. Some in this group baptize babies, others do not.
Another POV says that if a person appears to accept salvation but then backslides, they never "really" accepted it. This group typically baptized only adults who have accepted salvation through faith. Sometimes they also rebabptize every time a person makes a new commitment after backsliding.
And another POV says that once a person is saved they are saved for good, no matter what their later behavior indicates. The important thing is faith, rather than works, which is what behavior is about. These people normally baptize after the person is saved through faith, but only once.
And in yet another permutation, some Protestant groups denied free-will, and said that God choose to give his Grace and save some, but not others. Those groups also vary in how they describe being saved - some say it is never clear to humans which group any person belongs to, except perhaps once they are dead. These may baptize infants or adults depending on other factors. Others say the "elect" are known to us on earth by some means. Often, these will baptize infants - if God chose them before they were born, and we can discern who's who, why not do it then? Nothing will change.
I think that is so sad.
) classes at a Reformed seminary.
