"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand" (John 10:28-30).

"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day" (John 6:38-39).

-- David Ortiz (cyberpunk1986@hotmail.com), August 06, 2003

Answers

David,

Your ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED (OSAS) doctrine is FALSE.

You quoted John 10:28-30 and John 6:38-39 but fail to realize that the "sheep" that hear Jesus voice (in John 10:28-30) FOLLOW HIM. No man cal pluck them out of His hand, but it IS POSSIBLE for the sheep to STRAY FROM THE FOLD. If you deny this to be true, then you ought to be able to show from the word of God how this is NOT the case.

John 17:12 clearly CONTRADICTS what David states in John 6:38-39 for Jesus said in Jn 17:12, "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled."

In this passage Jesus CLEARLY states that one was lost and that one was Judas. So to claim that one CANNOT be lost is NOT the truth according to the word of God.

-- Kevin Walker (kevinlwalker572@cs.com), August 07, 2003.

The conditional security view shows a blatant disregard for proper Greek exegesis. Although there is ample wiggle room for adding the "ing" of the Greek there is more in the context that needs to be mentioned. Investigation cannot stop with just the present tense.

We must also see the phrase ouj mh; ajpolwntai. This phrase uses a double negative (ouj mh;) and the aorist subjunctive (ajpolwntai) which means that when they are used together it is the most emphatic denial that the Greek can use.

First, the double negative (ouj mh) is used to highlight or underscore the impossibility of the stated action occurring. “The combination of the double negative occurs 96 times. With the light that the papyri have thrown upon this doubling of the negatives we can now say unreservedly that the negatives were doubled for the purpose of stating denials or prohibitions emphatically. … people used the doubling of negatives for making categorical and emphatic denials,” The double negative stresses the total absence of what it negates.

Second, while the simple present mood denotes reality the simple subjunctive mood denotes a step away from reality into probability. While the negative of the present denies reality, the negative of the subjunctive denies even a step away from reality. Together the double negative with the aorist subjunctive has the force of a categorical and emphatic denial. Wallace says that ouj mhv with the subjunctive “rules out even the idea as being a possibility.” The Greek language is doing everything possible to make a categorical timeless denial that one can get out of Jesus’ hand. How much clearer does it have to be?

-- Lloyd A. Olson (ascund@aol.com), July 01, 2004.