Once Saved Always Saved Part 2

Part 2

Before reading this, please read Part 1 first.

I'd now like to dig into the Scriptures and deal with the Scripture verses that were presented to us to prove their theology. One verse that was provided for the doctrine of OSAS is John 10:28-29. Before proceeding, let's take a look at the text. It states:

[28] and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.
[29] My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

First of all, before we examine the text at hand, let's first state what OSAS is about. OSAS means that when you become a Christian and accept Jesus as personal Lord and Saviour, you cannot lose your salvation. Even if you were to commit sin, you are still saved because you have eternal security. Sin does not cause you to lose your salvation.

The Catholic view (and a lot of Protestant denominations' view as well) is that when you come to Christ, it is possible that you can fall from grace. Mortal sin (grave and serious sin) can cause you to fall from grace and lose that salvation. One would need to repent in order to come to faith again.

Let's dig into John 10:28-29. I'd first like to show a slightly bigger context than was presented during the discussion. I'd like to start from verse 27:

[27] My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me;
[28] and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.
[29] My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

The key words are "hear" and "follow" in verse 27. In English, it seems to suggest that this hearing and this following is a one time thing that happened in the past. So one would read the passage as saying "My sheep heard my voice, I know them, and they have followed me; and I give them eternal life…" The Greek does not suggest this at all. I'll quote a Protestant Theologian to disprove that John 10:28-29 is about OSAS doctrine.

Dale Moody:

"John 10:28 is frequently used as a security blanket by those who ignore many of the New Testament warnings about going back or falling away, but a literal translation of John 10:27-28 . . . hardly needs explanation . . . 'My sheep keep on hearing my voice, and I keep on knowing them, and they keep on following me: and I "keep on giving" them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.' Some read the passage as if it says: 'My sheep "heard" my voice, and I "knew" them, and they "followed" me, and I "gave" to them eternal life.' [But] The verbs are present linear, indicating continuous action by the sheep and by the Shepherd, not the punctiliar fallacy of the past tense." (Moody, 357)

Here we have a Baptist Theologian who is using the Bible alone and using this very passage to disprove the OSAS doctrine. The verbs "hear" literally means "My sheep keep on hearing" and the verb "follows" literally means "and they keep on following me". What does that change? It changes everything. It means that the no one will snatch them out of the Father's hands IF they persevere and CONTINUE to follow Christ. The verbs in the Greek are present linear not a past tense and a one time action.

I recall suggesting that the passage at hand, when it says "no one can snatch them out of my hand" means that: when I come to Christ, no one can snatch me out of His hands; however, I still have the choice of rejecting Christ myself. Let's take a look at the passage again as a refresher:

[27] My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me;
[28] and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.
[29] My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

Please note that the text says "no one shall snatch them out of my hand." Snatching away indicates that someone else is doing the snatching. And we agree that no one can snatch us away from Christ. But snatching away doesn't exclude me stepping away and falling from Grace. The action of being snatched away does not include the person for it is impossible for me to snatch myself away. So, when Christ says "no one shall snatch them out of my hand", he is not including the person Himself but only people outside of the person who is the Christian.

I presented the "snatching" away argument and the refutation of that was that the Greek of "and no one shall" is a "third person voice". In other words, in the Greek, this is how the verse is to be understood:

John 10:28 I give them eternal life, and they will not at all perish.

Source: http://www.bcbsr.com/greek/gmood.html

When isolating the passage to just verse 28, the Protestant would have a point; however, when we look at verse 27, the point becomes void. Why? Because there is a condition in this "and they will not at all perish" and that condition is that they must continue hearing the voice of Jesus and continue following Christ which means they must persevere. No one can snatch them out of the Father's hand while they persevere; however, they can still fall into sin and reject Christ. Thus, the point that "and they will not at all perish" is understood this way: If they persevere in following Christ, they will not at all perish and no one will snatch them away from the Father's hands.

With that said, the third person voice argument does not contradict my claim that the person can fall from grace. The only way that the person will not at all perish is if he perseveres in following Christ. That's what the Greek is saying in context.

In part 3, I will show (using Scripture) that we can indeed lose our salvation.