Sermon Tone Analysis

Passages That Refute Once Saved, Always Saved

1 John 2:24-25

Luke 8:12

This passage shows that the word “believe” is being used in connection with salvation, because in this verse the belief that would save them never takes place.

Those in never believed, and thus were never saved, but those in did believe and were thus saved, but only for awhile before falling away.

There is a clear contrast between those who believe only for awhile () and those who believe with patience (hupomone=perseverance; ).

Luke

1 t

The Question (v.

42): “Who is the faithful and wise steward” whom his Lord will reward at his coming?

The Answer (v.

43): “That servant whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing” as instructed.

The Reward (v.

44): “He will make him ruler over all that he hath.”

The Peril (v.

45): “That servant” may grow careless and become unfaithful during his lord’s long absence.

The Penalty (v.

46): The lord will come unexpectedly and “cut him in sunder” and “appoint him his portion with the unbelievers” (or the “unfaithful”).

Luke 12:39

2

A. T. Robertson on

“Most writers take Paul to refer to the possibility of his rejection in his personal salvation at the end of the race.

He does not claim absolute perfection () and so he presses on.

At the end he has serene confidence () with the race run and won.

It is a humbling thought for us all to see this wholesome fear instead of smug complacency in this greatest of all heralds of Christ.”

proves that one can be forgiven, and then later be counted guilty again because of an unwillingness to extend the same grace.

Hence, a forgiven servant, who becomes unforgiving, can be delivered to the tormentors!

John 15:16

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Results of Failing To Abide In Christ:

Fruitlessness (; )

Removal and loss of life (, )

Burned ()

Jesus did not say, “I am the Vine and those who pretend to be my followers, but who are really just faking it, are the branches.”

makes it abundantly clear that the branches were actually clean—not just pretending to be so!

Alexander Maclaren on

“Separation is withering.

Did you ever see a hawthorn bough that children bring home from the woods and stick in the grate; how in a day or two the little fresh green leaves all shrivel up and the white blossoms become brown and smell foul, and the only thing to be done with it is to fling it in the fire and get rid of it?

“And so,” says Jesus Christ, “as long as a man holds on to Me and the sap comes into him, he will flourish; and as soon as the connection is broken, all that was so fair will begin to shrivel, and all that was green will grow brown and turn to dust, and all that was blossom will droop, and there will be no more fruit any more for ever.”

Withering means destruction.

The language of our text is a description of what befalls the actual branches of the literal vine; but it is made a representation of what befalls the individuals whom these branches represent, by that added clause, “Like a branch.”

Look at the mysteriousness of the language.

“They gather them.”

Who? “They cast them into the fire.”

Who have the tragic task of flinging the withered branches into some mysterious fire?

All is left vague with unexplained awfulness.

The solemn fact that the withering of manhood by separation from Jesus Christ requires and ends in the consuming of the withered is all that we have here.

We have to speak of it pityingly, with reticence, with terror, with tenderness, with awe lest it should be our fate.

But O, dear brethren!

be on your guard against the tendency of the thinking of this generation to paste a bit of blank paper over all the threatenings of the Bible, and to blot out from its consciousness the grave issues that it holds forth.

One of two things must befall the branch, either it is in the Vine or it gets into the fire.

If we would avoid the fire, let us see to it that we are in the Vine.”

It is not a question of whether eternal life is eternal.

If we fail to abide in him, the eternal life is still eternal, but our participation in that life, our access to that life ceases.

We share that life only as we continue to abide in Him (; )

The most constant characteristic of the Greek Present Indicative is that it denotes action in progress (Ernest De Witt Burton, Syntax and Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek, Sec. 9)

“Verily, Verily, I say unto you—He who is hearing my word, and is believing Him who sent me, hath life age-during, and to judgment he doth not come, but hath passed out of the death to the life” ( in Young’s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible ).

1 Peter 1:5

,

Romans 14:10

Of the eight references in 1 John to the fact of the believer’s being born of God(considering that gennetheis in 5:18 refers to Jesus), four are perfect participles and three are perfect indicatives.

John’s emphasis is on the new birth as a present relationship, rather than as a past event.

But there are specific conditions essential to the sustaining of the relationship (Shank, p. 94).

“Cannot sin” in cannot mean that one is incapable of ever committing a sin because teaches otherwise.

When Does The Child Of God Receive Eternal Life?

Romans 2:6-8

Romans 2:6-7

The Two Faces of “Shall Not”

Warlick’s Answer To Bogard’s “Soul Has Eternal Life But Body” Does Not Argument

“If the soul has eternal life here, and can’t lose it, but if the body has to continue faithful in this life to get eternal life in the world to come, then the body may fail of obtaining the life, so in this case, you would have a bodyless spirit in Heaven, and spiritless body in hell.

This is Baptist doctrine according to Mr. Bogard” (Bogard-Warlick Debate, p. 125).

“God has given about three-fourths of the New Testament to Christians, teaching them how to live, that they may finally be saved, and yet, we are to be insulted with the foolish claim that God knew all the time that no one was in danger of being lost” (Warlick, pp.

127-128).

2 Timothy 2:

1 Corinthians 9:23-

How can a church fall without the members thereof falling?

Can one refuse to do these things and still not fall?

Ezekiel 18:20-

Revelation 3:4

God’s people are in the book of life ()

Sin will cause them to be blotted out of the book of life ()

Those not found in the book of life will be cast into the fire ().

3:12–13.

Builders must also show caution because God will reward church leaders according to the work they accomplish.

Because Paul spoke of any man, his words apply to every believer.

But they form a direct warning to church leadership.

Church leaders can build upon the foundation of Christ’s gospel in two different ways.

On the one hand, they can use gold, silver, and costly stones.

These materials will withstand the fire of God’s scrutiny that will test the quality of each man’s work.

On the other hand, they can build with wood, hay or straw.

Such materials will not withstand the fire of divine judgment.

Paul said that the Day (the day of final judgment) would bring … to light the nature of each leader’s work so that his work would be shown for what it was.

So, all Christian leaders should pay careful attention to what they bring to the church.

Although the true nature of their work may remain hidden for a while, it will be revealed one day for all to see.

By this argument, Paul called the leaders and participants of the Corinthian divisions to account.

He asserted that the trouble they caused would detract from their eternal rewards.

He also encouraged them to reaffirm the gospel so they would gain greater rewards on the day of judgment.

3:14–15.

Paul further explained the two possible outcomes for church leaders.

If a leader’s work survives the fire of God’s judgment, he will receive his reward.

God promises great rewards to those who serve him faithfully (Matt.

10:41–42; Rev. 11:18).

But if a leader’s work is burned up by divine judgment, the true believer himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames of a burning house.

Judgment on church leaders is more severe than on ordinary believers (Jas.

3:1).

For this reason, leaders must lead the people of God very carefully.

But it is not the Corinthians themselves who are under scrutiny.