Eternal Security

ETERNAL SECURITY (ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED) DR. LEMONS SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY RELI 4350 01 The doctrine of eternal security or (once saved always saved)has been at the center of the discussion of salvation. While we will look at the theological beliefs and frame works of someof our church fathers, some of our contemporary Theologians and Pastors, we will primarily focus on key biblical passages that seem to speak on both sides of the issue. I am a born-again believer who have been saved for 21 years, ministering for 19 years, and now is the Pastor of a local Baptist Church. I chose this topic because I wrestled with this question myself when I was first saved. However I am now convinced that I could never lose what was eternally given to me. Let me start out by saying that most people who believe that you can lose your salvation generally have similar denominational back grounds. Some of those denomination are Pentecostals, Church of God in Christ, Church of Christ, Methodists, and Wesleyans. Mostly Pentecostal and the Holiness Churches have this idea that even though you are saved,if you sin too much or if you do not repent before you die you will be lost. It is almost like a works based faith. I believe that this struggle begins within the mind of individuals who may be genuinely saved but take for granted the profession of others they may know or others who go to church alongside them and for some reason fall away from the faith, fall into gross sin, or simply stop going to church and the result in their minds is that you can lose your salvation. But who can really say that these individuals were saved to begin? I believe in most of the five points of Calvinism and I believe in most of the Arminius views and we will look at these views first as we continue. We will look at other church teachings that I believe contribute to this on going debate such as (easy believism, works based, and lordship salvation). There are two main view points that we will explore;