For those of you who may not know, there are 5 points of Calvinism, with Preservation Of The Saints being the fifth point. They are in this order.
What Are the Five Points of Calvinism?
- T: Total Depravity.
- U: Unconditional Election.
- L: Limited Atonement.
- I: Irresistible Grace.
- P: Perseverance of the Saints.
Strangely, this doctrine is only Reformed, as there is not a single church of Christendom outside the Reformed group, which maintains the biblical doctrine of the Preservation Of The Saints. The Roman Catholics, the Lutherans, all the various types of Arminians, and a great host of sects all agree that it is possible for persons who have received God's saving grace in their souls, to lose such saving grace and to sink down into eternal death.
Only those Christians, who are of the Reformed faith, subscribe to the view that a person who has once received the life that is from above, can never fall away from grace and become prey to everlasting destruction.
To be fair, Luther held, and the conservative Lutheran sects hold while it is possible it is extremely rare and unlikely. They take a weird view simultaneously subscribing to the possibility of losing salvation and knowing eternal security
. For that reason, I do not place them in the same group as the soteriological volitionalists. From the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod page:
"Lutherans believe both are true and Scriptural: It is possible for a believer to fall from faith and lose salvation, and it is possible for a believer to have complete assurance of eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. If this seems paradoxical to human reason, then (Lutherans say) this is only because the teaching of Scripture itself on this issue (as on many other issues) appears paradoxical to human reason. For Lutherans, this is essentially a matter of properly distinguishing between Law and Gospel: Warnings against falling from faith are the strongest form of God's Law, intended to warn against "carnal security" based on "good works" or against the attitude that "since I'm saved, I can do anything I want to do." Assurances of God's constant and eternal love in Christ are the sweetest and purest form of Gospel, intended to comfort those who are plagued by their sins and by their failures to keep God's Law perfectly."
And
"Lutherans believe that faith is created and strengthened not by looking inside of one's self (to one's own faith and/or doubts) but by looking outside of one's self (to God's Word and promises in Christ). Therefore, assurance of salvation is to be sought by looking to God's Word and promises in Christ (which create and strengthen the faith through which one is saved), not by looking inward at the strength or weakness of one's own faith (which creates either pride and false assurance or doubt and lack of assurance). Anxiety regarding doubts, strength of faith and certainty of salvation are signs of faith (however weak it may be), not signs of unbelief, since the unbeliever has no concern or anxiety about doubts, faith or salvation."
Which is overwhelmingly human-centric, not God centric
. For that reason, the LCSM hasn't truly addressed the matter from the Calvinist pov, which couches salvation wholly, monergistically in God and not pre- or post-salvific conditions of the one being saved. It's still a huge problem, but not like that of the volitionalists, which claim the still-dead-in-sin sinner can, with the faculties of his sinful flesh choose God
.
Excerpted for the sake of space...
"The key question you seem to be asking is this: Is what Paul says in Romans 3 (e.g., v. 28 "...we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of law") "an attack on good works as being a means for salvation?" As you no doubt are aware, the central and consistent teaching of Paul that we are justified by grace alone through faith alone on account of Christ is nowhere more beautifully summarized than in Eph. 2:8-9: "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God — not because of works ..." By its very definition "grace" means that human works do not contribute in any way to a person's salvation or justification, as St. Paul says in Rom. 11:6, "But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace." ........The faith of which Paul speaks, of course, is a living faith in Jesus Christ that produces, by God's Spirit, the good works that God wills be done in the Christian's life. That is why, immediately after his beautiful summary of the Gospel in Eph. 2:8-9, he continues, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." ..........Or as Luther again put it once, as an apple tree makes fruit and the fruit does not make an apple tree, so works do not make a Christian, but a Christian does good works."
Which is, imo, inconsistent because not only do apple trees make apples, they do not make apples that lose their appleness
. Once an apple, always an apple. And, technically, apples do make apple trees. The apple falls to the ground and decays, providing fertilizer for the seed, which dies and then produces a new tree (see Genesis 1
).
The Lutheran pov inconsistently couches the salvation of sin monergistically in God, but then hands the result or conclusion of God's work over to the then-saved sinner. Very odd. The volitionalists couch salvation in the faculties of the unregenerate sinful unbeliever and then hand over the result to the faculty of the regenerate believer without any assurance God's goal will ever be accomplished. I am not one prone to appeals to ridicule, but that's not odd; that's irrationally insane.
