Expert: Dr. Ronald E. Shultz - 7/20/2010

Question
QUESTION: I like the belief OSAS but I have a bit of a problem understanding OSAS interpretation of certain scriptures.
St Paul says
"It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. . .To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit MAY BE SAVED in the day of the Lord Jesus." 1 Corinthians 5:1,5
If I have got it right the OSAS interpretation of this is that St Paul is saying that there salvation is eternally secure they can never be lost. If that were so would Paul have said "..THAT the spirit MAY be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."?
THAT and MAY indicate that the spirit being saved on the day of the Lord Jesus is the result of handing the person being handed over to Satan to be disciplined so they don't blaspheme, and so repent and as a result their spirit will be saved on the day of the Lord. St Paul mentioned two individuals in his second letter to Corinth who underwent such a discipline.
If Paul was talking about a person being eternal security here, would he not have used his grammar differently? He would have said something like "..To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, AND HIS spirit WILL BE SAVED in the day of the Lord Jesus." (note I added "AND HIS" %26 "WILL BE SAVED")
In Hebrews 12:14 it says that we must pursue peace with all people and holiness with out which no man shall see the Lord.
There are two interpretations of this in the OSAS camp and that is that we must pursue a course of life now which we will live in heaven, which is the one I least agree with, and the other interpretation is that this is referring to fellowship/communication with the Lord in this life

I believe the second interpretation is the most likely. However I have a problem understanding that interpretation a bit as well. The author of Hebrews says that no man shall see the Lord which is the future tense. Wouldn't this be no man can see the Lord if it was talking about present fellowship?
Perhaps you feel that words don't really matter, but for me if the Bible is God's infallible word even the words have to accurate.
If you could help me understand I would be grateful.
God bless,
Glenn Berg

ANSWER: Glenn, took me awhile to figure out the OSAS acronymn since we don't use that one.  As an old soldier and a retired government employee I know a lot of them but I will add this to my lists.  ;-)

Ever play "Mother may I" as a child?   The child says, "Mother may I take three giant steps?"  Mother replies, "Yes, you may."  Does may mean it is possible or does it mean she can and thus will take three giant steps?  Words matter, but we still have to keep things in context.

Taking Corinthians in context you also have to consider

1 Cor 11:29-32

29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
30 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep .
31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. KJV

Some folks could not change their attitudes after they were saved and seemed to see little difference between the Lord's Supper and their old pagan feasts where got drunk and crazy.  God chastened them with sickness and some death.  That may well have been based on the extent of craziness at the Lord's Supper or the understanding of the people.  We are not told so we do not know.  However, verse 32 shows that though they were thus chastised or judged they will not be condemned with the world or as we would say lost.  John even speaks of a sin unto death which prayer will not change the outcome.

1 Cor 3:11-15

11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble ;
13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. KJV

So, here is a life of absolute waste. Can you have such a life without sin?  God said build an inexpensive meeting place and they built a $10 million edifice. Good work or intention but sin because it was not the will of God.  If they were doing things in the flesh there had to be some sort of sin involved either of ommission or commission to make whatever they did worthless at the BEMA and thus burned up!!!  YET, he is still saved because the only thing he had of value was the foundation of Christ. He had received Christ as Saviour somewhere in his life and that foundation and it alone lets him in the door though he has nothing that warrants a reward.  


Gal 3:16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds , as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. KJV


Yes, words do make a difference.  Notice Paul pointing out seed versus seeds.  

Rom 5:19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. KJV

Read the whole chapter.  He is saying one sin brought judgment, not sins.  The obedience of one, Christ makes us righteous because Christ dealt with the issue, sin.  Sins are the fruit of sin.  We are not sinners because we sin.  We sin because we are sinners.   This is where I believe the non-OSAS folks get hung up.  

That we should seek to be holy and at least sin less if we cannot become sinless, lest 1 John 1:9 be a needless verse, is obvious by Paul's discourse in Romans 6.   However, if we are not OSAS then there are far more problems.  1st, how many sins does it take to lose your salvation?  Only took one for Adam to get the boot and satan to get the boot.  If only one, then there is not a saved soul on the planet for Hebrews 6 says that if you could lose it you could never get it back because that would mean Christ would have to come back down and be crucified again putting Him to an open shame as the first time was not enough.

Heb 10:12-14

12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
13 From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. KJV

That is not happening because he only need do it once and note that those who are sanctified are perfected FOREVER, not on probation but have experienced salvation.  One sin brought about many sins, but one sacrifice paid for many, indeed all if everyone would accept the payment.

He does not buy a pig in a poke that is why by His foreknowledge He says we were chosen before the foundation of the world.  He did not override free will but once we exercised it to accept the gift as Adam chose one time to refuse what he was given we are perfected forever.

Perfect, no.  Adopted, yes and adoption means you cannot be disinherited.  Words mean what they say and that is what the word adoption means in Ephesians.  You could by law disinherit a natural born child and we are born into the family but you could not disinherit an adopted child and Paul uses that word so no matter what else you think you see in the Word we are OSAS.

Pursue, yes. Attain?  Paul had not attained in Philippians and we can pursue but not attain perfection that is why our perfection and acceptance is in Him.

Eph 1:5-7

5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved .
7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;  KJV

Will be get whippings here? Yes, He chastises those that are His.  Will we lose blessings here and rewards there? Yes. Are out of fellowship Christians miserable and miserable to be around? YES!  Are some of them sick?  Yes.  Can we, and have some, been taken home early and in shame?  YES, but they still got home!   

Grace and mercy have nothing to with us.  It is all about HIM!

Titus 3:4-7

4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;
7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. KJV


Eph 2:5-10

5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works , lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. KJV

We should be doing good works not to get or maintain our salvation but out of gratitude for our salvation.  If we lose our gratitude we lose many things bit not salvation for it was never ours to earn or secure.  Our security is in His mercy and grace and in the finished work of Christ.  AMEN and AMEN!

What kind of childhood would a kid have if he had to live in fear not knowing if he would come home from school to find his clothes on the steps for his parents kicked him out because he had gotten detention?  The joy is knowing that even though there might be a whipping, some grounding and loss of other privileges he is still loved and part of the family.

Thanks for the question!  I enjoyed answering though I suspect you may not have enjoyed the answer.  ;-)  

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: You didn't answer my points about the language. Why does the author of Hebrews say "...without which no man shall see the Lord" Why the future tense, if fellowship is something that happens now?
As for 1 Corinthians 5 "THAT his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus" THAT is indicating that one is possible because of the other. Here is what I said "If Paul was talking about a person being eternal security here, would he not have used his grammar differently? He would have said something like "..To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, AND HIS spirit WILL BE SAVED in the day of the Lord Jesus." (note I added "AND HIS" %26 "WILL BE SAVED")"
And if you knew I wouldn't enjoy the answer, why not answer what I asked in the first place? Why try and make it difficult to understand when my issue could simply have been addressed by answering my point, or if you can't answer simply saying I don't know?

Answer
Actually, I thought I did answer the Corinthian question and maybe only touched on the Hebrews passage.  I was not trying to make it difficult.  I meant you would not like my conclusions since you appear to not be an OSAS lad.

That is not another possibility in this passage. The grammer you are debating is English not Greek.  Indeed, the words "may be saved" is only one word in the Greek, soza. It someetimes takes several words to convey the idea in English. I gave you other verses dealing here with the same topic so that you could see that that comparing scripture with scripture you could see the proper context and that the other possibilities are not possible.  

If we were translating that verse today it is likely they would have added in order to the phrase to make the meaning clearer to us.  "In order that" the spirit might have helped this discussion but we have to be careful of looking for such things as we can get really hair splitting and wresting things.  We will be arguing over what does "is" mean.  I looked at this in several versions and only one seems to see a need to make it easier to understand for all the rest basically end up with the same phraseology at the end.

1 Cor 5:3-5

3 Even though I am not there with you in person, I am with you in the Spirit. Concerning the one who has done this, I have already passed judgment 4 in the name of the Lord Jesus. You are to call a meeting of the church, and I will be there in spirit, and the power of the Lord Jesus will be with you as you meet. 5 Then you must cast this man out of the church and into Satan's hands, so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved when the Lord returns. NLT

I am no fan of the anything other than the KJV, but here is one version that does change item to read what I was saying.  If we use it as we often do nowadays we could say that may and can are the sane since we use maybe for a situation that might happen.  Yes, it has the use of a possible situation but comparing scripture with scripture we can see that is not the use in 1 Cor 5 even if we want it to be that.  Even the primary definition of may in the dictionary indicates the ability to do and is shown as interchanged with can which also primarily the ability to do something.  I can sing is a statement of what is able to be done not what might be done.


As to the Hebrew passage, we must remember that he is dealing with the Hebrews and many issues with bringing them from law to grace.  I even checked out a few commentaries, both from an OSAS perspective and from those I know who do not hold to it.  Honestly, none of them were very clear, which is how commentaries tend to work.  What you already know there is plenty said about but what you do not know or want some clarification there is nothing at all or very little and that sometimes vague.

I take this more as a warning to the religious but lost since a truly saved person will be following this passage in some of way albeit imperfectly and at times maybe not at all due to various issues but there will be conviction to their souls, chastisement, admission of their guilt or need.  If depression or deception derail them then at some point they will revover and press towards the mark at a gallop or a limp.  We are to persue, but there are people whom you cannot make peace with and you may sin or backslide. If we take it from your perspective then we are given a spirit of fear for how well must we persue?  If we are limping along and not galloping are we doomed?  How about just a trot or some other gait?  Know anyone who is persuing 100% all the time?  So where is the line drawn and how do you know how well you are doing?

Too many times non-OSAS folks look at the people who never really slid forward so they are not backslidden, but lost. Sometimes that is because some well meaning, but unwise saint, "led them to Christ" but they were not really ready or did not completely understand.  We need to be more careful in our evangelism to be sure.  The real irony in this is that I have yet to meet a non-OSAS that every thought they have lost their salvation, but many OSASs that thought that they had.  My wife once met a Church of Christ lad that said he had lost his several times but Heb 6 would say he only lost it once for he could never get it again.  

Yet, in the end, the Word does not contradict itself so if I am chosen before the foundations of the earth in Christ and accepted in the Beloved and sealed until the day of redemption then I cannot be lost.  Many will be told in the last day to depart, but they were never known, not known and forgotten or kicked out.   

Blessings to you as you continue to study.