Salvation Point 5

The final point of the argument is about who remains saved. Preservation of the saints to a Calvinist is guaranteed. For an Arminian, because you must choose Christ of your own accord in order to be saved, you must remain choosing him until your death in order to remain one of the saved.

One of the main questions amongst our group was this: if Calvins are correct, then how are there people who are saved (or claim to be) and then live really sinful lives, appearing to have "fallen from grace"? The Calvin would answer that one of two things has occurred. Either the person was never saved to begin with or they are indeed saved and will come back to Christ after going through whatever turmoil they got themselves into. If you are one of the chosen people, you will eventually come back to Christ before your death. It may be at the last breathe, but the chosen are never lost.

I would say after these weeks I have realized I pull more to the Calvinistic perspective. I do believe (as does my pastor) that we have free will when it comes to our lives and decisions we make; but I believe that when it comes to salvation there is no way to "earn" it. For the most part, we are all God's chosen people...we are human and will sin often, but that is what humans do. We can see proof of our salvation when the desire to follow Jesus' lead is stronger than our desire to sin. Sin will still win sometimes, but if we feel the pull in our hearts to do better then eventually we will!

I have really loved each of the classes I got to take. The last class, my pastor came in to do a Q&A session and while naturally it wasn't long enough, he was able to clear up several questions. I really got to see why I love going to this church so much and the real love of all people that he has. It is such a refreshing feeling to get to belong to a church family AND have all of my beliefs supported. THAT, to me, is a true Christian. Christ loved all. So should we.