DBowling wrote:
From my perspective what Scripture says is more relevant than what I might consider to be plausible or implausible.
From my perspective, when I speak of something consistent with scripture, I consider it plausible or implausible, precisely because it’s consistent or inconsistent with scripture.
DBowling wrote:
As I mention above, I have not seen any Scriptures that state that a born again person can stop believing in Jesus.
Have you seen any scripture that says a born again believer can steal, be a glutton, have other gods before God, etc.?
Born again believers commit sins. Unbelief and doubt certainly aren’t sins unknown to anyone. Once we start saying as believers, that we could never fall into a specific sin, that’s playing with fire.
DBowling wrote:
As I mention above, I have not seen any Scriptures that state that a born again person can stop believing in Jesus.
However, I have presented two Scriptures that state just the opposite.
For 1 John 2:19 I'll just defer to Rich Deem's observation
Verse 19 completely refutes the whole concept that eternal security skeptics proclaim, saying that those who "turn away" from the "faith" were actually never really part of it:
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. (1 John 2:19)
As I stated before, 1 John 2:19 is not referring to believers who never fail to believe, and unbelievers who never believed. It’s referring to false teachers who left the apostles and the apostles’ teachings, to go off and teach false teachings.
DBowling wrote:
However, when you dig into it Jesus basically says the same thing in John 3:18
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
Jesus explicitly says that
- Those who believe IN Jesus have eternal life
- Those who do NOT believe IN Jesus do not have eternal life
This is referring to those who have believed, and those who have never believed. It says nothing of those who believed, but may have stopped believing. Notice the part of the verse that says, “they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
Those who believed, and stopped believing wouldn’t fall into that description, because they have believed at some point.
DBowling wrote:
If we presume that it is impossible to go from the state of having eternal life to the state of not having eternal life (which I agree with BTW)
Then
According to Jesus in John 3:18, it is equally impossible to go from the state of believing in Jesus to the state of not believing in Jesus.
No. The verse refers to those who believe, and those who have NEVER believed. It says nothing of anyone who believed, and stopped believing.