You say Jesus is powerful enough to save us and cannot lose us to the Devil. What about Judas Iscariot? At Luke 22:3 it says that Satan entered in to Judas, giving the idea that at some point, Judas started going astray. Do we not all have free will? Why would God go through all the trouble of making rules, then telling us we will be punished for breaking those rules, if He is only going to turn around and let us do whatever we want and take us to heaven anyway?
2006-08-01 05:11:24 · 3 answers · asked by Daniel L 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
You make a valid point. This simple reasoning is why the premise of 'once saved always saved' cannot be true. If it were then we would forfeit free will. Interestingly, nobody believed this until after the protestant revolt.
2006-08-01 05:19:58 · answer #1 · answered by infinity 3 · 7⤊ 3⤋
Satan turned Judas into a person that the Bible describes as having a "reprobate mind" meaning that there was no more hope for redemption for Judas. We certainly have free will, but the very term implies that we make CHOICES on our own! God made the rules to help INFLUENCE our choices, not make the choices for us! We're warned of the consequences of poor choices because God is trying to keep sin out of Heaven and trying to redeem us while we yet live here since Adam and Eve messed everything up by ALLOWING or CHOOSING to allow sin to enter in. They were warned by God that they would "surely die" if they ate of the fruit and yet ate it anyway! When Eve ALLOWED herself to be tempted and Adam partook, not understanding what God meant about "dying", Adam apparently felt that because Eve didn't immediately collapse, that the serpent was telling the truth. But the Scripture says that "their eyes were opened" and "they knew that they were naked", introducing the concepts of shame and fear into this world. These were amoing the ELEMENTS that Satan would use to "teach" the body how to die. One might say that God wasn't clear enough with Adam and Eve in not saying that they would grow old and die rather than drop dead immediately, but through FREE WILL, they CHOSE to ignore God's warning about death. He's not going to "let us do whatever we want" and take us to Heaven. We have to live by those "rules" if we want to get in, but we do so FREELY, not FORCIBLY.
2006-08-01 12:43:00 · answer #2 · answered by bigvol662004 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Judas was created for the purpose of betraying Jesus. He didnt gradually go astray, he was evil from the begining. Judas is in Hell.
John 6:70. Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?
Matthew 26:24 The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.
2006-08-01 12:24:48 · answer #3 · answered by Daniel D 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋