Comments

godistruthislove posted a comment · Nov 30, 2018
Dr. Brown, you are overlooking eternal rewards for believers and their obedience and sins. Instead of cutting down the death of Christ and falsely saying His death was not enough to forgive us of our sins forever, you should start teaching the gain and loss of super valuable and precious eternal rewards forever for saved believers. Rewards and being granted the right to rule and reign with Christ is all over almost every page of the Bible. Christ urged us to live for rewards and to rejoice and jump up and down in joy that we can have rewards for obeying and suffering for Christ. (Matthew 5:11-12; 6:19-21; Luke 6:22-23; also see Rev. ch. 2 & 3). Rewards and the eternal loss of rewards is a far better way to motivate people to obey Christ than scaring them with hell fire which means God is a hateful God and only loves us if we obey (similar to the Muslim god, Allah.).
Knowing we are saved forever and cannot lose our salvation (once we believe it really is eternal life, and not condition life as you teach) is a great comfort for us to love God also when we mess up and sin. It is called unconditional love, which is what we all want and need since God created us that way. Of course, believers can sin and mess up as you pointed out and God hates and sees our sin when believers mess up. But the consequences are discipline and punishment on earth and loss of rewards in heaven forever and being ashamed at the Judgment Seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:19-21).
God does plainly and clearly state and teach that once one believes in Jesus they are saved forever with ETERNAL life which never ends and God does look at us as if we are Perfect like Jesus. For you to deny the clear teachings in God's Word on this is very dishonest. You are picking out verses and ignoring others. For example: Hebrews 10:10-14 says we are made HOLY and PERFECT FOREVER so Christ does not have to die for our sins again because one sacrifice death of Jesus forgives all our sins forever. No one can enter heaven with even only one sin ever in their entire lives. So doing good after we sinned does NOT erase that sin. Only our eternal death, or Christ's death for us will pay and cancel our sins. So we cannot be perfect and sinless our entire lives once we have sinned one time. Doing good will not make up for our sins just like if someone did good for 20 years after they murdered someone does not make up for the murder they did before. When caught they will/should get death penalty no matter how much good they did. Same if someone runs a red light or passes a stopped school bus. The judge will not cancel the ticket because the violator tells the judge he did not stop at a school bus stopped but he did stop 25 times after he broke the law or ran the red light. A good judge will not care because the good is what he is supposed to do anyway. He will pay the fine or penalty no matter how much good he did. However, someone could decide to pay the fine for him if it is too much to pay. That is Jesus. Our only way to pay for sins is go to hell forever.
Jesus said we are saved forever and will never die or lose salvation:
John 11:25,26 - Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
John 5:24 - I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
1 Corinthians 3:12-15 11 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss [of eternal rewards]; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

Deancooper posted a comment · Nov 29, 2018
The hyper-grace view is that God doesn't see your sin, instead He see Jesus. Thus God is always well-pleased with you and your sin doesn't effect anything. The once-saved-always-saved view is that God may see your sin, but your sin doesn't have any effect on your salvation (assuming you were really saved). Dr. Brown's view seems to be that God sees your sin, but your sin won't cause you to lose your salvation, unless you "abandon Him or renounce Him or refuse to obey Him". But why would there need to be any fear of the Lord if losing your salvation requires such blatant rejection of God? I think a better view of this is that we are meant to stay on the path of righteousness, but there are many paths that lead away from that into darkness and sin. If you wander away down the wrong path and fail to listen to the Lord calling you back, then you're in real trouble. The thing is that the paths of darkness we wander down start out gradual, but over time lead us farther and farther away from the light. In my view, God wants us to have the hearts of obedient children, who want to walk in the Light, who have a ear to hear Him calling us back when we go astray, and who truly fear what it would mean to our eternal souls if we wander away from the path He has put us on. Dr. Brown's view basically tells people not to worry too much about going down a wrong path, because you'd have to take a 90 degree turn and blatantly abandon God to lose your salvation. To me, that's as much error as the hyper-grace view. The key here is to consider what it means if you sin just a little. We don't want to say a little sin causes you to lose salvation, so then the alternative seems to be that only a blatant rejection of God is what matters. I disagree. A little sin causes you to start wandering away from the path of righteousness. If you hear His voice, repent and return to Him, you're in obedience and are in His Kingdom. But if you persist, and continue down a path of sin it will lead out of His Kingdom. Fear comes into play because it is God who sets the standards, God who sees exactly what is going on in our hearts, and God who judges if we have left or not. Assurance comes only when we have obedient hearts, seeking to stay in His Kingdom, and listening for His corrections.