Conditional Preservation of the Saints
This is also called Conditional Perseverance of the Saints, or more commonly called Conditional Security.
This is the Arminian Christian belief that believers are kept safe by God in their saving relationship with Him on the condition of a persevering faith in Christ. Arminians find the Scriptures describing both the initial act of faith in Christ, “whereby the relationship is effected,” & persevering faith in him “whereby the relationship is sustained.”
The relationship of the believer to Christ is never an unchanged relationship existing as the binding consequence of a past decision, act, or experience. It’s a living union going ahead upon a living faith in a living Savior. This living union is captured in the simple command by Christ, “Remain in me, & I in you.” (Check out John 15:4.)
Arminians believe that biblical saving faith expresses itself in love & obedience to God. (Check out Galatians 5:6 & Hebrews 5:8-9.) In the Remonstrant Confession of 1621, the first Remonstrants declared that true or living faith operates through love, & that God chooses to give salvation & eternal life through His Son.
Arminians believe that the Scriptures make it abundantly evident that believers are secure. Believers have a guarantee in knowing there’s no external power, or circumstance, that can separate them from the love of God they enjoy in union with Christ. (Check out Romans 8:35 & John 10:27-29.)
Arminians believe that if a believer becomes an unbeliever by committing apostasy, for example, they necessarily stop partaking of the promises of salvation & eternal life made to believers who continue in faith & remain united to Christ. Apostasy is the abandonment/renunciation of a religious/political system.
Arminians seek to follow the biblical writers in warning believers. Armenians seek to follow the biblical writers in warning believers about the real dangers of committing apostasy. A biblical way to avoid apostasy is to reprimand believers to mature spiritually in their relationship with God in union with Christ & through the power of the Spirit.
Maturity takes place as Christ-followers keep on meeting with fellow believers for mutual encouragement & strength, encouraging each to love God & others, to continue growing in the grace & knowledge of their Lord & Savior Jesus Christ, & to persevere, in faith in playful dependence on God through various trials & temptations.
Before the time of debate between Calvinist & the Arminians at the Synod of Dort (1618-1619), the view in the early church appears to be on the side of conditional security.
Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609, making him 49 years old upon passing away), the founder of the Arminian belief system, taught that the believer’s security is conditional, “provided they stand prepared for the battle, implore his help, & be not wanting to themselves.”
Sometimes between 1610 & the official proceeding the Synod of Dort, the Remonstrants became fully persuaded in their minds that the Scriptures taught that a true believer was capable of falling away from faith & perishing eternally as an unbeliever. They formalized their views in “The Opinion of the Remonstrants” (1618).
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