Five Points of Calvinism (T.U.L.I.P)
I began, like many Christians who begin their walk with Christ, an Arminian. That it was I who came to God when I was ready, that it was I who repented and believed, that it was I who turned the key to unlock the door of my salvation. As I read the sermons of the great evangelist, George Whitefield, my heart was softened to the doctrines of Grace. Whitefield says it gave him comfort in knowing the Sovereignty of God over everything, including his salvation. I watched Amazing Grace: The History and Theology of Calvinism and I read books by John Owen that showed me the obvious inconsistencies of Arminianism. I laid down my pride and my feelings and humbled myself before God’s word alone. It was not about what I thought was fair anymore. It was about what the Scriptures say.
Since then, the doctrines of Grace have encouraged me in evangelism. I see now how God uses the preaching of the Gospel as a means of bringing lost souls to Christ. I can confidently preach the whole counsel of God knowing that all of those that have been given to the Son by the Father will, now or later, be drawn by the Holy Spirit, to full and complete salvation. Praise God I do not have to be discouraged when it seems like no one cares about the Gospel because it is not up to me. Psalm 3:8 says salvation is of the Lord.
Total Depravity
Since the fall of Adam everyone is born spiritually dead and a slave to sin. And since the Fall has corrupted every part of our mind, will, and emotions, we cannot choose the ultimate good: The Gospel the LORD JESUS CHRIST. We cannot choose what is contrary to our nature. We have a propensity toward sin. Man is not as bad as he could be, nor is everyone equally bad, there is variations of sin in every person but all of us are born slaves to one sin or another. Please consider these scriptures with a humble heart that show us our total depravity before a holy God:
1 Corinthians 2:14 The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God…neither can he know them.
John 6:44 No man can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him
Romans 8:5-7 The carnal mind is enmity against God: it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be
Notice the word “can” is a word of ability. The word “may” is a word of permission.
Rom 1:30 haters of God
Eph 4:18 understanding is darkened, alienated from the life of God, ignorant and blind
John 3:19 the sinner loves darkness
Eph 2:1-5 dead in sins and trespasses, children of wrath
Titus 3:3 men are naturally foolish, disobedient, deceived, a slave to lust and pleasure, living in malice and envy, full of hate
John 8:34 whoever commits sin is the slave of sin
Mark 7:21,22 out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, theft, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, blasphemy, pride, foolishness
Isaiah 53:6, 64:6 All we like sheep have gone astray, the very best we can do is filthy rags
Gen 6:5; 8:21 God saw the wickedness of men…every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…the imagination of his heart is evil from his youth
Rom 3:10-18 there is none righteous, no even one, there is none good, not even one, there is none that understands, there is none that seek after God
Unconditional Election
We see in Luke 19:10 that it is Christ that comes and seeks us who are lost. It is not us who seeks Him. When a sinner is Born Again (John 3:3), God rips out his heart of stone and gives him a new heart of flesh and causes him to walk in His ways (Ezekiel 36:26). Once this has happened the sinner is now enabled by God to repent and believe the Gospel (Ephesians 2:8,9). Jesus said salvation is like the wind (John 3:4), it is not something we are in control of. The Holy Spirit draws sinners to Christ in His own time. It is the effort of God alone. The Scripture speaks of our new life in Christ in terms of birth, creation, and resurrection. You do nothing to be born, you do nothing to be created, and you do nothing to bring yourself back to life. God alone does this.
In Ephesians 1:4,5 we see God has already chosen who will be saved before the foundation of the world. The Bible frequently speaks of word like “chosen,” “called,” and “elect.”
Matt 20:16 many are called, few are chosen
Mark 13:27 God shall send His angels and gather His elect
Luke 18:7 shall not God avenge His own elect
John 15:16 you have not chosen Me, but I chose you
Acts 13:48 as many as were ordained to eternal life believed
Rom 8:33 who shall lay anything to charge of God’s elect?
2 Tim 2:10 I endure all things for the elect’s sake
The Word ekklesia, “the called out ones,” comes from the same Greek root, eklektos/the elect, so the words for church and elect are roughly synonymous. The words “beloved” and “sheep” also refer to the elect (2 Thessalonians 2:13, John 10:26).
In John 10:26 we see Jesus tells the Pharisees that they do not believe BECAUSE they are not His sheep given to Him by the Father. NOT because they do not believe, but because they are not His sheep.
Again we need to humble ourselves before the words of God and lay aside our feelings of what we think is fair. If you do not have a problem with God choosing Israel in the Old Testament, why do you have a problem with God choosing a people in the New Testament? God does not change. Romans 9:15 says God chooses to whom He will have mercy, and whom he will have compassion. God does everything according to the good pleasure of HIS WILL (Ephesians 1:5).
Romans 8:29
For whom He foreknew, he did also predestine… This does not mean that God looked down through time and saw who would choose Him. NOTICE: it does not say that God knew something about the individual. That they would do this or that, or that he saw their actions, even though both statements are true. Rather it states that God knew the individuals themselves. The word WHOM denotes persons, not events. It doesn’t mean to foresee but to FORELOVE. Adam KNEW his wife Eve (Gen 4:1). Amos 3:2 says only you have I KNOWN of all the families of the earth. He obviously knows about the other families but He loved Israel in a special way. Only in a negative sense does God tell us the basis for electing one and not the other. 1 Corinthians 1:26, 27 says God has NOT called(saved) many men who are noble and mighty, but He chooses the base things of the world so all glory will go to Him.
Romans 9:9-13
God said He loved Jacob and hated Israel BEFORE they were born, before they had done any good or evil. It is clear what God had for Jacob he did not have for Esau.
God has a general love for everyone. He sends the rain and sunshine on everyone. But just as a man has a special love for his wife and children, God has the right to have a special love towards those who are the objects of His affection. It would be right for God to destroy all of us for our sins, but if He wants to have mercy on some, he has the right to do that. In Luke 10:21 Jesus thanks God for hiding the Gospel from some and revealing it to others. Romans 9:21-24 speaks of vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor.
Election puts nobody in hell and a vast multitude in heaven that would not be there otherwise. In heaven we have nothing to boast about in ourselves, in hell we have no one to blame but ourselves.
The problem is not election but the depravity of man. Election is essential if anyone is going to go to heaven.
Limited Atonement
The Calvinist limits God’s intent. The Arminian limits God’s power. The power of the Atonement of Christ is infinite but it was only designed for the sheep given to Christ by the Father (John 6:37).
Words like “all,” “whole,” “world,” and “every man,” are general terms that are used in every language. These terms do not always mean every individual person. Luke 2:1 says ALL THE WORLD was taxed. That did not mean the people in modern day Australia were taxed. It obviously means all the Roman world. Luke 2:10 says that the birth of Christ was good tidings to ALL people. Was it good tidings to the Pharisees, or to Pilate, or to King Herod who tried to have Jesus killed? Colossians 1:5,6 when Paul says the truth has gone out into all the world. Did that mean modern day USA and South America? John 12:19 says all the world has gone after Jesus. That just means a lot of people, not every individual person on the earth. Context always determines what a word means. One word may have two or more different meanings depending on context. For example, in John 1:10, the word “world” is mentioned three times in the same verse. The first “world” means Jesus was in a certain geographic location on the earth. The second “world” means the entire earth that God created. The third “world” means the “world” of the unbelievers. So we see the word world does not always mean every individual person.
Christ was addressing the Jews who were obsessed with race and ethnicity. They thought only the physical descendents of Abraham were saved. They could not imagine that God would send His messiah to save other people in other ethnic groups. That is why letters and books in the Bible addressed to a largely Jewish audience always emphasize the whole world meaning Jew and Gentile (1 John 2:2).
Verses that limit God’s salvation to many:
Isaiah 53:11,12 by His knowledge shall my Righteous servant justify many
Matt 20:16, 28 many are called, few are chosen
Rev 5:9 for you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood OUT OF every kindred, tongue, people, and nation
John 10:11- Jesus lays His life down for the sheep, not the goats, dogs, or wolves.
2 Peter 3:9 Peter is writing to the BELOVED and ELECT
2 Peter 2:1 The word for Lord is, depotes, meaning ruler. This is not the word kurious that refers to the LORD JESUS. This verse is not in context of the atonement. The word for bought is agorazo, meaning the Lord’s right to ownership as creator. The false teachers are denying the God who owns them.
John 11:42 says that God the Father always answers Jesus’ prayers. Heb 7:25 says Jesus saves to the uttermost because He prays for them. Since we know many people are already in hell we can logically conclude that Jesus never prayed or died for them. Because if Jesus did pray for them then God the Father would answer His prayers and keep them from going to hell.
In John 17:9 Jesus prays only for those whom the Father has given to Him and not for the world. If Jesus did die for everyone then no one would go to hell. Jesus paid the ransom for sinners. God would be unjust if He demanded double payment.
If Jesus paid the penalty for sin for everybody, like Arminians say, why is not everyone saved? They say because they do not accept Jesus by faith. Well is not unbelief a sin (Heb 3:12)? God commands us to believe. If we do not, that is a sin of omission. If Jesus paid for the sins of everyone, that also includes the sin of unbelief. Again, why is not everyone saved then? So the Arminians have a problem of Jesus dying for some sins not all. The Arminian Gospel is not “Paid in full.” But the scriptures clearly say that Jesus did pay our debt in full (Colossians 2:13,14). So we can conclude again that Jesus did not pay the debt of sin for those in hell so no one can boast (Eph 2:9).
Arminians then say there is a Prevenient Grace that works on man before he is born again, as if the Spirit takes the sinner up to the door of salvation and then leaves it up to him to open the door. But that makes man the final determiner of his salvation. The scripture says no man can attribute anything to his salvation seeing that the very best he can do is filthy rags in the sight of God (Isaiah 64:6). Prevenient Grace allows the Christian in heaven to say that he did the right thing while his neighbor in hell did the wrong thing (Eph 2:8,9). This is completely unbiblical.
Irresistible Grace
Rom 9:19 says who has resisted His will? In John 6:37 Jesus says all that the Father has given me SHALL COME to me. God goes after his elect. He kicks down the door of the sinner’s heart rips it out and gives him a new heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). God is not up in heaven hoping, wishing, and praying that people will accept Christ. God knocked Paul off his horse and tells him He has chosen him to bear Christ’s name before the Gentiles (Acts 9:15). God will seek the Elect out.
In John 6:44 Jesus says no man can come to Him unless the Father draws him. That word for draw means to drag like a fisherman dragging his nets full of fish into his boat. In James 2:6 we see the same word appear speaking about how rich men will drag Christians into their courts.
John 1:12,13 But as many as received Him, to them he gave power to be the sons of God, to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Irresistible Grace does not mean sinners cannot resist Him.
In fact, unless God makes him alive, the sinner will never stop resisting Him. Irresistible Grace means the Holy Spirit will not fail in bringing sinners to Christ.
Preservation of the Saints
In John 10:27-29 Jesus promises his sheep they will never perish. In John 17:12 Jesus tells God the Father that all that were given to him, none are lost except the son of perdition. In Heb 12:2 we see God is the author and finisher of salvation. In Phil 1:6 we see God promises the good work He begins in a Christian he will complete, perform, and finish it.
This does not mean you can sin all you want and still go to heaven. A proof of your salvation will be the fact that sin does not have control of you (Romans 6:14). Not living in sin is a proof of God’s grace in your life. Heb 12:14 says without holiness you will not see the Lord. You need to understand the Law is not the Gospel, but the Gospel is not lawless.
True and False Conversion
We see in Matthew 7:21-23 many people will come before the Judgment seat of Christ and say Lord, Lord did we not do many wonderful things in your Name. Then Jesus will say to them Depart from Me, I never knew you, you workers of iniquity. Just because a person professes to be a Christian does not mean they are (Titus 1:16). Jesus speaks of stony ground hearers in Mark 4:5,6. These men did not count the cost to follow Christ. They later “fall away” because they are offended at the word. This can sometimes last a whole lifetime as we read in Matthew 7:21-23. Feeling sorrow for ones sins does not mean a true conversion has happened because it might be worldly sorrow that leads to death (2 Corinthians 7:10).
Hebrews 6:4-6, 10:26
This explains verses like Hebrews 6:4-6 that seem like the Christian can lose his salvation. A sinner can be baptized, taste the goodness of God, enjoy the blessings of Christ’s visible church but still have no saving grace wrought in the soul. The first chapter of John Owen’s book, “Apostasy From the Gospel,” explains this in detail. Owen also explains that Hebrews 10:26 is not referring to a Christian, but the unbelieving Jews in the first century who still thought they could go and offer up a sacrifice for their sins. The writer of Hebrews says no. Christ Jesus was the final sacrifice for all sins of all time. If the Jews did not accept that, then “there remains no more sacrifice for sins.”
A true Christian is forgiven for all their sins past, present, and future (Colossians 2:13, Acts 13:39). If a person claims to be a Christian and then falls away into sin never to come back to Christ then that person “went out from us: but they were not of us: for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be manifest that they were not of us (1 John 2:19).
Since then, the doctrines of Grace have encouraged me in evangelism. I see now how God uses the preaching of the Gospel as a means of bringing lost souls to Christ. I can confidently preach the whole counsel of God knowing that all of those that have been given to the Son by the Father will, now or later, be drawn by the Holy Spirit, to full and complete salvation. Praise God I do not have to be discouraged when it seems like no one cares about the Gospel because it is not up to me. Psalm 3:8 says salvation is of the Lord.
Total Depravity
Since the fall of Adam everyone is born spiritually dead and a slave to sin. And since the Fall has corrupted every part of our mind, will, and emotions, we cannot choose the ultimate good: The Gospel the LORD JESUS CHRIST. We cannot choose what is contrary to our nature. We have a propensity toward sin. Man is not as bad as he could be, nor is everyone equally bad, there is variations of sin in every person but all of us are born slaves to one sin or another. Please consider these scriptures with a humble heart that show us our total depravity before a holy God:
1 Corinthians 2:14 The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God…neither can he know them.
John 6:44 No man can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him
Romans 8:5-7 The carnal mind is enmity against God: it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be
Notice the word “can” is a word of ability. The word “may” is a word of permission.
Rom 1:30 haters of God
Eph 4:18 understanding is darkened, alienated from the life of God, ignorant and blind
John 3:19 the sinner loves darkness
Eph 2:1-5 dead in sins and trespasses, children of wrath
Titus 3:3 men are naturally foolish, disobedient, deceived, a slave to lust and pleasure, living in malice and envy, full of hate
John 8:34 whoever commits sin is the slave of sin
Mark 7:21,22 out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, theft, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, blasphemy, pride, foolishness
Isaiah 53:6, 64:6 All we like sheep have gone astray, the very best we can do is filthy rags
Gen 6:5; 8:21 God saw the wickedness of men…every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…the imagination of his heart is evil from his youth
Rom 3:10-18 there is none righteous, no even one, there is none good, not even one, there is none that understands, there is none that seek after God
Unconditional Election
We see in Luke 19:10 that it is Christ that comes and seeks us who are lost. It is not us who seeks Him. When a sinner is Born Again (John 3:3), God rips out his heart of stone and gives him a new heart of flesh and causes him to walk in His ways (Ezekiel 36:26). Once this has happened the sinner is now enabled by God to repent and believe the Gospel (Ephesians 2:8,9). Jesus said salvation is like the wind (John 3:4), it is not something we are in control of. The Holy Spirit draws sinners to Christ in His own time. It is the effort of God alone. The Scripture speaks of our new life in Christ in terms of birth, creation, and resurrection. You do nothing to be born, you do nothing to be created, and you do nothing to bring yourself back to life. God alone does this.
In Ephesians 1:4,5 we see God has already chosen who will be saved before the foundation of the world. The Bible frequently speaks of word like “chosen,” “called,” and “elect.”
Matt 20:16 many are called, few are chosen
Mark 13:27 God shall send His angels and gather His elect
Luke 18:7 shall not God avenge His own elect
John 15:16 you have not chosen Me, but I chose you
Acts 13:48 as many as were ordained to eternal life believed
Rom 8:33 who shall lay anything to charge of God’s elect?
2 Tim 2:10 I endure all things for the elect’s sake
The Word ekklesia, “the called out ones,” comes from the same Greek root, eklektos/the elect, so the words for church and elect are roughly synonymous. The words “beloved” and “sheep” also refer to the elect (2 Thessalonians 2:13, John 10:26).
In John 10:26 we see Jesus tells the Pharisees that they do not believe BECAUSE they are not His sheep given to Him by the Father. NOT because they do not believe, but because they are not His sheep.
Again we need to humble ourselves before the words of God and lay aside our feelings of what we think is fair. If you do not have a problem with God choosing Israel in the Old Testament, why do you have a problem with God choosing a people in the New Testament? God does not change. Romans 9:15 says God chooses to whom He will have mercy, and whom he will have compassion. God does everything according to the good pleasure of HIS WILL (Ephesians 1:5).
Romans 8:29
For whom He foreknew, he did also predestine… This does not mean that God looked down through time and saw who would choose Him. NOTICE: it does not say that God knew something about the individual. That they would do this or that, or that he saw their actions, even though both statements are true. Rather it states that God knew the individuals themselves. The word WHOM denotes persons, not events. It doesn’t mean to foresee but to FORELOVE. Adam KNEW his wife Eve (Gen 4:1). Amos 3:2 says only you have I KNOWN of all the families of the earth. He obviously knows about the other families but He loved Israel in a special way. Only in a negative sense does God tell us the basis for electing one and not the other. 1 Corinthians 1:26, 27 says God has NOT called(saved) many men who are noble and mighty, but He chooses the base things of the world so all glory will go to Him.
Romans 9:9-13
God said He loved Jacob and hated Israel BEFORE they were born, before they had done any good or evil. It is clear what God had for Jacob he did not have for Esau.
God has a general love for everyone. He sends the rain and sunshine on everyone. But just as a man has a special love for his wife and children, God has the right to have a special love towards those who are the objects of His affection. It would be right for God to destroy all of us for our sins, but if He wants to have mercy on some, he has the right to do that. In Luke 10:21 Jesus thanks God for hiding the Gospel from some and revealing it to others. Romans 9:21-24 speaks of vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor.
Election puts nobody in hell and a vast multitude in heaven that would not be there otherwise. In heaven we have nothing to boast about in ourselves, in hell we have no one to blame but ourselves.
The problem is not election but the depravity of man. Election is essential if anyone is going to go to heaven.
Limited Atonement
The Calvinist limits God’s intent. The Arminian limits God’s power. The power of the Atonement of Christ is infinite but it was only designed for the sheep given to Christ by the Father (John 6:37).
Words like “all,” “whole,” “world,” and “every man,” are general terms that are used in every language. These terms do not always mean every individual person. Luke 2:1 says ALL THE WORLD was taxed. That did not mean the people in modern day Australia were taxed. It obviously means all the Roman world. Luke 2:10 says that the birth of Christ was good tidings to ALL people. Was it good tidings to the Pharisees, or to Pilate, or to King Herod who tried to have Jesus killed? Colossians 1:5,6 when Paul says the truth has gone out into all the world. Did that mean modern day USA and South America? John 12:19 says all the world has gone after Jesus. That just means a lot of people, not every individual person on the earth. Context always determines what a word means. One word may have two or more different meanings depending on context. For example, in John 1:10, the word “world” is mentioned three times in the same verse. The first “world” means Jesus was in a certain geographic location on the earth. The second “world” means the entire earth that God created. The third “world” means the “world” of the unbelievers. So we see the word world does not always mean every individual person.
Christ was addressing the Jews who were obsessed with race and ethnicity. They thought only the physical descendents of Abraham were saved. They could not imagine that God would send His messiah to save other people in other ethnic groups. That is why letters and books in the Bible addressed to a largely Jewish audience always emphasize the whole world meaning Jew and Gentile (1 John 2:2).
Verses that limit God’s salvation to many:
Isaiah 53:11,12 by His knowledge shall my Righteous servant justify many
Matt 20:16, 28 many are called, few are chosen
Rev 5:9 for you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood OUT OF every kindred, tongue, people, and nation
John 10:11- Jesus lays His life down for the sheep, not the goats, dogs, or wolves.
2 Peter 3:9 Peter is writing to the BELOVED and ELECT
2 Peter 2:1 The word for Lord is, depotes, meaning ruler. This is not the word kurious that refers to the LORD JESUS. This verse is not in context of the atonement. The word for bought is agorazo, meaning the Lord’s right to ownership as creator. The false teachers are denying the God who owns them.
John 11:42 says that God the Father always answers Jesus’ prayers. Heb 7:25 says Jesus saves to the uttermost because He prays for them. Since we know many people are already in hell we can logically conclude that Jesus never prayed or died for them. Because if Jesus did pray for them then God the Father would answer His prayers and keep them from going to hell.
In John 17:9 Jesus prays only for those whom the Father has given to Him and not for the world. If Jesus did die for everyone then no one would go to hell. Jesus paid the ransom for sinners. God would be unjust if He demanded double payment.
If Jesus paid the penalty for sin for everybody, like Arminians say, why is not everyone saved? They say because they do not accept Jesus by faith. Well is not unbelief a sin (Heb 3:12)? God commands us to believe. If we do not, that is a sin of omission. If Jesus paid for the sins of everyone, that also includes the sin of unbelief. Again, why is not everyone saved then? So the Arminians have a problem of Jesus dying for some sins not all. The Arminian Gospel is not “Paid in full.” But the scriptures clearly say that Jesus did pay our debt in full (Colossians 2:13,14). So we can conclude again that Jesus did not pay the debt of sin for those in hell so no one can boast (Eph 2:9).
Arminians then say there is a Prevenient Grace that works on man before he is born again, as if the Spirit takes the sinner up to the door of salvation and then leaves it up to him to open the door. But that makes man the final determiner of his salvation. The scripture says no man can attribute anything to his salvation seeing that the very best he can do is filthy rags in the sight of God (Isaiah 64:6). Prevenient Grace allows the Christian in heaven to say that he did the right thing while his neighbor in hell did the wrong thing (Eph 2:8,9). This is completely unbiblical.
Irresistible Grace
Rom 9:19 says who has resisted His will? In John 6:37 Jesus says all that the Father has given me SHALL COME to me. God goes after his elect. He kicks down the door of the sinner’s heart rips it out and gives him a new heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). God is not up in heaven hoping, wishing, and praying that people will accept Christ. God knocked Paul off his horse and tells him He has chosen him to bear Christ’s name before the Gentiles (Acts 9:15). God will seek the Elect out.
In John 6:44 Jesus says no man can come to Him unless the Father draws him. That word for draw means to drag like a fisherman dragging his nets full of fish into his boat. In James 2:6 we see the same word appear speaking about how rich men will drag Christians into their courts.
John 1:12,13 But as many as received Him, to them he gave power to be the sons of God, to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Irresistible Grace does not mean sinners cannot resist Him.
In fact, unless God makes him alive, the sinner will never stop resisting Him. Irresistible Grace means the Holy Spirit will not fail in bringing sinners to Christ.
Preservation of the Saints
In John 10:27-29 Jesus promises his sheep they will never perish. In John 17:12 Jesus tells God the Father that all that were given to him, none are lost except the son of perdition. In Heb 12:2 we see God is the author and finisher of salvation. In Phil 1:6 we see God promises the good work He begins in a Christian he will complete, perform, and finish it.
This does not mean you can sin all you want and still go to heaven. A proof of your salvation will be the fact that sin does not have control of you (Romans 6:14). Not living in sin is a proof of God’s grace in your life. Heb 12:14 says without holiness you will not see the Lord. You need to understand the Law is not the Gospel, but the Gospel is not lawless.
True and False Conversion
We see in Matthew 7:21-23 many people will come before the Judgment seat of Christ and say Lord, Lord did we not do many wonderful things in your Name. Then Jesus will say to them Depart from Me, I never knew you, you workers of iniquity. Just because a person professes to be a Christian does not mean they are (Titus 1:16). Jesus speaks of stony ground hearers in Mark 4:5,6. These men did not count the cost to follow Christ. They later “fall away” because they are offended at the word. This can sometimes last a whole lifetime as we read in Matthew 7:21-23. Feeling sorrow for ones sins does not mean a true conversion has happened because it might be worldly sorrow that leads to death (2 Corinthians 7:10).
Hebrews 6:4-6, 10:26
This explains verses like Hebrews 6:4-6 that seem like the Christian can lose his salvation. A sinner can be baptized, taste the goodness of God, enjoy the blessings of Christ’s visible church but still have no saving grace wrought in the soul. The first chapter of John Owen’s book, “Apostasy From the Gospel,” explains this in detail. Owen also explains that Hebrews 10:26 is not referring to a Christian, but the unbelieving Jews in the first century who still thought they could go and offer up a sacrifice for their sins. The writer of Hebrews says no. Christ Jesus was the final sacrifice for all sins of all time. If the Jews did not accept that, then “there remains no more sacrifice for sins.”
A true Christian is forgiven for all their sins past, present, and future (Colossians 2:13, Acts 13:39). If a person claims to be a Christian and then falls away into sin never to come back to Christ then that person “went out from us: but they were not of us: for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be manifest that they were not of us (1 John 2:19).
