Paul speaks of salvation as a matter of being crucified with Christ. Then, if it were possible for a person to lose their salvation, it would require un-crucifying oneself. I can only imagine this would be very difficult to accomplish. #gm

If you are really preaching the gospel, you should at some point be misunderstood as teaching antinomianism: "If a man’s preaching is, ‘If you want to be Christians, and if you want to go to heaven, you must stop committing sins, you must take up good works, and if you do so regularly and constantly, and do not fail to keep on at it, you will make yourselves Christians, you will reconcile yourselves to God and you will go to heaven’. Obviously a man who preaches in that strain would never be liable to this misunderstanding. Nobody would say to such a man, ‘Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?’, because the man’s whole emphasis is just this, that if you go on sinning you are certain to be damned, and only if you stop sinning can you save yourselves. So that misunderstanding could never arise . . . Nobody has ever brought this charge [antinomianism] against the Church of Rome, but it was brought frequently against Martin Luther..." -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"A sinner depends on the righteousness of Christ for justification to no good purpose if he does not rely on it only, and neither in whole nor in part on his own obedience." -John Colquhoun, on the theology of Galatians, in his Treatise on the Law and the Gospel

Nobody is claiming Augustine held to Reformed theology. I have zero problem with Warfield's quote. It agrees with what I have been taught and read. The claim was a historical precedent for Reformed theology *regarding perseverance*. Is it a completely developed doctrine in Augustine, formulated precisely without any contradiction in any of his writings? I doubt it. But as they say, "Not even Augustine has read all of Augustine." Still, you can't read what I just quoted and not see at least the seeds of the doctrine in his teaching, not to mention the Scripture he cites. Doctrine develops over time. Contradictions are identified and resolved in the midst of controversy.

Nobody here is arguing that a person should not repent. Luther said the Christian life is a life of repentance. The argument is over the basis on which a person receives eternal life. I say by faith alone in Christ alone (faith of the sort that produces works, but itself is not a work). So far as I understand, you say by faith *and* works. I agree that we should believe the Bible. Ezekiel establishes in that passage that all of us deserve death. But Paul says whoever is justified will be glorified (Rom. 8:30). As John Colquhoun (not a Baptist) put it, "Men are, indeed, to be judged according to their works; but are not to be saved according to them. The rule of judgment will be the law; but the rule of salvation will be the gospel." (2 Tim. 1:9)

I think if you read the quote in context carefully, Augustine is not talking about "losing grace" as in finding oneself outside the New Covenant, after once being in Christ. Even if you look at the title to the chapter, it contains, "the grace of obedience." You may reject that particular grace for a season at your own fault, and yet not such that you are severed from Christ. The context is about restoring an erring believer by rebuke. He even intimates that if the believer rebuked is a "child of promise" it ought be effective. Hence, he says later (again in ch. 23), "they who for a season wander from the way return, that they may continue unto the end what they had begun to be in good."

I think if you read the quote in context carefully, Augustine is not talking about "losing grace" as in finding oneself outside the covenant, after once being in Christ. Even if you look at the title to the chapter, it contains, "the grace of obedience." You may reject that particular grace for a season at your own fault, and yet not such that you are severed from Christ. The context is about restoring an erring believer by rebuke. He even intimates that if the believer rebuked is a "child of promise" it ought be effective. Hence, he says later (again in ch. 23), "they who for a season wander from the way return, that they may continue unto the end what they had begun to be in good."

Them: "Reformed theology regarding perseverance is an innovation with no historical precedent." Augustine: "Whosoever, therefore, in God's most providential ordering, are foreknown, predestinated, called, justified, glorified...These truly come to Christ, because they come in such wise as He Himself says, "All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and him that comes to me I will not cast out;" John 6:37 and a little after He says, "This is the will of the Father who has sent me, that of all that He has given me I shall lose nothing." John 6:39 From Him, therefore, is given also perseverance in good even to the end; for it is not given save to those who shall not perish, since they who do not persevere shall perish."

I'm fine with both. Good works flow from faith as light and heat from fire, as Luther says. They are necessary in that Christ commands us to do them, as we are under His law as a standard, though we are no longer under it as a covenant of works. In other words, it is not a matter of "Do this if you want to live," but rather, "You're already alive. So do this." They're also necessary if we should enjoy our salvation and the full blessing of it by working it out. Just like you might have the keys to a car but it is necessary to drive it around to enjoy it as you ought.

The only legitimate motive to repent is because you might lose your salvation if you don't? Seriously?