The thesis investigates whether the New Testament teaches that a Christian will inevitably persevere or continue in his faith until he reaches heaven or that he may possibly fall away into apostasy and forfeit his salvation. After a study of the Jewish background, the teaching of the New Testament is examined in detail. Attention is devoted to the nature of salvation, to the concepts of divine predestination and preservation, to temptations which may lead to apostasy, and to possible instances of apostasy. The sonelusion is reached that, while divine preservation is certainly promised to the believer, the frequent warnings against falling away and the existence of probably examples of apostasy show that perseverance is only attained by continual faith in God, and the possibility of failure to persevere cannot be excluded. Neither the Calvinist doctrine that God's elect are infallibly brought to final salvation by His decree nor the so-called Arminian doctrine that the believer cannot be sure of persevering to final salvation does justice to the paradox of New Testament teaching that believers can be confident in God that He will preserve then in salvation and yet must endure faithfully since the possibility of falling away is not ruled out. The thesis also suggests that the great majority of those who do fall away were never true believers, and it discusses the care which must be exercised to prevent believers from falling away and the discipline which must be applied to those who do fall away.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:593045 |
| Date | January 1963 |
| Creators | Marshall, I. Howard |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk/R?func=search-advanced-go&find_code1=WSN&request1=AAIU602208 |
Page generated in 0.1657 seconds