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Genesis 3:22; Revelation 22:1-3 – Once Saved Always Saved?
What’s the very first biblical argument against “Once Saved Always Saved”? I get little smiles when I take so many things back to Genesis 1-3, but here I go again!
While Adam and Eve didn’t need to be saved before Genesis 3, we can all admit that they gained life from God as a gift (as do we). Along with the gift of life beginning with God, was the opportunity to continue to receive the gift of life from God (same for us). The means of this continual gift was the Tree of Life.
However, God exiled them out of the garden after their sins, and subsequently took away His gift of the Tree of Life. When God exiled them, He said, “Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever” (Genesis 3:22).
I think many are mistaken in thinking that Adam and Eve only needed to reach out and eat one time from the tree, and therefore they must have never eaten before their sins or else they could have continued to live. However, the Hebrew has continual action – “he must not CONTINUALLY reach out, CONTINUALLY take from the tree of life, CONTINUALLY eat, and CONTINUALLY live forever.
For Adam and Eve it was not, “Eat Once and Always Live”. For us it is not, “Once Saved Always Saved”.
Understanding the continual actions at the beginning of the Bible perfectly matches the continual actions at the end of the Bible.
Revelation 22:1-3 (NASB) 1) And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2) in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Just as the first couple needed continual access to God’s gift for life; we today also need continual access to God’s gift for life who is Jesus. How do we get this continual life?
1 John 1:5-10 (CSB) 5) This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. 6) If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. 7) If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 ) If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9) If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10) If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Walking in the light is not about living perfectly, and by that we get access to the life-giving blood of Jesus. Ironically, we get continual access because we know we don’t live perfectly and confess our sins. Walking in the light is admitting we sin!
Notice how this gift is greater than the tree of life. Adam and Eve confessed their sins and were denied access. We gain access by confessing our sins. Jesus is our Tree of Life.
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