Asking if one can sin and still be saved, still have eternal life, is like asking if one can remain sick and still be considered healthy. In view of what salvation actually is, a living, daily fellowship with God and the Lord Jesus, the question becomes, "Can I live in worldliness, lust, and self-will and still have a living daily fellowship with God and the Lord Jesus?"

If we do not know the answer to that we need to ask God to reveal Christ to us so we may be saved.

John 5:24 and other verses have given rise to the current idea of salvation as a one-time experience such that we can look back at our profession of belief and say we were saved because of that profession. This interpretation has fed back on the verse so that the verse continues to be regarded in this manner.

It is a major premise of Christian thinking. Therefore such verses as Matthew 10:22 and Hebrews 3:14 have become meaningless—certainly not applicable to Christians!

And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. (Matthew 10:22)

For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; (Hebrews 3:14)

One destructive conclusion drawn from this premise is that the warnings of the Lord Jesus and the Apostles concerning the loss that will accrue to the sinning Christian can safely be ignored. We have heard and received the Gospel. We believe in God. We have passed from death to life. We cannot come under condemnation. Therefore the Lord Jesus must have been speaking to the Jews when He warned about being cut out of the vine. The Apostle Paul and the writer of Hebrews must have been addressing the unbelievers of Israel, Greece, and Italy when they claimed that if the readers lived in sin they would not inherit the Kingdom of God.

Hence the moral decline of today's churches. How much more valid, how much more effective would be today's cry for repentance if the believers understood that salvation is not a ticket to Heaven but a life lived in Christ in God?—if they realized that the expression "the just shall live by faith" is not speaking of our belief in doctrine but the manner in which the righteous live!

There is another verse that has served as a major premise from which conclusions are drawn. When the verse is interpreted incorrectly the conclusions are incorrect. If the conclusions are incorrect the Lord's people are led astray.

For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14)

The theme of the writer to the Hebrew believers is that there is a rest, the rest of God, into which Christians are to press. The rest of God, the goal of salvation, as we have stated previously, is full conformity to the moral image of Christ and also untroubled rest in Christ in the Father. The Hebrew Christians were "saved" and had experienced the Holy Spirit but they were not pressing on to the fullness of salvation.

As part of his thesis the writer of Hebrews compares the sacrifice of Christ on the cross with the animal sacrifices described in the opening chapters of the Book of Leviticus.

To be continued.