What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?…Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. –Romans 6:1-2, 19 (NIV)–
Without holiness no one will see the Lord. –Hebrews 12:14 (NIV)–
Some people have slipped in among you unnoticed. Not long ago they were condemned in writing for the following reason: They are people to whom God means nothing. They use God’s kindness as an excuse for sexual freedom and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. –Jude 1:4 (GW)–
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Drs. Purkiser and Arrington represent Church of the Nazarene and Church of God (Cleveland). These denominations, especially if they’re small rural churches in the country, are the most likely to hold to conditional security with any degree of conviction. The same goes for the Southern Methodist Church, the Pentecostal Holiness Church, Assemblies of God, the Christian & Missionary Alliance, the Wesleyan Church, and the Free Methodist Church. Seminaries that would agree with this perspective would be God’s Bible School & College, Kentucky Mountain Bible College, Southern Methodist College, the Pentecostal Theological Seminary, and Wesley Biblical Seminary. The Free Will Baptist Church should also be considered, but they tend to be totally anti-charismatic like the IFB churches, and would be against Foster’s teaching on the spiritual disciplines.
Dr. W. T. Purkiser, Security: The False and the True (Beacon Hill Press, 1956).
Dr. French Arrington, Unconditional Eternal Security: Myth or Truth? (Pathway, 2005).
Dr. John R. Rice, Adultery and Sex Perversion (Sword of the Lord Publishers, 1978).
Dr. Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline (HarperCollins, 2018).
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. –2 Timothy 3:16 (NIV)–
To day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts. –Hebrews 3:15 (KJV)–
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to Hell, to the sides of the pit. –Isaiah 14:12-15 (KJV)–
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Andrew Murray, Humility (Bethany House, 2001).
A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God (Wingspread, 1998).
Savinien Louismet, Divine Contemplation for All (P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1920), p. 40.
Dr. John R. Rice, Why Preach Against Sin? (Sword of the Lord, 1985).
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.” –Genesis 3:17-18 (NIV)–
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. –Isaiah 53:4-5 (NIV)–
This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.” –Matthew 8:17 (NIV)–
In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. –1 Peter 1:6-7 (NIV)–
Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. –1 Peter 4:12-13 (NIV)–
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Lester Liles, ed. Streams of Healing: A Book of Comfort (Revell, 1958), pp. 145-154.
Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline (HarperCollins, 2018).