Brother Richard.
Your reply is just your own opinion without biblical proof.
I clearly see where we differ and where we agree.
You and I agree that Christ saved us, but we differ in how to remain save.
My point is I remain saved by God grace, not by my obedience to the law or by my good works. All I need is faith and a choice to live for God, and He will do the rest. But faith too, I have it because of His grace, all what left is a choice. A choice to accept salvation and live for God or to deny salvation and living for self. I my self can do nothing good as my nature is sinful, without the Spirit of God working in me to build up faith, I will surely lost. But once I have faith in what Christ had done for me, I then have a new choice except my nature to live for the flesh. That choice is to live for God, to focus my mind on Christ and live for Him that had died for me.
But living for self or living for the flesh is our nature that is why our performance can never be perfect and sinless. To the letter of the law we might show perfect obedience but to the Spirit of the law we fall short. And for that we remain sinners and saved only by God grace.
Paul clearly clarifies this by saying: “ …..touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” (Philippians 3:6). But then he said: “ What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin is dead. For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died” (Romans 7:7-9).
Once, Paul was “blameless” to the law (the letter of the law), it is when he did not know the “law” (the spiritual demands of the law) in the commandment number 10 “thou shalt not covet.” But once he knew that, he saw himself no longer blameless but a sinner and must die. All his perfect obedience to the law considered now as living without the law, accounted as “dung,” since the law open his heart that he kept breaking it and so was and remain a sinner that must die. That is why he no longer seeks righteousness by the law but “ be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians 3:9), since “ .. now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested…which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe” (Romans 3:21,22). Righteousness is no longer based on the law or performance but based on grace received by faith because “ all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23,24).
Paul understood that no one could ever attain perfection and sinlesness, because all breaks the law and fall short of God’s glory. All failed in performing the spiritual demand of the law. So, if salvation and justification based on good works or performance, then all men will lost and died forever. The same applied to “remain saved”, if perfection and sinlesness by obedience to the law is required to remain save, then no one will remain save and all will be lost because no one can keep the spiritual demands of the law due to the weakness of the flesh or our sinful nature (Romans 8:3). But thanks God, that to remain save is His grace received by faith!
I did not disagree with the SOP, as my view agrees with Sister White statement here:
“So long as Satan reigns, we shall have self to subdue, besetting sins to overcome; so long as life shall last, there will be no stopping place, no point which we can reach and say, I have fully attained."
And….
"Now you may cling to your righteousness, and you may think that you have tried to do right, and that, after all, you will be saved in doing this. You cannot see that Christ does it all." FW 72,73
and…
"...the prayers, the praise, the penitent confession of sin ascend from true believers as incense to the heavenly sanctuary, but passing through the corrupt channels of humanity, they are so defiled that unless purified by blood, they can never be of value with God. They ascend not in spotless purity, and unless the Intercessor, who is at God's right hand, presents and purifies all by His righteousness, it is not acceptable to God. All incense from earthly tabernacles must be moist with the cleansing drops of the blood of Christ. He holds before the Father the censer of His own merits, in which there is no taint of earthly corruption.
Oh, that all may see that everything in obedience, in penitence, in praise and thanksgiving, must be placed upon the glowing fire of the righteousness of Christ." Selected Messages Book 1, p. 344
In His love
James S.
[This message has been edited by James Saptenno (edited 04-13-2001).]