This guy s entire "ministry" seems to consist of this and one other blog article, so it's hard to glean where he's coming from. I guess he's a Wesleyan or some other consistent Arminian. Unlike your more run-of-the-mill evangelical Arminian, he recognizes that he's undermined the theological rationale for eternal security, or perseverence of the saints, or whatever you prefer to call it, and he's just abandoned that, too.
It is the concept of being saved forever once you are saved and that you cannot lose your salvation. While it is true that believers have grace and that true believers will walk in humility because they are still not perfect people, the way someone can still lose their salvation is by walking away from the faith (1 Timothy 1:18–20).
Actually, 1 Tim. 1:18-20 doesn't say anyone walked away from the faith. It says they made a shipwreck of their faith. Paul had personal experience with shipwrecks. In the one instance we know about (Acts 27:27-44), the ship was destroyed, but no life was lost. By analogy, we can make a wreck of our faith without losing our eternal life. Paul doesn't say Hymenaeus and Alexander had abandoned the faith; he says they were being taught not to blaspheme. The purpose of church discipline isn't to eject people from the faith, but to bring them to repentance and restore them to fellowship. We don't know that Hymenaeus's and Alexander's apostasy was permanent. Maybe it was, maybe not. Beside the point.
Jesus said,
"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:27-30)
No one can snatch one of God's children out of his hand, but this Keith Rivas thinks he's strong enough, by his own will, to pry God's fingers apart and just walk out of them. What arrogance.
