Why shouldn't an OSAS believer kill himself?
Um, because suicide is sin against God. No?
Was your question intended to somehow be a challenge against OSAS? Do you imagine God has never saved anyone who has committed suicide? Do you imagine God has never kept anyone saved through the event of, and in spite of their commission of the sin of suicide?
For me, suicide is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit...or I would have done it a long time ago.
I would never say call suicide
"blasphemy against the Holy Spirit"*, but since you do, what do you then say of failed suicide attempts? Is attempted, but failed suicide exempt from the same judgement by you? If so, why? I'm not seeing how any self-consistent thinking could ever speak more harshly against successful suicide attempts than against failed suicide attempts, in terms of degrees of sinfulness; every attempt at suicide is just as heinous a sin against God as any other. The result of any attempt to sin neither augments nor diminishes the sinfulness of the attempt. What would you say to someone who had attempted suicide and yet, by God's merciful, gracious providence, was somehow spared from actually achieving his/her goal of dying from it, and who afterwards became a Bible-believing Christian, became saved? Would you tell such a person,
"Sorry, chump! You have no hope. You already burned your bridge; you committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit by attempting suicide! Enjoy the remainder of your comparatively, infinitesimally short, pointless life on earth as you await your eternity in hell"?
You say you
"would have done it a long time ago". Are we to take it that you, for a long time, have desired to sin against God by committing suicide? It sure sounds like that's what you're saying, and you desiring that is you sinning against God. And it really makes you sound glaringly self-righteous by, while saying that, trying to minimize the sinfulness of your avowed desire against what you are calling
"blasphemy against the Holy Spirit".
*
Or, let's put it this way: I would at least never say that suicide is what is being referred to by Jesus, in the Gospels, by the phrase, "the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit". Frankly, despite what I've heard a lot of people say in my lifetime, I have a hard time believing that the sin Jesus was speaking about in those passages is a sin that has been/could ever be committed by any but those of His contemporary, first-century, Hebrew audience, who had witnessed the miracles He performed in their sight. And, it sure doesn't look even remotely like His discourse on the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was meant to be a warning against committing suicide.
Personally, I think that people fear death more than they are willing to admit because once it's done, everything is out of your control.
Personally, I have zero doubt that you're speaking the truth, here; I'd be lying if I said otherwise, unfortunately.
Works salvation is trusting in oneself, in one's own effort, ability, power. Salvation is trusting Christ, and the ensuing reflection of Him in someone. Suicide is not trusting Christ.
When you say
"Suicide is not trusting Christ," do you not stop to consider that one can just as easily use your same formula, here, replacing the word 'suicide' with the name of any other sin?
- "Drunkenness is not trusting Christ."
- "Lusting is not trusting Christ."
- "Coveting is not trusting Christ."
- "Slothfulness is not trusting Christ."
- "Hypocrisy is not trusting Christ."
- "Pridefulness is not trusting Christ."
- etc.
Which sins that you, yourself, commit would you be willing to substitute, here, in place of suicide? In any case, I doubt anyone has claimed that, on the contrary, to commit suicide IS to trust Christ. And certainly no one has claimed that suicide is salvation, or a means thereof, so I'm not seeing what you're trying to say by bringing in the phrase,
"works salvation". Are you calling suicide,
"works salvation"? That would be weird. I really doubt whether suicides who have never trusted Christ have spent much, if any, time considering themselves to be in need of salvation of their souls (if they even believe they have souls, to begin with), much less considering their suicide to be a means of achieving soul salvation. Rather, I figure that the only "salvation" they may imagine (sadly erroneously) they are going to gain is some sort of everlasting relief from all their present worries, pains, sorrows, etc., through cessation of all their sensation, perception, etc.
The Reformed view is perseverance of the saints.
But, I take it "Reformed" people would not deny that once any one of "the saints" has been saved, he/she could never drop away from being saved. And so, I fail to see why "Reformed" people often seem so much to want to distance themselves from, and disavow for their theology the succinct, straightforward slogan, OSAS.
********
Don't worry, folks! In case it might seem that way, I don't have suicide on the brain! I just happened to get sidetracked thinking about this thread while I was searching through threads looking for something relevant to a somewhat different topic I had been thinking about prior.
Oh, BTW, a big shout-out to seven years ago, threadsters!
