The Great Importance of a Two-Letter Word

Have you ever noticed how much difference one word makes? Take, for example, the word “not.” Insert that word into a sentence, and the meaning is completely opposite! What about the importance of just a single letter or two? There is a writer who once wrote in one of his Bible commentaries, “Jesus is not sitting at the right hand of God.” Do you notice the problem? It was a typographical error, and was instead supposed to read “Jesus is now sitting at the right hand of God.” The difference was only one single letter, but it changed the meaning of the entire sentence! One sentence was Scriptural, the other blasphemous!

There is a common false doctrine called “Perseverance of the Saints” or “once saved, always saved” that permeates the religious world, as well as infiltrates the thinking of the Lord’s church. The inspired apostle, Paul, speaks clearly against it. He states “I declare unto you the gospel…By which you are saved” (I Corinthians 15:1-2a). However, he does not end the sentence there. He specifies that Christians are only saved by means of the gospel “if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you” (I Corinthians 15:2b). Do you notice the importance of that one little word: “if”? The gospel saves, but only if it is kept in memory (meaning that one continues to walk in it – see Romans 8:1, Revelation 2:10). When one becomes a Christian, yet does not continue in the gospel, he is not saved. Are you truly keeping the gospel in your memory?

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