And its permanence is not contingent upon the permanence of one's faith. We are saved because at a moment in time we expressed faith in our enduring Lord. P ictured here is something we experience every time we are handed a gift. It refers to the entire process Paul has just finished describing, that is, salvation. Now I don't know about you, but I have learned that a gift that can be taken back is no gift.
True gifts have no strings attached.
Once you place a condition of any kind on a gift, it becomes a trade, not a gift. To say that our salvation can be taken from us for any reason, whether it be sin or disbelief, is to ignore the plain meaning of this text. To place conditions on the permanency of our salvation is to say it is not a gift. What we do with the gift is another matter entirely. The fact that I don't take advantage of a gift says nothing about who it belongs to.