Most who are lost in the false teachings of christianity don’t understand what the covenant is, or that the bride alone is who receives the covenant. This one fact is the basis of the argument between those who claim that salvation is eternal, and those who claim that once someone is saved, he can lose, or forfeit, his salvation.
Yes, salvation CAN be lost, as we see in the scriptures with people like king Saul and king Solomon (the Holy Spirit withdrew from them). However, Messiah’s bride is different, because the bride is given the covenant (“ketubah,” which is a covenant of marriage), and that covenant is the eternal seal of the Holy Spirit.
The OLD covenant (ten commandments) was given ONLY to the ancient physical Jews as a physical foreshadow of Messiah’s bride, and those to whom that covenant was given were under the physical law that was given through Moses. That law mandated HOW the Jews were to eat, drink, dress, have marital relations, observe Yah’s ordained Sabbaths, and many other things.
The OLD covenant was temporal because it was a physical foreshadow, not the real substance. The written law was given to separate the physical Jews (those who possessed the physical covenant—the ten commandments) from the Gentiles (those who did not have the covenant) as a foreshadow of Messiah’s bride being purposely separate from the world.
The OLD covenant was not salvation—it was a picture of something that would be given to Messiah’s bride. It was only a physical object lesson. Those under the OLD covenant who were saved were the friends of the Bridegroom, not the bride.
The NEW covenant was given on the same annual feast that the OLD covenant was given—the Feast of Weeks (seven Sabbaths plus one day from Firstfruits), and is what we see in Acts 2.
When one is given the new covenant, that person is a member of Messiah’s bride (whose name is Y’isra-el), and the covenant is what eternally seals that person. Unlike the friends of the Bridegroom (OT saints), the friends of the bride (tribulation saints), and the wedding guests (millennial saints), it is the bride alone who possesses the covenant.
Of course, the Jewish wedding traditions are part of the Father’s traditions that the inventors of christianity rejected; thus, most who are lost in christianity’s false teachings simply do not understand how those wedding traditions have been followed, from the Bridegroom’s redemption of His bride by His Passover sacrifice, to His going away to prepare a dwelling place for His bride, and the promise given to the bride by the covenant (ketubah), which is the eternal seal of the Holy Spirit.
The covenant is a promise from the Bridegroom that He will return to take His betrothed bride to the wedding chamber to complete their union once their dwelling place is finished, and also that the Bridegroom will provide for His bride while He is away, which is the role of the Holy Spirit in the bride.
We continue to see those traditions followed all the way to the wedding chamber (chuppah) in Revelation 19, and the wedding feast in the new heaven, at which time the bride is revealed (Revelation 21:2).
Thus, when one argues about the eternal nature of the bride’s salvation, it is imperative that he understands to whom a particular passage of scripture refers—the bride, the friends of the Bridegroom, the friends of the bride, or the wedding guests. To most who are unsaved adherents of christianity, they have no understanding whatsoever of these things. That is why Paul taught them to the Gentile converts, and told them to “keep” them (which means “to guard, watch, or possess”) in verses like 1 Corinthians 11:2 and 2 Thessalonians 2:15.
It was the invention of christianity after all the New Testament apostles had died, and its codification by the pagan emperor in the 4th century, that stripped away the Father’s traditions, which are the foundations of the faith, and replaced them with paganism and humanism (SUNday assembling, christ-mass, easter/ishtar, salvation by man’s decision, etc.). To be painfully clear, there is NO eternal life in a counterfeit of the true faith.
For more information: What Are the Old and New Covenants?