Have you ever wondered if a true believer can lose their salvation? Some say yes, others say no—but what does the Bible actually teach?
Excellent question here.
Ever noticed the perfect tense?
J.
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It is a good question. Some believe that its God who chooses people for salvation and you can’t lose your salvation. Others believe that we all have the choice but we can lose our salvation. Each position is able to cleverly support their position through Scripture. The third view is that we choose and once chosen, you can’t lose it. That’s my belief.
What the Bible actually teaches depends on who’s reading and interpreting it. There are Biblical verses that are quite clear in what they say. There are other verses who’s meaning needs to be considered in context and the whole of Scripture. I believe the Bible is the word of God and therefore can’t contradict itself. If I find what seems to be a contradiction, then its because I don’t understand.
I could post a dozen or more verses that show salvation is a choice everyone of us have and can’t be lost. If there’s someone who disagrees with me, I will never convince them otherwise and we will just enter into a debate. I’m not big on debates. Still, its a very good question you’ve asked and I can see a rough ride ahead.
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I agree. It is genuinely sorrowful to see believers in Christ become combative over doctrines that Scripture presents as heavenly truths. Paul reminds us that knowledge without love only produces division, whereas love builds up (1 Corinthians 8:1). Scripture repeatedly calls the church to unity of spirit and humility of mind, urging believers to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:2–3).
While there are many denominations represented among us, all confessing Christ, we should at least agree on the gospel itself, which centers on the cross and the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1–4). Sadly, this unity is not always reflected in our conduct. Yet Scripture exhorts us to speak the truth in love so that the body may be built up rather than fractured (Ephesians 4:15), and reminds us that the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but gentle, patient, and kind (2 Timothy 2:24–25).
J.
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Salvation for those of Israel had a constancy element.
For Christians we have eternal life and have (past tense) been translated into the kingdom of Jesus.
If you are a true Christian then you follow…if you stop following are you a true Christian ?
But having etrnal life in you - isn’t that Jesus’s Spirit.
When redemption day comes isn’t it about what you did with the Spirit thats within you?
I say that because dont we have His Spirit up until redemption day?
PERSEVERE
The biblical doctrines related to the Christian life are difficult to explain because they are presented in typically eastern dialectical pairs (see SPECIAL TOPIC: EASTERN LITERATURE [biblical paradoxes]). These pairs seem contradictory, yet both are biblical. Western Christians have tended to choose one truth and ignore or depreciate the opposite truth. Let me illustrate.
Is salvation an initial decision to trust Christ or a lifetime commitment to discipleship?
Is salvation an election by means of grace from a sovereign God or mankind’s believing and repentant response to a divine offer?
Is salvation, once received, impossible to lose, or is there a need for continual diligence?
The issue of perseverance has been contentious throughout church history.
The problem begins with apparently conflicting passages of the NT:
texts on assurance
statements of Jesus (John 6:37; 10:28-29)
statements of Paul (Rom. 8:35-39; Eph. 1:13; 2:5,8-9; Phil. 1:6; 2:13; 2 Thess. 3:3; 2 Tim. 1:12; 4:18)
statements of Peter ( 1 Pet. 1:4-5)
texts on the need for perseverance
statements of Jesus (Matt. 10:22; 13:1-9,24-30; 24:13; Mark 13:13; John 8:31; 15:4-10; Rev. 2:7,17,26; 3:5,12,21)
statements of Paul (Rom. 11:22; 1 Cor. 15:2; 2 Cor. 13:5; Gal. 1:6; 3:4; 5:4; 6:9; Phil. 2:12; 3:18-20; Col. 1:23; 2 Tim. 3:2)
statements of the author of Hebrews (Heb. 2:1; 3:6,14; 4:14; 6:4-12; 10:26-27)
statements of John (1 John 2:6; 2 John 9)
statement of the Father (Rev. 21:7)
Biblical salvation issues from the love, mercy, and grace of a sovereign Triune God. No human can be saved without the initiation of the Spirit (cf. John 6:44,65). Deity comes first and sets the agenda, but demands that humans must respond in faith and repentance, both initially and continually. God works with mankind in a covenant relationship. There are privileges and responsibilities! See SPECIAL TOPIC: COVENANT and SPECIAL TOPIC: KEEP
Salvation is offered to all humans (cf. John 1:12; 3:16; 4:42; 1 Tim. 2:4; Titus 2:11; 2 Pet. 3:9; 1 John 2:2; 4:14). Jesus’ death dealt with the fallen creation’s sin problem (cf. Mark 10:45; John 1:29; 2 Cor. 5:21). God has provided a way and wants all those made in His image to respond to His love and provision in Jesus. See SPECIAL TOPIC: YHWH’S ETERNAL REDEMPTIVE PLAN
If you would like to read more on this subject from a non-Calvinistic perspective, see
Dale Moody, The Word of Truth, Eerdmans, 1981 (pp. 348-365)
Howard Marshall, Kept by the Power of God, Bethany Fellowship, 1969
Robert Shank, Life in the Son, Westcott, 1961
The Bible is addressing two different problems in this area: (1) taking assurance as a license to live fruitless, selfish lives and (2) encouraging those who struggle with ministry and personal sin.
The problem is that the wrong groups are taking the wrong message and building theological systems on limited biblical passages.
Some Christians desperately need the message of assurance, while others need the stern warnings! Which group are you in?
There is a historical theological controversy involving Augustine versus Pelagius and Calvin versus Arminius (semi-Pelagian). The issue involves the question of salvation: if one is truly saved, must he persevere in faith and fruitfulness?
The Calvinists line up behind those biblical texts that assert God’s sovereignty and keeping-power (John 10:27-30; Rom. 8:31-39; 1 John 5:13,18; 1 Pet. 1:3-5) and VERB TENSES like the perfect passive participles of Eph. 2:5,8.
The Arminians line up behind those biblical texts that warn believers to “hold on,” “hold out,” or “continue” (Matt. 10:22; 24:9-13; Mark 13:13; John 15:4-6; 1 Cor. 15:2; Gal. 6:9; Rev. 2:7,11,17,26; 3:5,12,21; 21:7). I personally do not believe that Hebrews 6 and 10 are applicable, but many Arminians use them as a warning against apostasy. The parable of the Sower in Matthew 13 and Mark 4 addresses the issue of apparent belief, as does John 8:31-59.
As Calvinists quote the PERFECT TENSE VERBS used to describe salvation, the Arminians quote the present tense passages like 1 Cor. 1:18; 15:2; 2 Cor. 2:15.
This is a perfect example of how theological systems abuse the proof-texting method of interpretation. Usually a guiding principle or chief text is used to construct a theological grid by which all other texts are viewed.
Be careful of grids from any source. They come from western logic, not revelation. The Bible is an eastern book. It presents truth in tension-filled, seemingly paradoxical pairs. Christians are meant to affirm both and live within the tension. The NT presents both the security of the believer and the demand for continuing faith and godliness. Christianity is an initial response of repentance and faith followed by a continuing response of repentance and faith. Salvation is not a product (a ticket to heaven or a fire insurance policy), but a relationship. It is a decision and discipleship. It is described in the NT in all VERB TENSES:
AORIST (completed action), Acts 15:11; Rom. 8:24; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5
PERFECT perfect (completed action with continuing results), Eph. 2:5,8
PRESENT (continuing action), 1 Cor. 1:18; 15:2; 2 Cor. 2:15
FUTUREfuture (future events or certain events), Rom. 5:8,10; 10:9; 1 Cor. 3:15; Phil. 1:28; 1 Thess. 5:8-9; Heb. 1:14; 9:28
SPECIAL TOPIC: APOSTASY
SPECIAL TOPIC: ASSURANCE
SPECIAL TOPIC: CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE
Thank you @Corlove13
J.
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So this is my thoughts from the scriptures I took in.
God gives the gift of God
God give His word
Jesus Is God’s living word
God is predicated off His own being and God is His word
Jesus showed His Faithfulness even unto death
He released those under the law in order that all may become one in unity by His Spirit.
So His Spirit is His life, His Spirit is Security
Hence, it is Christ who is eternally security
So Christ in you the hope of glory.
The question is are we in Christ
(A)Having the Spirit is one thing but living by the Spirit is another.
So Christ is in you, but are you in Christ?
CHRIST BEING SECURITY IS LIKE THIS EXAMPLE:
THINK OF A SECURE HOUSE = The Secure house will keep you secure as long as you remain in the house.
The secure house is your salvation, hiding place, deliverence, protection and safety.
So going back to (A)When on receives the Spirit they have been saved- They are awaken, they once dead in trespasses and sin but now made alive together with Christ.
What did they receive when they were born agan? The life giving Spirit, the Spirit of life.
So you were saved
Now you want to continue being saved as you continue to live life on earth.
salvation is a life
In order to continue with the life you were given you must work out that life; the Spirit, your salvation.
So now life is determined by what you contune to do with the Spirit. Will you obey Christ’s teachings, for He lived what He taught; will you obey His Spirit?
Hence reward or punishment…both blessings and cursings are set before you- will you choose life so you can live. Another words will you obey the the fleshly habits outside of faith in God or die to them by following the Spirit?
So now life is determined by your choices
So then Salvation is not a one time event it is ongoing everday life we receive from God.
So scripture says evaluate yourself to see if u are in the faith, don’t you know that Christ is in u, otherwise we be reprobates, or we failed the test.
Those are my thoughts…correct me if im wrong
First, the term Christian must be defined. A “Christian” is not a person who has said a prayer or walked down an aisle or been raised in a Christian family. While each of these things can be a part of the Christian experience, they are not what makes a Christian. A Christian is a person who has fully trusted in Jesus Christ as the only Savior and therefore possesses the Holy Spirit (John 3:16; Acts 16:31; Ephesians 2:8–9).
So, with this definition in mind, can a Christian lose salvation? It’s a crucially important question. Perhaps the best way to answer it is to examine what the Bible says occurs at salvation and to study what losing salvation would entail:
A Christian is a new creation. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). A Christian is not simply an “improved” version of a person; a Christian is an entirely new creature. He is “in Christ.” For a Christian to lose salvation, the new creation would have to be destroyed.
A Christian is redeemed. “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:18–19). The word redeemed refers to a purchase being made, a price being paid. We were purchased at the cost of Christ’s death. For a Christian to lose salvation, God Himself would have to revoke His purchase of the individual for whom He paid with the precious blood of Christ.
A Christian is justified. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). To justify is to declare righteous. All those who receive Jesus as Savior are “declared righteous” by God. For a Christian to lose salvation, God would have to go back on His Word and “un-declare” what He had previously declared. Those absolved of guilt would have to be tried again and found guilty. God would have to reverse the sentence handed down from the divine bench.
A Christian is promised eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Eternal life is the promise of spending forever in heaven with God. God promises that if you believe, you will have eternal life. For a Christian to lose salvation, eternal life would have to be redefined. The Christian is promised to live forever. Does eternal not mean “eternal”?
A Christian is marked by God and sealed by the Spirit. “You also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13–14). At the moment of faith, the new Christian is marked and sealed with the Spirit, who was promised to act as a deposit to guarantee the heavenly inheritance. The end result is that God’s glory is praised. For a Christian to lose salvation, God would have to erase the mark, withdraw the Spirit, cancel the deposit, break His promise, revoke the guarantee, keep the inheritance, forego the praise, and lessen His glory.
A Christian is guaranteed glorification. “Those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). According to Romans 5:1, justification is ours at the moment of faith. According to Romans 8:30, glorification comes with justification. All those whom God justifies are promised to be glorified. This promise will be fulfilled when Christians receive their perfect resurrection bodies in heaven. If a Christian can lose salvation, then Romans 8:30 is in error, because God could not guarantee glorification for all those whom He predestines, calls, and justifies.
A Christian cannot lose salvation. Most, if not all, of what the Bible says happens to us when we receive Christ would be invalidated if salvation could be lost. Salvation is the gift of God, and God’s gifts are “irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). A Christian cannot be un-newly created. The redeemed cannot be unpurchased. Eternal life cannot be temporary. God cannot renege on His Word. Scripture says that God does not lie (Titus 1:2).
Two common objections to the belief that a Christian cannot lose salvation concern these experiential issues: 1) What about Christians who live in a sinful, unrepentant lifestyle? 2) What about Christians who reject the faith and deny Christ? The problem with these objections is the assumption that everyone who calls himself a “Christian” has actually been born again. The Bible declares that a true Christian will not live a state of continual, unrepentant sin (1 John 3:6). The Bible also says that anyone who departs the faith is demonstrating that he was never truly a Christian (1 John 2:19). He may have been religious, he may have put on a good show, but he was never born again by the power of God. “By their fruit you will recognize them” (Matthew 7:16). The redeemed of God belong “to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God” (Romans 7:4).
No, impossible, and I could press the issue far further, but this is usually the point where someone admits they no longer understand the argument and retreats behind “that’s over my head.”
J.
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No, as we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit Himself, and that will secure us to the very end
In Jesus story about the prodigal son, the son stopped following, but he was still a son. In Ephesians 1:13 and 4:30, it says that once we believed we were sealed with the Holy Spirit. If we stop following Jesus, does God rip out the seal?
I stopped following for many years. Decades even. Although I didn’t follow, I still believed although that believe had little to do with my life. When the time was right, I came back into relationship with my Father whom I follow. Am I a true Christian?
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@Bestill Good question, i dont know the answer to that only you and God alone would know that answer right? I mean you and God are the only ones who know your heart. For me to say one way or the other would be unfair. But i am still learnig so i dont have all the answers and this is why i ask questions.
Asking questions is a good thing as long as you’re also looking in the Bible for the answer too. And you’re right. Only God knows who are His own. But you asked if it were possible for someone that was a true believer to lose their salvation. That was a question I had as well and I went looking for the answer.
First I asked my Pastor and shockingly, he didn’t know. How can you be a Pastor and not know? Then I asked the Sunday School director and she didn’t know either. So I kept looking and some verses definitely indicated that you couldn’t, but other verses seemed to say you could.
So I was online and came across an article that someone shared on another website. As I’m reading it, I knew that this was my answer. It made perfect sense. Ask and I’ll share it with you.
@Bestill I would like to hear about it if you dont mind?
Of course. Here it is:
You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. (Galatians 5:4, NASB)
Fallen from grace? That certainly sounds like they’ve lost their salvation. And the way the term is popularly used today doesn’t help, either. When we hear in the news about a celebrity who has “fallen from grace”, it typically describes someone who was behaving well but then suffered a moral failure. Perhaps they were arrested for illegal drugs, cheated on their spouse, or cheated on their taxes.
But in Galatians, falling from grace means something very different: falling away from the message of God’s grace and toward the Law.
Paul wrote Galatians to a variety of people. Some had accepted the Gospel; others were acquainted with the message but hadn’t accepted it. Still others had flirted with the idea of salvation by grace through faith but instead chose to seek rightness with God through keeping the Law.
In Galatians 5, Paul was speaking to those “seeking to be justified by law” (v.4) and notes that they were planning to “receive circumcision” (v.3). Clearly, this means they were unbelievers who had no clue how to get right with God.
How can we be certain that Paul was not speaking to believers who had lost their salvation? Notice the contrast between “you” and “we” in the passage:
You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit, by faith*, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.* (Galatians 5:4–5)
The Greek word for “severed” here conveys that some of the Galatians were “void of” Christ. In other words, those who seek rightness with God through Law-keeping inevitably cut themselves off from the truth of the Gospel. This makes it impossible for them to be justified before God.
So this is not a group of believers who have lost salvation. Instead, it’s a group of Galatians influenced and ultimately persuaded by Judaizers to mix Old Testament rule-keeping in with the true salvation message. This is why Paul separates himself and his fellow believers (“we”) as those in Christ who approach rightness with God in a different way—by faith, not by the works of the Law.
The New Testament is full of evidence that we cannot lose our salvation. Jesus said that the new life we have is eternal, not temporal, and we will never die (Luke 20:36). He said that no one can snatch us out of His hand (John 10:28–29). Paul tells us that we’ve been sealed with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13–14) and that our calling will never be revoked (Romans 11:29).
God will never leave us and never forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). We are protected by His power (1 Peter 1:5). God is able to save us completely because He always lives to intercede for us for any sins imaginable (Hebrews 7:25).
Why did Jesus so confidently say that of everyone the Father has given Him, He will lose no one (John 6:39)? Because it’s not our dedication, our commitment, or our promise-keeping that maintains our salvation. No, the book of Hebrews actually reveals the polar opposite: it’s God’s promise to Himself that secures our salvation (Hebrews 6:13–20).
The author of Hebrews speaks of a promise secured between “two unchangeable things” that anchor our souls. What are these two unchangeable things? God and God.
In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil. (Hebrews 6:17–19)
It is impossible for God (and God!) to lie. So when God promises God, you can count on it. And that’s the whole point–our salvation is anchored to a promise that God made to Himself: “since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself ” (Hebrews 6:13b).
God Won’t Deny Himself or You!
Some of our most frequent spiritual questions relate to the loss of salvation: But what if I die by suicide? But what if I get a divorce and then remarry? But what if I commit the same sin, willfully, over and over again?
These four words pester us: But what if I . . .? However, God already saw our concerns coming. He dealt with them entirely through the new covenant by anchoring us to a promise that He made to Himself.
We don’t maintain or sustain any part of God’s promise to Himself. As believers who are forever in Christ, the “But what if I . . .?” questions don’t have to plague us. We are not even in the equation!
Instead of asking, “But what if I . . .?” we need to be asking, “But what if God . . .?” And the answer to that question is a resounding yes: God did the very thing He needed to do to secure us forever. He promised Himself that He would never leave us:
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. (2 Timothy 2:13)
God placed His Spirit in us. He cannot disown Himself. So, He will never disown us!
This was all part of God’s perfect plan to secure us forever in Jesus. And it’s this security in Jesus that inspires and motivates us to live uprightly (Titus 2:11–12).
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Sorry @Bestill i am in jail so i am unable to go to that link, but if you have time to tell me the story, i will take time to read it
Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It’s an hour long audio message, but tomorrow I will do my best to summarize what he says.
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