Can You Lose Your Salvation?
Many a Christian at some time in their walk with the Lord asks this
very question. Sometimes it is because they have been willfully
sinning. Other times it is because they have had doubts about the
very existence of God. Still others have interpreted passages in
scripture in such a way as to draw the conclusion that a person can
lose their salvation. I intend to provide you with scriptural
evidence that a saved person can not lose their salvation.
Further, we will examine those troubling passages of scripture
and demonstrate why they don't point to the possibility of losing
one's salvation.
The Arguement For Eternal Salvation
There is sufficient scriptural evidence to support the position that
a person who is truly a believer in Christ can not lose their salvation.
Romans 8:35-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or
danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all
day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all
these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor
demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
John 10:27-30 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them,
and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never
perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has
given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of
my Father's hand. I and the Father are one."
According to Scripture, people who profess to know Christ at one time
but later deny Him were never really saved to begin with.
First John 2:19 says, "They went out from us, but they were not really
of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us;
but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are
not of us." A true believer will never depart from the faith
(Philippians 1:6), so those who do so are revealing that they were
never truly saved (John 8:31; Hebrews 3:14).
The Arguement Against Eternal Salvation
No doubt you have known or heard of someone who was once a christian,
but they are now athiests or Buddhists, etc. In these cases you can
be fairly sure that one of two things is true of them:
1. They were never saved to begin with. Either they were hypocrites
pretendng to believe in Christian doctrine, or they had an impersonal
relationship with the Lord, and did not trust in Him for their
salvation
2. They were and still are saved, and what they are saying they now
believe is not what they really believe at all.
Following are the key passages from scripture which are often used to
mistakenly claim that salvation can be lost:
"2 Peter 2:20-21 If they have escaped the corruption of
the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again
entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than
they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not
to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and
then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to
them.
Many believe that this scripture is referring to apostates.
I believe that the apostate condition is in fact a myth,
in fact, the term is found nowhere in the bible! The notion
that a person can be
indwelt by the Holy Spirit, then completely reject Christ,
effectively "booting the Holy Spirit" out so that they are no
longer indwelt, is not possible. I believe that the passage is
still referring to the false prophets and false teachers
described beginning in verse 1 of chapter 2. Looking at this
notion of apostasy another way, If a believer were to completely
turn his back on Christ, go back to his former, sinful ways,
how could he "overcome?" Christ paid it all the first time,
dying for our sins on the cross. If we were to accept his
righteousness as our own, then shed it, Christ would have to be
crucified all over again, and that's not going to happen.
"Hebrews 6:4-6 It is impossible for those who have once been
enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in
the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and
the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back
to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of
God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
I've met many people in my life who believe that they could lose their
salvation, but they have also believed that they could repent again and
revert to their saved position. However, if we are to take the position
that the term "to fall away" in verse four means to lose one's salvation,
then this passage clearly teaches that it is impossible to regain salvation
once it is lost.
To better understand this text, we need to recognize what it means to
"fall away." It means getting out of step, not getting out of the picture.
It is also important to recocnize that the phrase "to renew them
again unto repentence," is more accurately translated as "to make
them repent as they did at first." Therefore, it is
impossible for those what have gotten out of step with the Lord to be
taken back to their original repentance - the repentance that brought
them to theit position of salvation in the first place. The reason
i would be impossible is found at the end of verse six, where we are told
that Christ would have to be crucified all over again (not likely!).
Verse nine really clues us in that those being described here are NOT saved.
"Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident
of better things in your case--things that accompany salvation."
Revelation 2:7 "To him that overcometh will I give to
eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paridise of God."
Those who use this verse to demonstrate the plausability of losing one's
salvation hang their hat on one word, "overcometh." Those who serve the
Lord faithfully all their lives, the "overcomers," are the only ones
who will eat of the tree of life. Yes, the overcomers WILL eat of the tree
of life, but overcome what?
The answer can be (and must be) found in Scripture. In 1 John 5:5 we are
told exactly who overcomes what. " Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth
that Jesus is the Son of God." So now that we know who, verse four
of 1 John tells us "what" is overcome: For whatever is born of God
overcometh the world, even our faith." So, the overcomers are the believers,
and since all that believe are born of God, then all believers are
overcomers.
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