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Once Saved Always Saved?

• We must persevere "to the end" (Mt. 10:22; 24:13) "in the kindness of God" (Rom. 11:22) in order to reign with Christ (2 Tim. 2:12).

• Scripture mentions several cases of Christians who have fallen away through sin (e.g., 1 Tim. 5:8; Heb. 6:4-6; Jas. 5:19-20; 2 Pet. 2:20-21).

• Saint Paul, who had one of the most dramatic and profound conversions in 2,000 years of Christianity, writes, "I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified" (1 Cor. 9:27).

• Saint Paul further advises those who are already Christians to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12).

• Christians are called to cultivate the theological virtue of hope, which is the confident expectation of divine blessing and eternal life with God (Catechism, no. 2090).

• Hope is not based on our own strength or ability to resist temptations, but on the mercy and goodness of God poured out upon us by the Holy Spirit (Catechism, no. 1817; cf. Rom. 5:5).

Okay here we go!

Here is the key clarification. "Assurance is of the essence of believing in Jesus for everlasting life. That is, as long as a person believes in Jesus for everlasting life, he knows he has everlasting life (John 5:24; 6:35, 47; 11:27; 1 John 5:9-13)."

In other words until a person believes that what he has received from the Lord Jesus is permanent and cannot be lost, whether he understands that as eternal life, salvation or living forever with Him in His kingdom, he is not yet born again. A person cannot believe in Christ alone for his eternal destiny and also believe that he can do something to keep it since he didn't earn it in the first place.

Let's say you are witnessing to someone and he indicates that he has come to faith in Christ as a result of what you said. To make sure he really got it, you ask him a diagnostic question: "What if you leave here and you fail to live your life for Christ; you don't join and attend a church; you don't read the bible; and instead you become an alcoholic and a womanizer and then next year you commit suicide? What would your eternal destiny be then?" If the person sad, "Oh well, then I'd go to hell," you would know that the person didn't understand. By his death on the cross the Lord Jesus took away the sins of the world (John 1:29; 1 John 2:2).

Sin is no longer an issue. Works is no longer the issue. Life and death is the issue. Once a person believes in Jesus for eternal life (John 3:16; 1Tim 1:16), they know they have eternal life.

Even so, the necessity of a “born again” experience is often explained in a way that leaves no room for human freedom. Once “saved,” the individual can’t “lose” his salvation, even through mortal sin. (Click here for CUF’s FAITH FACT entitled “Persevering to the End: The Biblical Reality of Mortal Sin.”) "When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage, and enter the presence of God?” This antiphon, taken from Monday Morning Prayer, Week II in the Liturgy of the Hours, summarizes the proper attitude of the Christian in this life. This attitude can be summed up in one word: hope.

Perseverence = saying the Rosary 15 minutes a day...

...What a wonderful consolation to know that we can be assured of salvation by giving just fifteen minutes a day to praying the Rosary....

I have personally known Catholics who honestly believed that they could live life like they wanted as long as they had communion on Sunday.

Bad theology, totally warped, but that is what they thought.

Same with the guy in the article.

Faith is more than just an intellectual pronouncement. It means that you Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. If you say you have faith, yet live your life in a manner such as described in the article, do you really have it? Few pastors or priests would say yes (and none that I know). Most of the hyper Calvinists (which is indeed a straw man), would agree. You can play Christian all you want, but that doesn't mean Jesus will claim you in the end.

If you love God, truly love Him, you will try to do his will. The great tragedy of the Fall is that we can never completely do His will on earth. For we all sin, we all fall short. We are like little kids trying to help they Dad with something. We don't really have the ability to do it at times.

But that is where Christ comes in. If we repent of our sins, we are forgiven. And this is not just a mumbled “sorry” as we swing to our next sin, but we are supposed to try to turn our lives more to God.

That is what I have been taught. And that is why I try to do “good works”. Not because I think it will gain me points with God, for my debt to Him is such that Jesus had to die to repay it, but because I love Him. And that means I want to do His will.

Most Christians, Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, whatever, will say similar things. Our job is to do His will, and to be thankful for forgiveness when we fail.