Posted on 05/17/2015 5:59:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A common question for many is, "Can I lose my salvation?" I've heard both sides of the argument, and only God truly knows a person's heart, but I can share a few thoughts. The reason there is a debate is because the Scriptures teach that salvation is a gift from God that cannot be earned, but they also offer warnings about falling away. There should be a healthy tension between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. This issue should not create a spirit of division, elitism, or theological superiority.
One school of thought suggests that salvation cannot be lost, as in losing your car keys, but that it can be left, as in walking away from it. This may be why Jesus spoke of the man who said in his heart "my master delays His coming; therefore, I will turn from living a godly life". When the master returned unexpectedly, the servant was banished because he chose to turn from what he knew to be right.
In another passage, Jesus said, "You have left your first love," when speaking to the church in Ephesus (Revelation 2:4). James 5:19-20 adds, if anyone wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, a soul is saved from death. If anything, these Scriptures, and many more, reinforce the fact that we have certain responsibilities.
We should never turn from what we know to be right. Jesus encouraged His followers to be watchful, prepared, and ready for His return. Are we watchful? Are we prepared? Are we ready? (Read Matthew 24:45-51; Luke 21:34.) The Scriptures offer a healthy tension between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.
The other school of thought suggests that some of those passages are dealing with people who never fully surrendered to Christ. As a result, they fell away. They heard the gospel, but never fully embraced it and turned from their sins; they only had "intellectual" knowledge of salvation. According to this view, the real question isn't, "Can a person lose their salvation" but "Was the person really saved to begin with?"
Titus 1:16 and James 2:14 both conclude that many people "say" that they know God, but deny Him by their lifestyle. I John 2:19 suggests that those who acknowledge Christ initially, but deny Him later, are not saved to begin with: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us."
When it comes to salvation, we all agree that God gets all the glory and all the credit. Salvation is His work. We are never outside of His sovereignty and control: "It is God who makes us stand firm in Christ" (2 Corinthians 1:21). I am convinced, like Paul, "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" (Romans 8:38-39). Nothing can separate us from God, but we should never ignore the strong warnings about turning from Him.
When we believe the gospel and repent of our sin we "are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession" (Ephesians 1:13-14). These promises are not based on anything that we do; they are based on what Christ did. John 3:36 says, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life." Jesus adds, "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand" (John 10:28). Again, "It is God (not us) who makes us stand firm in Christ." For this reason, I don't believe that we can lose it.
Our salvation is guaranteed based on the assurances found in Scripture, but we also must "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling" (cf. Philippians 2:12). My goal is to be faithful to the command to preach, witness, and proclaim while understanding that God does the drawing, saving, and sealing.
Again, I believe that there should be a healthy tension between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. This issue should not create a spirit of division, elitism, or theological superiority. At the heart of the division is Calvinism vs. Arminianism. Sadly, brother is shooting brother and sister is wounding sister. Have we forgotten how to show grace to those in the Body who we disagree with? Those who believe you can lose your salvation should not chide those who believe in eternal security - "once saved always saved" is by no means a license to sin - it's a belief in God's guarantee. But on the flip side, those who embrace eternal security should not mock those who disagree.
I can hear it now, "But what about Hebrews 6:4-6." It says, "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."
Based on my understanding of terms such as "enlightened," "tasted," and "shared," they are not necessarily words linked to salvation. Judas Iscariot was enlightened—he knew a great deal. He also tasted and shared in the ministry of Christ, but we all know his fate. When he fell away, repentance was elusive. His fate was sealed. However, this verse should force all Christians to take inventory.
We all sin and fall short, but the important question to ask is what is the condition of your heart—have you truly repented and believed in Christ as your Lord and Savior, or are you trusting in false assurance? This may be why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Examine yourself as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?"
Our actions reveal a great deal about our relationship with Christ. A.W. Tozer said: "When people find that after being in the church for years they are not making much progress, they ought to examine themselves and wonder whether they have been truly converted."
Has your heart become so hard as to reject Jesus Christ? If so, you can change that today. I'm aware that I'm driving this point home, but I'd rather err on the side of speaking too much about a committed relationship with Jesus than too little. It's never too late to get back on track: "Return to me, and I will return to you," says the Lord (Micah 3:7). God is sovereign but man has a responsibility to repent and return.
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Shane Idleman is the founder and lead pastor of Westside Christian Fellowship in Lancaster, California, just North of Los Angeles. He just released his 7th book, Desperate for More of God. Shane's sermons, articles, books, and radio program can all be found at www.wcfav.org.
It seems to me that a lot of these discussions are tied to our addiction to a time line. We have to see things as happening in time. God is not bound by time. That’s a mystery that we cannot fully understand but accept by faith. I tell our son that he is sealed with the mark of the Holy Spirit through Baptism and Confirmation. This sort of drives him crazy since he is “unchurched” at the moment. But every chance I get I tell him, “God bless you.”
Judas lived and died under the Old Covenant - when one is using some of the goings on in the "New" Testament, one must realize that while Jesus walked the Earth, He and we lived under the Old Covenant and He had to be true to it - many of His parables were applicable under the Old Covenant as He could not preach against it, but was not constrained from telling us why He was here.
Either God keeps those who He has chosen or He doesn’t.
As a lifelong frequenter of Baptist churches I was always taught “No”. There are verses in the Bible that seem to support either view. I am suspect of “doctrine” because someone has to be wrong and it separates us. Free will dictates we will always have choices to make...salvation included. I detest long tangential essays written in an attempt to utter why the Bible does not mean what it says.
I’ve attended enough churches of varying opinions on this subject to have a grasp on the arguments of both sides.
I will not argue the “once saved always saved” thing here.
But, the best opinion I’ve heard on it goes like this:
Once you are saved, you can never, ever lose your salvation. Period.
You can, however, willingly throw it away.
My understanding is that God has chosen those who will be saved before the creation of the world.
There surely is enough evidence to believe that. I would say that if anyone thinks that somehow man controls whether he is saved or not by his actions or works is claiming that man deserves salvation by his actions.
I grew up in a different church tradition than most. As a child, I was taught we were always one sin away from hell.
That was no way to go through life, and I’m glad I now have more assurance than that in salvation.
I haven’t swung all the way to “eternal security,” but I do think there is a healthy balance between the two views.
Regardless of how it all works - my faith is in Christ, I try not to sin against Him, and I ask for forgiveness when I do.
The ministries of redeeming, forgiving, forgetting, justifying, keeping, and sanctifying. Does God do those ministries, or does man do them? Are those ministries yet future maybe, or already delivered?
God put us here to make our own choices, to accept or not to...
It’s up to you to decide...
IF WE can lose our salvation, the Christ died on the cross for NOTHING!
However, if one decides to willingly commit sin after coming to Christ, they had better examine themselves to see if they really are of the FAITH.
Some people believe they are saved when they get baptized. It is possible for someone to go in the water a dry sinner and come out a wet sinner.
“But what about Hebrews 6:4-6.”
This is an allusion to Israel in the desert when the spies brought in the fruit of the land and the people tasted it.
God told them to go up and take the land, they balked because there were “giants” there!
So God would not let them enter into his rest. Forty years later, only Caleb and Joshua, and the younger children, later grown got to enter the land.
Jesus died on the Cross. Later we see many of the temple priests and religious orders followed Christ, but then balked and backed away.
Forty years after the death of Christ, the Temple was destroyed.
The book of HEBREWS deals more with the national salvation of Israel. Too many people try to impose an individual meaning on it that you can lose your salvation.
Yes.
If salvation can be lost (or thrown away), then there must be something you must do to lose it.
If there is something you must DO to lose your salvation, then there MUST be SOMETHING you must do to maintain it.
If you must do something to maintain your salvation,
then salvation is not a gift... period.
You cannot have it both ways.
You either belong to God, or you don’t.
If you belong to God, then you no longer have the choice to not belong... because you gave up that choice when you received Him.
You can certainly chose to throw away your mortal life... but not your eternal soul.
Once God finishes what He started, and the process of salvation is completed in our resurrected incorruptible bodies, THEN... (maybe) we can chose to throw it away again after that.... but even that I doubt as being possible let alone desirable.
No.
Next question...
Yes And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
Romans, Catholic chapter, Protestant verses seventeen to twenty two,
as authorized, but not authored, by King James
Good read ... a correction...
“Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord (Micah 3:7). it should be Malachi 3:7 not Micah.
We must help each other...
And it is "crazy," as the Holy Spirit distinctly states that repentance and wholehearted faith are required for baptism, (Acts 2:38; 8:36,37) and nowhere manifestly records an infant being baptized, which circumcision (Col. 2:11) only has limited correspondence to (in being a figure), while Peter testified how God purified the hearts of souls by faith, before baptism. (Acts 10:43:47; 15:7-9)
Moreover, spiritual dead clergy cannot convey the Holy Spirit, while there simply is no separate class of believers distinctively titled "priests," the distinctive word for which the Holy Spirit never uses for NT pastors. See here to save my typing again.
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