Can You Lose Your Salvation?

Man, Sin, & Salvation
Post Reply
User avatar
dwight92070
Posts: 1550
Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2011 12:09 am

Can You Lose Your Salvation?

Post by dwight92070 » Thu Jan 05, 2023 8:04 pm

That's like asking, "Can you lose your marriage? Of course you can. In fact, in the Bible, salvation is likened to marriage many times. In marriage, it only takes one of the two parties to be unfaithful to their marriage vow, to end a marriage. So with God, we know He will never be unfaithful to us, but we can be unfaithful to Him. If this were not possible, then why would the scriptures warn us time and time again to not fall away?

Thank God that when we sin every now and then, we don't cease to be saved. John tells us that we can confess our sins, and He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

But Jesus warns us that if we do not abide in Him, we are thrown away as a branch, we dry up, and we are cast into the fire, and we are burned. That doesn't sound like salvation - more like damnation. John 15:6
1 John 5:11-12 says: "And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life."

So if we walk away from and reject Jesus, we also walk away from eternal life. We can't take eternal life with us - that remains in Him. So if we don't remain in Him, then we are not remaining in eternal life or salvation either. In Christ, in whom is eternal life, we have salvation. If we depart from Christ, we also depart from salvation. Again, God and Christ are always faithful, but we can turn our back on Him.
If it were impossible to lose our salvation, then that means that God would essentially take away our free will, (which we know He never does), because God gives all of us saved people, the free will to reject Him whenever we want to. He does not force us to stay saved against our will. He does not force us to go to heaven.

User avatar
Homer
Posts: 2995
Joined: Sat Aug 23, 2008 11:08 pm

Re: Can You Lose Your Salvation?

Post by Homer » Thu Jan 05, 2023 8:52 pm

Dwight,

Agreed!

dizerner

Re: Can You Lose Your Salvation?

Post by dizerner » Thu Jan 05, 2023 11:53 pm

Well said points.

It's sad when we see people manifestly falling away and the automatic questioning of their former salvation to preserve a doctrine.

If those who leave the faith were never saved, one cannot know if one day one will find out one was never even saved.

There is a kind of assumption you have to live in fear that you cannot maintain your salvation, as if it all depended only on you.

User avatar
dwight92070
Posts: 1550
Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2011 12:09 am

Re: Can You Lose Your Salvation?

Post by dwight92070 » Fri Jan 06, 2023 11:21 am

Do we live in fear that we cannot maintain our marriage? My wife and I were married 39 1/2 years ago. Exercising my free will back then, I chose to confess to her that I would never divorce her, no matter what happened. She made a similar commitment to me. (Not really realizing, at that time, that I was simply reiterating what I had told her in my wedding vows.) We each had and still have faith, that with God's grace and strength, we will never break that commitment to each other, or to our Lord Jesus. In fact, isn't it true that wedding vows are not only made to each other, but to God?

Fast forward three decades, after I discovered this amazing Bible teacher, Steve Gregg. I heard Steve say that people ALWAYS divorce for the same reason. It's not money, sex, children, religion, etc. It's always that one or the other or both have chosen to be unfaithful to their vows before man and God, in which they promised complete and total faithfulness, until death do they part. It's all about keeping your word.

Maybe some thought that the marriage ceremony wasn't all that important. It's just a ritual, a formality, or a tradition that people go through in order to get what they want - marriage, sex, kids, etc. Some treat water baptism the same way. It's just a ritual, a formality, or a tradition, that people go through in order to get what they want - a ticket to heaven (they think), approval from parents or friends, church membership (they think), etc. So some people never took their wedding vows seriously - they never realized that they were supposed to. Well, now they're married and they want out. To them, it's no problem. Just get a divorce, since you never meant those words to begin with.

Sorry, but GOD took your words seriously. He took your wedding vows seriously. So whether you meant them or not, if you divorce your spouse on unBiblical grounds, you are committing adultery. You might say, "Well, I'll just go ahead and commit adultery, by divorcing my spouse, and then ask God to forgive me afterwards." Galatians 6:7 says, "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap." God might forgive you, but we can't play that game with God. Maybe you disobeyed God and His word, by not marrying a non-Christian. So you started off "on the wrong foot" to begin with. Again, you're married now, and God expects you now to keep your word, whether your spouse does or not.

The same is true with God. "But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit (with Him)." 1 Corinthians 7:17 When we join ourselves to the Lord Jesus, by being born again, baptized in water, and a commitment to follow Him, it is a life-time commitment, til death do we part (except we know we will never part from Jesus, even at our death). By faith in His grace and strength, we can keep that commitment to Him and to our spouse. "God has allotted to each a measure of faith". Romans 12:3 We each have a measure of faith which God has given to every believer.

Post Reply

Return to “Anthropology, Hamartiology, Soteriology”