Can Christians Lose Their Salvation?

Will a Christian, once saved, stay saved? Or do people have the capacity to reject the salvation they once chose? Can they turn from Jesus after having embraced Jesus? Calvinists do not believe so. If a person has truly been regenerated by an act of God, then they will continue in salvation to the very end of their lives. This is called “perseverance of the saints.” Arminians believe that Christians can persevere, but don’t believe they are guaranteed to never fall away.--The PursueGOD Truth podcast is the “easy button” for making disciples – whether you’re looking for resources to lead a family devotional, a small group at church, or a one-on-one mentoring relationship. Join us for new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Find resources to talk about these episodes at pursueGOD.org.Help others go "full circle" as a follower of Jesus through our 12-week Pursuit series.Click here to learn more about how to use these resources at home, with a small group, or in a one-on-one discipleship relationship.Got questions or want to leave a note? Email us at [email protected] Now --The Real QuestionWe’ve talked about the Calvinist T-U-L-I-P, an acronym that summarizes the main points of Calvinist theology. Calvinists like to joke that the Arminian flower is not a tulip, but a daisy. They imagine someone picking the petals off a daisy, saying, “He loves me. He loves me not.” This uncertainty about salvation is a misrepresentation of Arminian thinking. If a Christian is to lose their salvation, it is not because God is fickle or withholds his love. Like in so many other areas of this debate, at the heart of this issue is human choice. If a person initially chose to respond to God’s invitation, what would prevent that person from changing their mind and rejecting God’s invitation, at a later date? The question is not: “Can Christians lose their salvation because they sin?” Some people wonder if they can fall out of God’s grace by living a worldly life, or by committing some kind of unpardonable sin. But generally, neither Calvinists nor Arminians believe that a genuine Christian will ever be disqualified by God from salvation based on how well he or she lived up to God’s law or lived a holy life.The real question is whether a person, once saved, can choose to not be saved. Having embraced Jesus Christ by faith, can a person later choose to reject Jesus Christ and thus be eternally lost?Absolute Security in ChristThe Calvinist view is that perseverance to the end is a promise of God. Because God is the author and finisher of our faith, we cannot fall away from salvation. Since God’s will cannot be changed or influenced, not a single one whom God has chosen, for whom Christ died, and who were drawn and transformed by God’s irresistible pull of grace, can ultimately be lost. All of them will be glorified when Christ returns. Based on the direct gift of grace from God in their lives, all those who are delivered by God’s grace in this way will show evidence of it by living a life of perseverance in faith and obedience to the Word. They may have ups and downs in their intimacy with and obedience to God. They may have times of wandering. But because believers are kept in faith by the power of God, the elect will ultimately persevere in righteousness and will never lose their salvation.Calvinists argue this conclusion from the sovereign nature of God. If God is king of the universe, his will cannot be successfully opposed. What God chooses will come to pass. Thus those whom he has called to be saved will never fall away.( John 6:39; 10:28).Some also argue for the perseverance of believers based on the essential nature of salvation. The New Testament describes salvation as much more than just a transaction between two parties. A mere transaction could become void if either party backs out. But salvation is based on a covenant, ratified by the blood of Jesus, which God will always keep even if we don’t (2 Timothy 2:13). More to the point, salvation involves the transformation of a believer’s nature. Someone who was spiritually dead is made alive (Ephesians 2:5). Is that act of God to grant life reversible? Likewise, a Christian is someone who has died with Christ (Romans 7:4). Anyone in Christ is a new creation. “The old is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Christians have a new nature, created after the likeness of God as truly righteous and holy (Ephesians 4:22-24). Consider this illustration. A butterfly can never go back to being a caterpillar again. Why not? Because its fundamental nature has been changed. It is no longer what it once was. This kind of change seems irrevocable. A child, once born, cannot enter its mother’s womb again. Human beings, once born again of the Spirit, cannot revert to their previous existence, because their new condition is based on the transformative work of God.Calvinists tend to emphasize Bible passages that focus on the power of God and the eternal nature of his work in a believer’s life:Matthew 24:24 – For false messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even God’s chosen ones.It seems that it is not possible to deceive the elect in a way that nullifies their salvation.Luke 15:11-32 – “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger!’ I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and you…”’The prodigal son falls away for a time, but not permanently. He never stops being a child of his father.John 4:14 – “But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring with them, giving them eternal life.”This is an unconditional promise. Those who drink the water of salvation will never be thirsty again.John 6:39 – “And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day.”God’s will is that of all he gives Christ, none should perish. So perseverance is based on the success of Jesus to accomplish the Father’s will.John 10:28 – “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me…”Jesus gives believers eternal life and they shall never perish.Romans 8:29-30 – For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that this Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.Those whom God calls he also justifies and glorifies. Glorification is a future event. Those called by God and justified will make it to that point.1 Corinthians 1:8 – He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns.The verse doesn’t say that in the future, when Christ returns, believers MAY still be free from all blame, but they WILL be.Philippians 1:6 – I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.Christians are assured that God will complete what he began in them.1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 – Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful.The final verse gives the assurance that “God will make this happen”. So perseverance is based on God’s faithfulness, not ours.1 John 2:19 – These people left our churches, but they never really belonged with us; otherwise they would have stayed with us. When they left, it proved that they did not belong with us.Apostasy reveals that a person “never really belonged with us.” When people leave the faith, it proves that they were never truly regenerated.Conditional Security in ChristGenerally, Arminians hold that true believers can forsake faith in Christ and perish as unbelievers. Because people have free will, and in the process of salvation can choose for or against God, it must then be possible to fall away from this grace. God can never impose his will upon us in a way that we lose our free will. If salvation is conditional upon faith, it follows that an individual can recant their faith and reject God’s grace at any time. If someone goes from being an unbeliever to a believer, that person will be saved. If he or she goes from a believer to an unbeliever, that person will be lost.Calvinists respond: if someone who once professed Christ no longer appears to have faith, one of two things must be true. Either that person is still a believer and has fallen away from following God for a time (though not from salvation). Or that individual was never saved in the first place. They are always weeds among the wheat (Matthew 13:24-230), which are not easily distinguished from the real thing. They may have even been convinced that their faith was...