Can a Christian Lose Their Salvation?

[Mr. 5020]

Vote, and then explain.[/size]

[aw]

We can't lose what is not ours. Salvation is of the Lord as we are competely incapable of either saving, or keeping ourselves saved. It is God's grace alone from start to finish- not by the will of man, nor of flesh, but of God.

aw

[Petro]

Christians can never lose the gift of God, becausae; the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. (Rom 11:29)


Blessings,
Petro

[Agur3046]

Dear Mr 5020

       No, we cannot lose our salvation.  In the Bible, Jesus made a promise that He would never lose us.  If we can somehow walk away from our salvation, then Jesus failed and if He denied us, then He lied.
       Eternal security is eternal life, a free gift to us bought for by blood.  He died once and for all, for our sins so that we can have this gift in which previously there was no grace but by the Law of Moses that must be kept perfectly and not fall once.  In John 1:17, it says it all:

"For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."

agur

[aw]

Absolutely true and not only did He pray in John 17, "Holy Father KEEP them...," but also He ever liveth to make intercession for us. I think the Son of God has His prayers answered.

aw

[Allinall]

There are many, many reasons that a believer cannot lose their salvation.  But for me, the most comforting one of all is...

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.  I and the Father are one."

John 10:27-30

I used this passage to explain the same concept to my newly regenerated five year old daughter when she asked this question.  I took one of her toy people and held it in my hand.  I told her to try and take it from me, which she could not, obviously do.  Then I read "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand." Then I took my other hand, and put it over the one holding the toy person.  I told her to try now.  And again, she was unable to take the toy.  Then I read "My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand." To me, this is the picture that passage portrays.  Now, if no one can take us out of that hold...can I?  This brings new life to Paul's message at the end of Romans chapter 8...

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died--more than that, who was raised--who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,   "For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
   we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

[aw]

That is assurance enough and I fail to see how anyone could honestly accept the Arminian view of CONDITIONAL salvation or that we cna VOLUNTARILY reject Him and forfeit salvation.

A person would have to be totally insane and God would either cure him or bring him home prematurely. IMHO.

aw

[michael_legna]

There are many, many reasons that a believer cannot lose their salvation.  But for me, the most comforting one of all is...

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.  I and the Father are one."

John 10:27-30

This says we cannot be snatched from His hand it does not say that we cannot leave voluntarily.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died--more than that, who was raised--who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,   "For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
   we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This says again that no outside power can seperate us from His love.  God loves us even when we don't love Him.  He will always love us - He will miss us if we leave but He will love us.

We can certainly lose our salvation as is clear in all the verses that tell us we must endure to be saved.  But the clearest verse I would propose to show the possible loss of salvation is

Hebrews 6:4
4For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

Here we have those clearly saved (since they have tasted of the heavenly gifts) and yet fall away to the extent they cannot even be renewed to a repentant state on which to build a living faith, because that would require crucify the Son to themselves again.

So what must we do to keep our salvation?  How do we endure?  First of course we have to start - we must accpe the free gift and that is through a living faith - one kept alive and perfected by works.  Then once we have endured, kept the faith alive throughout our life we are judged.  God turns to us on judgement day and asks: Do you still have that gift I gave you back awhile ago, you know the one you accepted with a living faith; and if we have kept our faith alive with works through all our tribulations and temptation we can say yes.  If we have not then we have to say no I threw it away and thus we have lost our salvation.  This is also why you cannot be assured of your salvation because we do not know the future and we, being mere sinful men, might fail.

[aw]

Hebrews 6:4-6 is an old Arminian view that fails in its attempts at refuting eternal security. There are several facts that illuminate this, but the most obvious is verse 9 which related to "better things" and SALVATION. It is not speaking OF or TO believers who have received eternal life.

aw

[Arthur]

Absolutely not. God is the saver and God is the keeper.

(EPH-2:8, 9)8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

[Allinall]

We can certainly lose our salvation as is clear in all the verses that tell us we must endure to be saved.  But the clearest verse I would propose to show the possible loss of salvation is

Hebrews 6:4
4For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

Here we have those clearly saved (since they have tasted of the heavenly gifts) and yet fall away to the extent they cannot even be renewed to a repentant state on which to build a living faith, because that would require crucify the Son to themselves again.

First of all, I agree that the passage you posted deals directly with the believer.  I do not however, believe that it is in reference to salvific repentance or salvation.  Explain to me how the writer of Hebrews would spend the entire book expressing the complete and sufficient sacrifice of Christ "once for all" and throw in the middle that regardless of how sufficient and complete that sacrifice is, one can still lose the salvation such a sacrifice provided?  Let's look at this contextually for a minute:

4For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

Preceded by this passage is:

6   But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
7   Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
8   Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
9   When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
10   Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
11   So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
12   Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
13   But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
14   For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
15   While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
16   For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
17   But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
18   And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
19   So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

Hebrews 3:6-19

Many equate this to a salvific sense.  However, to do so, you must throw dispensational theology out the door, and apply New Testament theology to Old Testament revelation.  Not to mention, you must spiritualize the rest spoken of here.  Contextually, that rest was the rest of victoriously possessing the land God had given the Hebrew people.  It was as direct promise of possession, not position.  The Hebrews weren't saved once they inhabited, possessed and conquered the land.  Simply put, the author of Hebrews uses this example for the New Testament Hebrew believer to understand.  They died in the wilderness, defeated by their own disbelief.  They did not die unsaved, or at least that is not what the Old Testament shows us.  It was about the land - not our Lord.

Now that I've ranted for awhile, perhaps I can tie it in with my point.  The author goes on after setting the illustrative groundwork in chapter 3 of a defeated people, not lost, defeated, by stating:

Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
2   For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
3   For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4   For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.
5   And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.
6   Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
7   Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
8   For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.
9   There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
10   For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
11   Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

Hebrews 4:1-11

He reiterates his point, by using the Old Testament illustration ("these things were written for our ensample...") to apply the New Testament understanding.  If you are struggling with disbelief - SIN, because disbelief is at the heart of every sin - then do not be hardened when?  When God gives repentance (Hebrews 6:4-6).

CONTINUED

[Allinall]

CONTINUED

Remember, the author is writing to Hebrews, using a direct passage in the Old Testament to illustrate a specific circumstance, by which he might bring them to understand the necessity of living victoriously.  He goes on in Hebrews 4...

11   Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
12   For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
13   Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
14   Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
15   For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
16   Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:11-16

It amazes me how often we miss the latter part of this chapter.  If this speaks of salvation, and how we, as lost sinners, can come boldly to God to find grace and obtain mercy to help us get saved...why does God say "Repentance is of the Lord"?  To say that this is in regards to salvation is to say that we can freely come to God whenever we chose, and is in direct disagreement with what God has already said.  "Repentance is of the Lord."

However, if this does not speak of salvation, but rather of living victoriously over the sins we involve ourselves in, which at their very heart lies disbelief, then how much more applicable is this passage?  Consider, "Let us labor to enter into that rest...", as the rest of victorious belief, what might we need to help us in that labor?  "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."  Moreover, "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.  For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."  We have a High Priest in Jesus Who not only knows what the struggle is like, but also endured the same struggle..."yet without sin."  So come!  Come boldly to find the grace and get the mercy needed to live such a life as the One Who died in our place.

So then we come to the passage in Hebrews 6.  If a believer refuses to repent - remember "harden not your hearts as in the day of provocation" - then he basically says that Jesus isn't good enough for him!  He wants his way, not God's.  

Now, is this even possible?  Step out of the boundaries of scripture to the realm of observation for a minute.  How many of us can name people we swore were saved, who have left church, home and God to pursue their own desires?  We automatically call them lost!  But what if they aren't?  I have a personal understanding of this as I was just such a person.  I wasn't lost.  I didn't get saved again.  I know, as I knew Whom I have believed and am, as was, persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day!  I am saved.  By Him, not by me, my obedience to His commands, or any other thing.  I am saved by the blood of the High Priest Who gave it for my atonement, once, for all.  For me!  I don't normally use such illustrations, but I don't believe this illustration to be in disagreement with God's word.  I'll be happy to explain further if need be.

If such a believer refuses to follow Jesus, then it is impossible to call him to repentance again.  How so?  If Jesus isn't good enough for him now, the only way He would be is for him to come to that same moment when Jesus was good enough for him.  Jesus died once for all.  He'll not be crucified again for such a believer.  He's lost his chance for repentance - not his salvation.  What might not be good enough for him, IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR GOD as the rest of the book of Hebrews teaches.  Praise God!

[The Crusader]

Absolutely not. God is the saver and God is the keeper.

(EPH-2:8, 9)8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

I agree, God is the keeper.

The Crusader

[michael_legna]

Absolutely not. God is the saver and God is the keeper.

(EPH-2:8, 9)8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Yes, we are saved by grace, a free gift of God.  How?  Through our faith, a free will choice we make to believe in Jesus in all His roles.  That means not just as sacrificial lamb but as shepherd too, to name just a few.  But what type of faith is acceptable as a means to accept the free gift.  A living faith, one that is accompanied by works.  Not the dead type of faith the demons have which is a faith alone.  Now we could get into the chicken and the egg argumennt about which comes first, faith or works, but it is clear that faith alone cannot save it must be perfected and made alive through works.  So tell me if faith comes first how long can it exist without works before it is a dead faith?  A day, and hour, a microsecond?  I contend that works actually preceed faith because before you can believe you must repent and repentance (which comes from a military term meaning about-face) is a turning of your life around.  So how does this relate to losing your salvation?  It is because you must hold on to the free gift by keeping your faith alive through all the trials and temptations of life.  Else when God ask you what you did with that free gift you will have to answer  - I threw it away.

If you don't interpret Eph 2:8-9 correctly you don't understand how salvation is obtained and so of course you won't be able to interpret correctly the idea of assurance of salvation.

[The Crusader]

Absolutely not. God is the saver and God is the keeper.

(EPH-2:8, 9)8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Yes, we are saved by grace, a free gift of God.  How?  Through our faith, a free will choice we make to believe in Jesus in all His roles.  That means not just as sacrificial lamb but as shepherd too, to name just a few.  But what type of faith is acceptable as a means to accept the free gift.  A living faith, one that is accompanied by works.  Not the dead type of faith the demons have which is a faith alone.  Now we could get into the chicken and the egg argumennt about which comes first, faith or works, but it is clear that faith alone cannot save it must be perfected and made alive through works.  So tell me if faith comes first how long can it exist without works before it is a dead faith?  A day, and hour, a microsecond?  I contend that works actually preceed faith because before you can believe you must repent and repentance (which comes from a military term meaning about-face) is a turning of your life around.  So how does this relate to losing your salvation?  It is because you must hold on to the free gift by keeping your faith alive through all the trials and temptations of life.  Else when God ask you what you did with that free gift you will have to answer  - I threw it away.

If you don't interpret Eph 2:8-9 correctly you don't understand how salvation is obtained and so of course you won't be able to interpret correctly the idea of assurance of salvation.

What is this strange doctrine? Are you a Roman Catholic?
I hope not.


The Crusader