Can a Child of God Lose His Salvation?
Posted by Roy on January 1, 2010 under Articles
I have often been asked this question.
Salvation is a gift from God offered to all mankind. We are free to accept or reject salvation. Once we accept salvation, we are still free to make choices. We can become unfaithful and lose our salvation or we can remain faithful until death and receive a crown of life. (Revelation 2:10)
Most of the New Testament was written to Christians encouraging them to remain faithful and receive eternal life. If a man could not lose his salvation, why write all these letters encouraging him not to lose it?
“Work out your own salvation in fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12)
Most preachers who teach the doctrine of “once saved always saved” quote John 10:28, “and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” Then they will say that includes yourself. If we read John 10:18, we will understand this statement better. Jesus says, “no man takes My life but I lay it down of Myself.” There was no external force that could take Jesus’ life but He could lay it down and He did. There is no external force that can take salvation from a child of God; but he can lay it down. He can go back into the world. Salvation is a choice that the child of God made to become a Christian and he still can make choices whether or not he will continue to serve God or Satan.
Some questions:
- Does Satan tempt Christians?
- If they can’t lose their salvation, why is Satan tempting them?
- If we can’t fall, why does the Bible warn us that we can?
“Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). Peter says in II Peter 1:5-11, if we add the Christian graces we will never fall, but if we lack these things we have forgotten that we were cleansed from our old sins. The Hebrew writer warns us, “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily while it is called today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” (Hebrews 3:12-13)
“Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.” Hebrews 4:1.
In Hebrews, the writer warns the Jewish Christians if they turn their back on Jesus and go back to Judaism, they have no hope.
“For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. (Hebrews 6:4-6)
See also Hebrews 10:26-29.
False teachers had taught the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians in Galatia that they must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses or they cannot be saved. Some believed these false teachers, and Paul tells them the results: “You have become estranged from Christ. You who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4).
In Acts chapter 8, we have an example of a man who became a believer and was baptized. According to Jesus’ promise in Mark 16:15-16, this man, Simon, was saved. Can he lose that salvation? Yes, as we read further we see that Simon reverted back to his old ways of wanting to earn money by any means. When Simon saw that through the laying on of the Apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying “Give me this power also that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
But Peter said to him, “Your money perishes with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money. You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you, for I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.” Then, Simon answered and said, “Pray to the Lord for me that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me.” (Acts 8:18-24)
There were some teachers in Ephesus by the names of Hymenaeus and Philetus who departed from the truth and overthrew the faith of some saying that the resurrection had past already. (II Timothy 2:17-18.) In II Timothy 4:10 Paul said, “Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world.” You cannot depart from where you have never been.
Notice that Demas loved this present world. We are warned in 1 John 2:15-17 not to love the world.
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but of the world and the world passes away and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”
John was writing to Christians.
Can a child of God lose his love for God and fall in love with the world? These scriptures prove that he can. Demas did. Christians have done it in the past and are doing it now and will do it in the future.
Peter points out the condition of those who depart from God. “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true Proverb: ‘A dog returns to his own vomit’ and ‘A sow having washed to her wallowing in the mire.’” (II Peter 2:20-22)
You have the power of choice to reject the salvation that is in Christ Jesus or you have the power to accept it.
You have the choice to reject Jesus and go back into the world and be lost throughout all eternity, and you have the choice to remain faithful until death and receive the crown of life.
In conclusion I borrow the words of Moses that he spoke to the children of Israel as they were getting ready to enter the promised land, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:19)