Recently I saw the meme above trending on social media and it reminded me of discord that has continued for ages about whether believers can lose their salvation or not. This is a subject that is very important for us to consider because it is related to the happiness and the joy of believers. In this blog, I want to show you that Christians cannot lose salvation once they are saved.
WHO IS A CHRISTIAN?
A Christian is not someone who goes to church, reads the Bible, prays, helps the needy, and does good deeds. There is no doubt that Christians do all these things but the mere doing of all these do not make one a Christian. A Christian is not someone who raised a hand, walked an aisle, prayed a prayer, and made a decision to make Jesus his Lord and Savior.
A Christian is someone who has placed all his or her faith in Christ Jesus as the only Savior from sin and from the wrath of God, for their sin. All men naturally love sin and darkness and therefore hate God. They have all rebelled against God, broken His Holy Law, and therefore deserve judgment from the Just and Holy God. A Christian is someone who has placed his trust in Christ Jesus as the only savior from the judgment of God.
A Christian is a new creation. This is why the term ‘regeneration’ is commonly used to refer to salvation. A believer is not just an outward improvement of the same person but a complete change in the life of the person. The new man loves the things of God he once hated and hates the works of Satan he once loved. Being a Christian is not ‘doing things God loves but you hate or not doing things God hates but you love.’
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
2 Corinthians 5:17
A Christian is also someone who is born again. It takes the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit for someone to be born again. Being born again is totally the work of the Holy Spirit. As Jesus told Nicodemus. It is totally the work of God and not the work of man.
HOW ARE WE SAVED?
Christians are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. That faith by which Christians are saved is the gift of the Holy Spirit. We are not saved by good works. Our prayers, tears, and works cannot contribute anything to salvation. Baptism and Lord’s supper are ordinances for the Christians, not those who have not been born again.
Holy Spirit grants people faith during the proclamation of the gospel and therefore they believe the gospel. Salvation is not a collaboration where God does some part and you have to do the other part. Bible is clear that men are dead in their sins and trespasses. They are not sick, drowning, or faint. They are rotting corpses. Many people picture salvation as throwing a rope at a sinking man. So you can choose to catch or not. This is not a Biblical picture of salvation.
A biblical passage that would clearly show the condition of the sinner before conversion is a story about the resurrection of Lazarus from the grave. Just the way Lazarus’ body lay lifeless and motionless in the tomb so does the sinners be in their sinners till God calls them. So man contributes nothing to his salvation except for his sin which made it necessary. Just the way you did not contribute anything to your bodily birth so it is to your spiritual birth. God must work it in you.
GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY IN SALVATION
God chooses who to save because salvation is totally the work of God. Those who are saved are those whom God foreknew in the past and predestined them to salvation at the predetermined time. Read Romans 9.
Read Also: Sovereignty of God in All things Including Salvation.
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
Romans 9:16
CAN A BELIEVER LOSE SALVATION
A Christian cannot lose salvation. God is faithful to the believers and he will keep them from stumbling. He is even gracious to the wandering and erring. He will restore them to the joy of salvation.
Scripture tells us that nothing can separate Christians from the love of God. Although the Christian love for his Savior may become feeble, God’s love for them will never change. His love is steadfast.
[35]Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Romans 8:35-39
[36]As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
[37]Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
[38]For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
[39]Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
As a good shepherd, he will find the lost sheep and he will bring them back. Jesus Christ emphasizes that nothing can snatch a Christian from His hand.
[11]I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
John 10:11-13
[12]But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.
[13]The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.
Believers are assured of eternal life. Christ Jesus said that he give them eternal life. Now, if Christians can be given eternal life and then all of sudden, they lose it, then it was not eternal.
Once saved, always saved.
Pilgrim Meditations
It should be also noted that losing salvation would mean that a believer becomes unborn since he is a born again person. It also suggests losing salvation would mean destroying the new creation and going to the past (old man). This would even suggest that Paul’s statement ‘old things have passed away’ is not true because losing salvation would be a swap into the old state.
Once you are born, you cannot be unborn.
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
John 3:5-8 KJV
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
God also empashizes of his goodness and how he will hold his elect.
Wait, what about?
What about those people who seemed to have been saved and then It all changed and right now they are not?
As I mentioned before those who object to the statement that believers can lose salvation because they miss distinguishing who is a Christian. This makes it very clear that a true Christian will persevere to the end.
If someone started well as a believer, and then they abandon the faith, then it may point that they were never a Christian, to begin with. If they are of faith, they will continue in faith.
If someone who claims to be a believer continues in willful unrepentant sin and refuses to repent, it serves as a sure mark that they are not saved.
Conclusion
True Christians cannot lose salvation but they can lose the assurance of it. Therefore, you can only be born again once.
