Questions and Answers: Can a Christian Lose Salvation?

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

Question:

Answer:

If you are asking whether a Christian who is born again can become un-born again, that would be difficult to answer. If God wanted us to try to find the lowest place, then perhaps He would have invested some of the Scripture to explaining this, but He is always calling us higher and closer to Himself both before and after we have been born again. If you are asking whether or not a Christian who is born again can remain immature and never be found faithful? That is a different question and the answer is, yes.

The meaning of salvation or saved is different from the meaning of born again. Salvation is completed at the manifestation of the sons of God, the adoption, which is the redemption of our bodies, the day when we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God unto a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This is the purpose of the Church. Our spirits are redeemed and joined to the Holy Spirit the moment we are born again. It is obvious, both from experience and from Scripture, that our minds and bodies have not yet been redeemed.

Here is an excerpt from the email that SeekFind.net received. (The entire email is printed further down the page.) The following is an extreme, extra-biblical view that confuses many and takes away their hope:

The most frequent objections to the belief that a Christian cannot lose salvation are 1) What about those who are Christians and continually live an immoral lifestyle? 2) What about those who are Christians but later reject the faith and deny Christ? The problem with these two objections is the phrase "who are Christians." The Bible declares that a true Christian will not live a continually immoral lifestyle (1 John 3:6). The Bible declares that anyone who departs the faith is demonstrating that he never truly was a Christian (1 John 2:19). Therefore, neither objection is valid. Christians do not continually live immoral lifestyles, nor do they reject the faith and deny Christ. Such actions are proof that they were never redeemed.

The viewpoint that was just quoted in red print is an extreme view and is not based in Scripture nor is it in agreement with experience. I would suppose that everyone knows someone who really thought that they believed in Jesus as their only Lord and Savior from sin, death, and the power of the devil, yet that person walked away from God. The writer of this theological opinion states that these people whom we know were never Christians. If that is true, and it is also true that you really think that you believe in Jesus as your only Lord and Savior from sin, death, and the power of the devil, you may not really be born again. How could you know? How are you different from that person who thought that they believed? The trouble with these extreme, extra-biblical views is that they create crazy scenarios such as this one. And people do indeed become confused or even lose their faith when people, like the one who wrote the red text previously mentioned, go beyond Scripture.

One thing is sure: If a Christian begins to wander from the will of God and becomes addicted to or deceived by some sin, that Christian will not become become un-born again. Using the term, lose salvation is confusing. They will not lose the salvation or redemption of their spirit because they repeatedly sin. God will keep calling them back to follow Him. Think about it. The Bible clearly states that whatever is not of faith is sin. Since faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by an utterance of God, that means that God leads us. Whenever we fail to listen and obey, that is sin. We are in the process of learning to be led and learning to allow grace, the free gift of righteousness, to do the work of God through us. We are just learning this. If a true Christian will not live a continually immoral lifestyle, then where do we need to set the arbitrary bar of morality to make sure that the teacher of this false doctrine ends up being saved? The teacher of this doctrine will certainly want to be on the right side, but we know that he or she is not perfect. We know that they think wrong thoughts from time to time. If we set the bar that high, then all of us are lost, so we better lower the bar. Let's not talk about words. Let's lower it to deeds. Maybe we will make it only sexual sin. That should be popular. And it has to go to actual physical adultery. Now, how many times must a person sin in this way to call it an immoral lifestyle? This doctrine is called Eternal Security but it should be called Eternal Insecurity. There is another form of this doctrine that says that once you have been born again, you can rebel totally against God and it will not affect your salvation. That doctrine is also an extreme lie.

The reality is that what you do affects how you think and how you think affects what you do. There are two sides to this, and they are most easily demonstrated with two animations as follows:

Hebrews 2:1-4¹Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. ²For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward;³How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;⁴God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?

But what about 1 John 3:6 which says: Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him? This is a difficult verse and many have speculated concerning its meaning. We know this, that there is only one person who meets this criteria. His name is Jesus. We also know that when we are born again, we become two people. We are the manifestation of Jesus Christ in the Earth because He lives in us and does His works through us. We experience His abiding presence in thought, word, and deed. Jesus, the Christ Who is in us, cannot sin. We also know that we have the flesh. The flesh can do no righteousness. It can be a hypocrite and can try to project the image of righteousness, but it is evil and in it is no good thing. The flesh has not seen Jesus; neither does it know Jesus. This is probably what John meant when he wrote this. He didn't mean that, if you sin, you have never been born again. In the same letter, John states that anyone who claims to have no sin is a liar.

But what about 1 John 2:18 which says: They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us? If you look at the previous verse, you will see that John, here, is speaking of the spirit of antichrist. He doesn't mention faith at all. The us that John is referring to is most probably the apostles. They went out in rebellion. This verse does not support the eternal security theory.

2 Timothy 2:12-13 says: If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself. Belief and faith are the same thing, though there is a type of belief that is not faith. The kind of faith that a Christian has is a faith that is imparted by God through God's revelation and leading. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by a word (literally, utterance) of God. You see that we can lack faith and still He is faithful. However, if we Christians deny Him, then He will also deny us.

The following email came to the SeekFind.net inbox and it is a cause for concern as it goes well beyond what the Scripture teaches and it ignores so much of what the Scripture teaches. It is here so that readers can examine what it wrong with the theories contained in it.

Question: "Can a Christian lose salvation?"

Answer: Before this question is answered, the term "Christian" must be defined. A "Christian" is not a person who has said a prayer, or walked down an aisle, or been raised in a Christian family. While each of these things can be a part of the Christian experience, they are not what "makes" a Christian. A Christian is a person who has, by faith, received and fully trusted in Jesus Christ as the only Savior (John 3:16; Acts 16:31; Ephesians 2:8-9).

So, with this definition in mind, can a Christian lose salvation? Perhaps the best way to answer this crucially important question is to examine what the Bible says occurs at salvation, and to study what losing salvation would therefore entail. Here are a few examples:

A Christian is a new creation. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17). This verse speaks of a person becoming an entirely new creature as a result of being "in Christ." For a Christian to lose salvation, the new creation would have to be canceled and reversed.

This brings up the question: are all who have been born again in Christ? If they are in the Body of Christ, they are in Christ. What is the Body of Christ?

For Adam, the son of God, to have left the Garden of Eden, his position as son of God would have to be cancelled and reversed. Can a Christian walk away from God? If the answer is no,

A Christian is redeemed. "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect" (1 Peter 1:18-19). The word "redeemed" refers to a purchase being made, a price being paid. For a Christian to lose salvation, God Himself would have to revoke His purchase that He paid for with the precious blood of Christ.

Not true. Christ died for every man, woman, and child, whether they accept Him as Lord and Savior or not.

A Christian is justified. "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1). To "justify" means to "declare righteous." All those who receive Jesus as Savior are "declared righteous" by God. For a Christian to lose salvation, God would have to go back on His Word and "un-declare" what He had previously declared.

This line of thinking is along the line of an extreme rationalization regarding a fatalistic view of predestination. God set (predestinated those whom He forknew). He knew ahead of time that they would be faithful and finally be conformed to the image of Jesus. We don't have such foreknowledge, so we cannot know who is set in advance. In God's plan, those who are justified are also justified in advance, since God knew what they would do. Now, God does not lie. He does not call anything just that is not just. "He who doeth righteousness is righteous." as John said. However, through foreknowledge, God can declare it so from the beginning since He alone knows how it is all going to happen.

A Christian is promised eternal life. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). Eternal life is a promise of eternity (forever) in heaven with God. God promises, "Believe and you will have eternal life." For a Christian to lose salvation, eternal life would have to be taken away. If a Christian is promised to live forever, how then can God break this promise by taking away eternal life?

Eternal life is literally the life of the coming age. It is possible to possess this life and lose it. In fact, this life shines on every person, since Christ is the light that lighteth every man. People are able to reject the light. God intends that the path of the just should be as a shining ling that shines more and more until that perfect day. That is the day of the manifestation of the Sons of God. It is very possible for a Christian to reject God's leading into more light. To remain as we are is sin. It is also possible (we have certainly all witnessed it) to see Christians turn completely away from the light.

A Christian is guaranteed glorification. "And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified" (Romans 8:30). As we learned in Romans 5:1, justification is declared at the moment of faith. According to Romans 8:30, glorification is guaranteed for all those whom God justifies. Glorification refers to a Christian receiving a perfect resurrection body in heaven. If a Christian can lose salvation, then Romans 8:30 is in error, because God could not guarantee glorification for all those whom He predestines, calls, and justifies.

Questions and Answers: Can a Christian Lose Salvation?

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