Question:
Can we lose our Salvation after we have trusted Christ?
Answer:
Things that convince me that I am eternally secure include:
#1. The fact that I am depending on Christ (a rock) and not on my works or my believing. My believing is not the object of my faith (that could change) but Christ is what I have put my faith in and He will never change. Am I looking to Christ and His Word for assurance or am I looking to myself and my believing or my works for assurance?
#2. I am a Son in the family, John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: (I don’t expect to be disinherited, see 1 Peter 1:4, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, )
#3. Also God keeps me, I don’t keep me:
1 Peter 1:5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Also,
John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
30 I and my Father are one.
#4. I have eternal life which begins at the new birth, not at death, see v 28 above and also the three fold assurance of John 5:24 (Does Hath mean that we presently have it?)
John 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
This verse above all others convinces me that I am eternally secure in Christ. If I have passed from death unto life (that is a resurrection) then can I die again? Does Scripture teach that God’s gifts are taken back when we don’t please HIM? Can I quit trusting in TRUTH? Remember my believing doesn’t make this true, (it only makes it effective). This is true, and I believe it or depend on it because it is true.
Problem verses:
#1. Hebrews 6: 4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
6 If 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.
Notice this is written to Hebrews and Hebrews as a nation had these privileges while individual Hebrews “fell away” from what was available, not from what they had and were destroyed. See Jude 1:5, I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
#2. Hebrews 10:26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.
Notice if we reject Christ (that is the willful sin) after we have been told about Him, not after we have believed in Him, we will be condemned because that is the only sacrifice for sins that satisfies God. This explains John 3:18, He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Willful sin here is not moral sins, but Christ rejection. Holiness is not the topic of the Chapter but the topic has to do with what takes away sin in so far as our relationship with God (not our fellowship) is concerned.
#3. Galations 5:4 Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.
Again, those who have fallen from grace are those who want to be justified by law rather than by Christ. This has nothing to to with being saved and lost again. It has to do with the plan of salvation.
Remember we don’t make our doctrine emotionally or based on what appears to happen to some who say they believe and later prove by their life that they were never born again. In the Bible, a true believer proves it by continuing in the faith.
