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.
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