“Once Saved Always Saved”
A
Dangerous Delusion?
by
Graham Pockett
The following
information relates to the belief that once saved, a Christian cannot ‘lose’
his salvation. This is often called “Eternal Security”, the opposite to which
is sometimes called “Conditional Security”. Scripture quoted is from the NIV
Bible, not because it is ‘best’ but because it states these points clearly
while still agreeing with the KJV and other universally accepted translations.
You might like to read
Why I Quote The
NIV Bible.
Can you lose your
salvation?
Many people fervently
believe that once saved, they can never lose their salvation. I pray that those
who do believe it will read the following with an open heart and an open mind.
Above all, I urge every reader to check each Scripture presented – and then
check the context that the Scriptures are quoted in by reading at least ten
verses before and ten verses after.
I sincerely believe the
‘once saved always saved’ concept to be wrong. The implication that once
someone becomes a ‘real’ Christian (a definition would be handy) they are saved
and that they can’t backslide or commit a sin which would rob them of that
inheritance.
From my experience,
Christians can sin and they often do sin but to believe that a
Christian can live any way he or she likes, and still be saved, is dangerous.
Some argue that a ‘real’ Christian wouldn’t commit these sins and it is the
‘almost Christians’ who fall foul of this type of entrapment from the enemy. I
believe that would be wrong too. Committed Christians sin for all sorts of
reasons and we are only saved by God’s amazing Grace, not our level of
commitment. God knows our true heart!
If a Christian sins
maliciously (deliberately breaks laws for his or her own advantage – say
purchasing goods known, or strongly suspected, of being stolen) that is quite
different from accidentally sinning – something we all do constantly.
God knows our true
intention. We might be able to fool a police officer that we sinned
accidentally, but God knows the real truth. I believe that if we deliberately
go against the direction given by Jesus (who, you will remember, said to
obey
the laws of the land) then we must suffer the consequences – and that might
mean the loss of eternal life. At least our Judge, while tough, is fair and
understanding!
Let’s look at this
Scripturally
Jesus understood that
when people heard the Word of God they would react in different ways – from
total rejection to total acceptance. He explained it in ‘The Parable Of The
Sower’. I have quoted the Matthew 13:3-23 Scripture here, but the same parable
can also be found in Mark 4:1-20 and Luke 8:4-15.
Matthew 13:3-9:
3 Then [Jesus] told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went
out to sow his seed.
4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds
came and ate it up.
5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang
up quickly, because the soil was shallow.
6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered
because they had no root.
7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.
8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop – a
hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
9 He who has ears, let him hear.” [NIV]
The Disciples wanted to
know what this parable meant and Jesus explained.
Matthew 13:18-23
18 “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means:
19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not
understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.
This is the seed sown along the path.
20 The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man
who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.
21 But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or
persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.
22 The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man
who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of
wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.
23 But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man
who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred,
sixty or thirty times what was sown.” [NIV]
For people who believe
that “once saved, always saved” I rhetorically ask: how do you relate your
beliefs to Matthew 13: 20-21? If a man cannot lose his salvation then why would
Jesus say: “When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly
falls away”?
The key to how we are
saved is in John 3:16:
“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.” [NIV]
I understand that the
word ‘believes’ in the Greek is an on-going verb (this is not so easy to
determine because Greek is a contextual language). It really says that unless
we keep on believing in Him we will perish and not have
everlasting life. We are saved by Grace as long as we keep on believing in Him.
Let’s check another Scripture.
Mark 13:13 says:
[Jesus said] “All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to
the end will be saved.” [NIV]
Look again at the second
half of that sentence. Jesus is saying that to be saved you must stand firm
(for Him) until you die. Conversely He is therefore saying that those who do not
stand firm will not be saved! Notice that I am not quoting Paul or any
other Apostle or Disciple, but the Son of God Himself.
Was I saved when I was
cursing God?
When I was quite young I
gave myself to the Lord. I then drifted away from the church – and from Jesus –
and ended up walking in a wilderness for 25 years. For 25 years I cursed Jesus
and fought against Christianity. I ‘studied’ the Bible looking for ‘wrongness’
in it and read as many anti-Christian writings as I could. I became an
intellectually strong anti-Christian and could debate, and win, with committed
Christians in many areas, specially on early church history. Guess you could
say that I was like Saul, a zealot against the Christians.
One day, in the fit of
despair after being separated from my wife of 19 years, I asked “the Creator”
(my concept at that time) how I could get her back. I heard an audible voice
(which I instantly knew to be Jesus) say: “Believe in Me”. It was mind blowing
to say the least. I can understand the confusion Saul must have felt when he
was slam-dunked to the ground by the very Person he was persecuting. It was the
same with me.
Was I ‘saved’ during
those 25 years of anti-Christian ‘preaching’? From my own heart I can say a
resounding NO. If I had died and gone to Heaven during that period I
would have screamed to be taken to Hell! Yet I had accepted Jesus at a
Youth
For Christ rally when I was about 14. Saved forever, or not saved forever?
To the people who would
say that I really wasn’t saved when I was young I just point them back to John
3:16. I did believe in the salvation of Jesus in those early days – I
witnessed at school, I was very much involved with my local church, I even
wanted to become a minister of religion when I grew up!
But, after five years, I
backslid – and not just a little way either! I fell all the way into the pit
and Satan had me fully in his grasp. Saved? No way. The Lord gave us the
power of freewill, and I had exercised mine to be a servant of Satan.
The final proof...
|
If God didn’t want us to
be able to choose He would not have given us the gift of freewill. It is this
gift which places us above the animals. It is this gift which allows us to
choose to either worship God or not worship God. It is this gift, and only this
gift, which allows us to truly love Him like a son. It is this gift which proves
that ‘once saved, always saved’ must be wrong.
If we are saved in spite
of ourselves then there is no freewill. If there is no freewill then the Bible
is wrong!
I don’t believe that the
Bible is wrong...
Before you write to tell me that we are saved by Grace and not by works you should know that I agree with you (however, in James 2:14-26 it says that faith without deeds is useless).
Before you write to say that God does not take back a gift He has so freely offered you should know that I agree with you (however, I believe that God allows us to give back that gift).
Before you write to say that we are all sinners and will therefore continue to sin throughout our lives you should know that I agree with you (but it is the attitude we have towards our sinning – what is really in our hearts – that is more important).
as of 8-2007
Name: Richard K. McPherson
Email Address:
richard@preterism-eschatology.com
Date: August 30, 2007
Time: 04:45:24 AM
Comments
My question is this: What are we "saved" from today? If you look at scripture the "falling away" had to do with the First Century people returning to the Old Law.