Once Saved Always Saved? / Is Eternal Security Biblical? / Can A Christian Lose Salvation?
Question : Once saved always saved? / Is eternal security biblical? / Can a Christian lose salvation?
Answer : Greetings to you in Jesus wonderful name! We must come to a mature understanding in our doctrinal belief of salvation to know that we are either saved forever or unsaved. There are no middle ground that the Bible ever speaks about.
First we will dig a little in to the way we are saved Biblically. Apostle Paul the leading apostle who wrote nearly one third of the entire New Testament reveals that a unsaved person gets saved when he/she confesses with their mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in their heart that God has raised Jesus from the dead, then they will be saved individually by the word of faith that was preached by preacher and was believed by the hearer (Rom 10:8-10).
In fact Paul affirms the Ephesian believers about the present fact of their salvation saying, "13 It's in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free--signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. 14 This signet from God is the first installment on what's coming, a reminder that we'll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life." (Eph 1:13-14, MSG). In other words, the moment we have come to confess with our mouth Jesus as our Lord and believe Him in our heart as the one whom God has raised for our justification from sin (Rom 4:25), that moment itself we have found our home to be heaven being delivered from the kingdom of darkness, and God signed a guarantee and gave a signet ring of evidence which is the sealing of the Holy Spirit to remind us always that it is the first installment on what's coming, a reminder that we'll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life now and also in the future time.
No where in the Bible God speaks about a unsealing of the Holy Spirit because of our behavior, which shows that once we are saved we are always saved until the day of redemption which is the rapture of the Church. The day we will be unsealed will be the day in which we will get a glorious body for eternity like Jesus (Luke 24:38-39; 1 John 3:2), in that body again a sealing is not needed because it will not have sin nature and therefore in the natural state of new life itself will perfectly hear and obey the Holy Spirit, and will be one in spirit, soul and body with Him (1 Cor 6:17, 13; Acts 4:32; 1 Sam 18:1; Luke 15:10).
Jesus didn't have to love us but He chose to love us, that is why Jesus told His disciples, "You didn't choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name." (John 15:16, NLT), which clearly reveals to us that Christ did not save us by His choosing to leave us on the way because of our non co-operation in the salvation he has called us to fulfill as a partner to Him, it is absolutely rubbish to think in such a sacrilegious way and to say that God needs us, our cooperation to finish the salvation He has started in us. In fact, God has guaranteed that the salvation He started He will finish it until the end in which our glorious body will rise up with out sin during the time of the rapture of the Church, and that He needs no help from us to finish it (Php 1:6; 1 Thess 4:14-15, 16-17). Jesus saves us by His very own life from sin so that we can produce fruit of God's character that might please God to make Him answer our prayer in Jesus name (Rom 5:10).
Salvation in itself does not bear fruit, but the effect of salvation bears fruit to make us glorify God (Heb 6:7, 9). Christ has not chosen us to partner with us to fulfill our salvation, as salvation past, present and future is through and through the work of Christ on the Cross which fulfilled all the requirements of God for the sinners, that at the end of it all He said, "It is finished! Paid in full! The price that God demands to free the sinner from the punishment for sin has been paid completely!". But the same Christ partners with us after we are saved to work through us the Character of God (Gal 2:20), so that God might be glorified through our lives lived through Jesus Christ (John 15:7, 8). This proves that once saved is always saved for a believer who has believed Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior to get saved from sin and death.
Even if we come to say that God might throw us away for our non-cooperation in salvation when we continue to indulge in sin, we are actually accusing God that He has invested salvation in certain people whom He did not foresee to know that they will keep on sinning willingly, and we are also saying that God is not omniscient. How dare we pronounce such a thing on God! But the truth of the matter is, Christ Himself said, "27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. 30 I and My Father are one.” (John 10:27-30). So we come to know from the above verses that when we become a sheep under our chief shepherd Jesus Christ, we will hear His voice because we have become a new creation in Him and we will come to understand that we no more belong to the world but to Jesus Christ who has bought us with his very own life and He is our Lord and Savior (2 Cor 5:17; 1 Cor 6:20; 7:23). Jesus as our shepherd knows us intimately, even our name and all the details of our past, present and future. As we come to understand more and more that we belong to Jesus, we will willingly come to follow Him with a greater commitment and love for Him. When we become a follower of Jesus as a believer who believes Him and receive Him in to our heart to become a child of God (John 6:39, 40; 1:12; Rev 3:20), Jesus gives us eternal life of friendship with Himself and the Father for eternity ahead (John 17:3), and thus once we are saved we shall never perish for eternity ahead, and above all neither sin, self or Satan can ever be able to snatch us away from the hand of our Lord Jesus under whose control we will be led for eternity ahead. When Jesus was the Son of God in the flesh, just as no one was able to snatch Him out of His Father's hand because of the Father ruling over the entire universe as the first person over it, so will also those who will be under the control of Jesus will not be able to be snatched out of Jesus hand because soon He took over the reigns of rulership over the whole world after His death and ascension to heaven, to be the first person to rule over the entire universe as its God along with the Father as like Jesus existed before the world was (John 17:5; 16:28; 19:30; Luke 23:46; John 20:17; Matt 27:50-51, 52-53, 54; Eph 4:8, 9-10; Heb 4:11). From the above verses explained, we come to know once saved is always saved, and no one can fight against Jesus to kidnap a single believer back to hell fire because He is God now over the entire universe and holds the omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience power in his hands.
Jesus has promised that not even one word of promise from God will pass away or return void without fulfilling the promises of God (1 Sam 3:19; Matt 24:35; Isa 55:11), so the promise of Jesus giving eternal life may be one word (John 10:28), but there is enough authority of Jesus behind it for the Word to stand on its own to help us authoritatively say that a Christian cannot lose his salvation, no matter what may happen to him/her in this life (Matt 28:18).
Then further the Bible declares that, "...love covereth all sins" (Prov 10:12). After we become a child of God, apostle Peter says, "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." (1 Peter 4:8). In other words, imperfect as we are, apostle Peter understood that we have the power to love because God of love stays with us to help each other love deeply (1 John 4:8, 16), so that it will cover all sins, weaknesses, inadequacies of each other to continue in fellowship in the Spirit in one mind for the Glory of God (Php 2:2).
If God expects such love from us humans, how much more the love of God covers the sins of us all who are His children? First of all the love of God is an everlasting love (Jer 31:3), which means once we receive God's love in Jesus Christ through believing Him (John 3:16), God forgives not only our past and present sins, but also our future sins to cover it all and thrown it all to a infinite distance (Eph 4:32; Col 3:13; Psa 103:12), and then cleanses our mind from the guilt of it to love us forever and ever as a Father (Psa 103:13-14; Heb 9:14). When we are saved this union with the Lord happens where we are already forgiven of all our sins past, present and future once and for all time (Heb 10:17-8). Yet because our Father in heaven is holy, we ought to be holy in order to have continual fellowship with Him, and we cannot continue with conscious sin and be in fellowship with Him at the same time (1 Peter 1:16; Psa 66:18; Isa 59:1-2). God and sin cannot go together because it is very much unlike His Character, so God expects us to confess our sins and come back in to fellowship with Him as soon as possible (1 John 1:7, 9). Sins must be confessed to the Lord continually as long as we are in this earth because we all have a sin nature that makes us to sin in thought, word or deed (1 John 1:8; Heb 10:23-25; Prov 28:13-14), and a soft and sensitive heart we must maintain to hear the voice of the Lord continually and live for His Glory (Heb 12:25).
Thus a lack in fellowship with God for God's children through sin will affect our abundant life on earth, but not the eternal life that God has promised forever (John 10:10, 28). That is why the great and the most eminent apostle of all who is apostle Paul explained in his writing, " 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 created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 8:38-39). If a believer can never ever be separated from the love of God which has covered all his sins once and for all time forever, and now that the blood of Christ also cleanses all his sins after he/she confesses to the Lord to keep him/her in fellowship with the Father and the Son, then no sin can ever separate any believer whatsoever to make Him lose the salvation that God has given to Him as a gift to enjoy for eternity ahead (Rom 5:18-19, 21; 6:23). Truly for a believer sin shall not have dominion over them because the grace of God has already achieved their victory in Christ Jesus for them personally and individually, when ever they use it they will see the victory and if they do not use the grace of God, they will experience temporary defeat against sin because we are all more than conqueror in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:14; 8:37). More than conquerors are those who do not have to fight and defeat a foe at hand, but only declare that the enemies they face are their subjects and that their enemies have to submit to them, because they have the authority over them already as the conquerors group captain and king has defeated their enemies already. Saints, if you are saved, you are more than a conqueror forever in Christ Jesus. Jesus has already defeated Satan, sin and self. You are saved for eternity ahead!
Eventually, each believer will not be left by themselves, but rather they will be constantly pruned by the Father for further growth, and chastised if they do not move further and choose to stay in spiritual stagnation which is not good for their spiritual health (John 15:2-3, 8; Heb 12:6-7, 9-10, 11). Salvation is not a fruit bearing process, but rather a instant personal event where one's soul is saved which was lost in the past (Luke 15:7, 10, 32; Acts 3:19; Jam 5:20), where in a moment a person is delivered and transferred from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of the Son of His Love (Col 1:13), in a moment the eyes that was blind suddenly get opened and could see Jesus as its Lord and Savior, a person who was in darkness suddenly is turned to stay in the light (John 3:19-21), in a moment a person is taken from the power of Satan to stay under the power of God (Acts 26:18), a person on whom the wrath of God stays suddenly in a moment receives forgiveness of sins (John 3:36, 18-19), a unsanctified sinner suddenly become a sanctified saint by faith to avail the inheritance of God as his child (John 1:12; 1 Cor 1:2; 1 Tim 1:13, 15-16; Eph 1:11; Col 3:24; Heb 9:15), in a moment of time from having no assurance of any future life suddenly we get sealed with the Holy Spirit as a assurance of a future life with God that is awaiting us in the life to come (Eph 1:13-14), all these things are the benefits of the event of salvation that we received as a gift from God, in a moment of time when we believed Jesus as our Lord and Savior we came to know that we were saved for eternity ahead to the praise of His glory (Rom 6:23; Eph 2:8-9; 1 John 4:13; 3:24)! I believe that we are not saved by good works, but saved for good works which means the fruit of holiness we bear through us is an effect of salvation and not a prerequisite for salvation. Thus eternal security of salvation is not only Biblical but is the only truth we see in the length and breath of the whole of Scripture (Heb 5:9; 7:25; 12:2).
Believers are born again (regenerated) when they believe (John 3:3; Titus 3:5). For a Christian to lose his salvation, he would have to be un-regenerated. The Bible gives no evidence that the new birth can be taken away.
The Holy Spirit indwells all believers (John 14:17; Romans 8:9) and He baptizes all believers into the Body of Christ when they are saved (1 Corinthians 12:13). For a believer to become unsaved, he would have to be "un-indwelt" and detached from the universal Body of Christ which is registered in heaven [i.e. not just the physical body of the local Church]. But we see no warning or any talk of Holy Spirit leaving a believer when in fact only a promise that He will never leave nor forsake the believer is only there on the contrary (Heb 13:5), even though the Holy Spirit can be grieved, quenched and resisted by a thankless life of a believer (Eph 4:30; 2 Thess 5:19; Acts 7:51; Rev 2:29).
Also John 3:15 states that whoever believes in Jesus Christ will "have eternal life," for example if eternal life does not continue for eternity then it means those persons who believe the same dispute the promises of eternal life in the Bible by saying that the Bible is in error. The Bible can never be in error and only our human understanding many times will stay in error when we believe the Scripture wrongly. So all misinformed person should change one's thinking to believe Scripture rightly and receive the joy of believing rightly (1 Peter 1:8).
Christ love is the end of sin, self and Satan, who had the power to separate us from God in the past. Now Paul the apostle asks us, "31 What can we ever say to such wonderful things as these? If God is on our side, who can ever be against us? 32 Since he did not spare even his own Son for us but gave him up for us all, won't he also surely give us everything else? 33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has forgiven us and given us right standing with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? Will Christ? No! For he is the one who died for us and came back to life again for us and is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us there in heaven. 35 Who then can ever keep Christ's love from us? When we have trouble or calamity, when we are hunted down or destroyed, is it because he doesn't love us anymore? And if we are hungry or penniless or in danger or threatened with death, has God deserted us? 36 No, for the Scriptures tell us that for his sake we must be ready to face death at every moment of the day--we are like sheep awaiting slaughter; 37 but despite all this, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us enough to die for us." (Rom 8:31-36, LB). Paul asked, "Who will bring a charge against God's elect?" No one will, because Christ having forgiven all our past, present and future sins positionally in the eyes of God forever, now acts as our advocate by speaking on behalf of us to cover our present sins and weaknesses before the Father by His own shed blood for us, whenever we confess our sins to Jesus to make us continue in close fellowship and intimacy with God (1 John 2:1-2). Who will condemn us? No one will, because Christ, the One who died for us, is the one who will judge the world and will condemn all sinners through His Word alike in the future on the day of White Throne Judgment for their lack of repentance and wickedness in continuing in their evil ways (John 12:48; Rev 20:11-15; John 5:22, 27). So because we have both the advocate and judge Jesus as our Savior, let us avoid sin and live for the Glory of God knowing that we are saved eternally, and that no one can do anything to take away our precious salvation from us which God has given to us as a gift.
But as for now as we come to know for sure that we are in right standing with God, and Christ is interceding for us at God's right hand by having died for all our sins once and for all time to forgive us forever and to keep us in constant fellowship with God and Himself, the next logical and scriptural conclusion that apostle Paul comes to is, "38 For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels won't, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God's love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, 39 or where we are--high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean—nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us." (Rom 8:38-39, Living Bible). Hallelujah! Glory to God!
In other words, Paul is saying to us that the same God who saved us is the same God who will keep us secure forever. Once we are saved we are always saved. Our salvation is most definitely eternally secure!
So the bottom line is not to worry about whether we will lose salvation or not, which in fact as we have seen in details we will not lose it according to the Bible. But rather, we should honestly check whether we are truly saved and have the assurance of the Holy Spirit within us (1 Cor 13:5-6; Rom 8:9; 1 John 3:14, 24; 4:13; John 5:24). Because once we are saved truly, we are saved for eternity ahead! Eternal security of a Christian is not only a Biblical fact, but it has also been proved above and expounded in details that a saved Christian cannot lose their salvation by anything they do in this life or in the life to come as salvation is completely a gift of God which is safely in God's hands, so that no one can take it away from them including the believer who is saved and who is on the way to heavenly bliss and glory! Salvation if God's gift, it cannot be earned even in a million years. But humbly it can be received by any repentant sinner who looks to God for salvation. A person does not do anything to receive this free gift of forgiveness of sins and assurance of an eternal life of friendship with God through Jesus Christ, so also a person who has received salvation cannot do anything to take away salvation from himself as it is already in God's hands. Thus we can be sure that the one choice of receiving salvation by believing Jesus Christ will affect our eternity forever! Praise the Lord! Glory to God!
Much Blessings....
Answer : Greetings to you in Jesus wonderful name! We must come to a mature understanding in our doctrinal belief of salvation to know that we are either saved forever or unsaved. There are no middle ground that the Bible ever speaks about.
First we will dig a little in to the way we are saved Biblically. Apostle Paul the leading apostle who wrote nearly one third of the entire New Testament reveals that a unsaved person gets saved when he/she confesses with their mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in their heart that God has raised Jesus from the dead, then they will be saved individually by the word of faith that was preached by preacher and was believed by the hearer (Rom 10:8-10).
In fact Paul affirms the Ephesian believers about the present fact of their salvation saying, "13 It's in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free--signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. 14 This signet from God is the first installment on what's coming, a reminder that we'll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life." (Eph 1:13-14, MSG). In other words, the moment we have come to confess with our mouth Jesus as our Lord and believe Him in our heart as the one whom God has raised for our justification from sin (Rom 4:25), that moment itself we have found our home to be heaven being delivered from the kingdom of darkness, and God signed a guarantee and gave a signet ring of evidence which is the sealing of the Holy Spirit to remind us always that it is the first installment on what's coming, a reminder that we'll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life now and also in the future time.
No where in the Bible God speaks about a unsealing of the Holy Spirit because of our behavior, which shows that once we are saved we are always saved until the day of redemption which is the rapture of the Church. The day we will be unsealed will be the day in which we will get a glorious body for eternity like Jesus (Luke 24:38-39; 1 John 3:2), in that body again a sealing is not needed because it will not have sin nature and therefore in the natural state of new life itself will perfectly hear and obey the Holy Spirit, and will be one in spirit, soul and body with Him (1 Cor 6:17, 13; Acts 4:32; 1 Sam 18:1; Luke 15:10).
Jesus didn't have to love us but He chose to love us, that is why Jesus told His disciples, "You didn't choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name." (John 15:16, NLT), which clearly reveals to us that Christ did not save us by His choosing to leave us on the way because of our non co-operation in the salvation he has called us to fulfill as a partner to Him, it is absolutely rubbish to think in such a sacrilegious way and to say that God needs us, our cooperation to finish the salvation He has started in us. In fact, God has guaranteed that the salvation He started He will finish it until the end in which our glorious body will rise up with out sin during the time of the rapture of the Church, and that He needs no help from us to finish it (Php 1:6; 1 Thess 4:14-15, 16-17). Jesus saves us by His very own life from sin so that we can produce fruit of God's character that might please God to make Him answer our prayer in Jesus name (Rom 5:10).
Salvation in itself does not bear fruit, but the effect of salvation bears fruit to make us glorify God (Heb 6:7, 9). Christ has not chosen us to partner with us to fulfill our salvation, as salvation past, present and future is through and through the work of Christ on the Cross which fulfilled all the requirements of God for the sinners, that at the end of it all He said, "It is finished! Paid in full! The price that God demands to free the sinner from the punishment for sin has been paid completely!". But the same Christ partners with us after we are saved to work through us the Character of God (Gal 2:20), so that God might be glorified through our lives lived through Jesus Christ (John 15:7, 8). This proves that once saved is always saved for a believer who has believed Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior to get saved from sin and death.
Even if we come to say that God might throw us away for our non-cooperation in salvation when we continue to indulge in sin, we are actually accusing God that He has invested salvation in certain people whom He did not foresee to know that they will keep on sinning willingly, and we are also saying that God is not omniscient. How dare we pronounce such a thing on God! But the truth of the matter is, Christ Himself said, "27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. 30 I and My Father are one.” (John 10:27-30). So we come to know from the above verses that when we become a sheep under our chief shepherd Jesus Christ, we will hear His voice because we have become a new creation in Him and we will come to understand that we no more belong to the world but to Jesus Christ who has bought us with his very own life and He is our Lord and Savior (2 Cor 5:17; 1 Cor 6:20; 7:23). Jesus as our shepherd knows us intimately, even our name and all the details of our past, present and future. As we come to understand more and more that we belong to Jesus, we will willingly come to follow Him with a greater commitment and love for Him. When we become a follower of Jesus as a believer who believes Him and receive Him in to our heart to become a child of God (John 6:39, 40; 1:12; Rev 3:20), Jesus gives us eternal life of friendship with Himself and the Father for eternity ahead (John 17:3), and thus once we are saved we shall never perish for eternity ahead, and above all neither sin, self or Satan can ever be able to snatch us away from the hand of our Lord Jesus under whose control we will be led for eternity ahead. When Jesus was the Son of God in the flesh, just as no one was able to snatch Him out of His Father's hand because of the Father ruling over the entire universe as the first person over it, so will also those who will be under the control of Jesus will not be able to be snatched out of Jesus hand because soon He took over the reigns of rulership over the whole world after His death and ascension to heaven, to be the first person to rule over the entire universe as its God along with the Father as like Jesus existed before the world was (John 17:5; 16:28; 19:30; Luke 23:46; John 20:17; Matt 27:50-51, 52-53, 54; Eph 4:8, 9-10; Heb 4:11). From the above verses explained, we come to know once saved is always saved, and no one can fight against Jesus to kidnap a single believer back to hell fire because He is God now over the entire universe and holds the omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience power in his hands.
Jesus has promised that not even one word of promise from God will pass away or return void without fulfilling the promises of God (1 Sam 3:19; Matt 24:35; Isa 55:11), so the promise of Jesus giving eternal life may be one word (John 10:28), but there is enough authority of Jesus behind it for the Word to stand on its own to help us authoritatively say that a Christian cannot lose his salvation, no matter what may happen to him/her in this life (Matt 28:18).
Then further the Bible declares that, "...love covereth all sins" (Prov 10:12). After we become a child of God, apostle Peter says, "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." (1 Peter 4:8). In other words, imperfect as we are, apostle Peter understood that we have the power to love because God of love stays with us to help each other love deeply (1 John 4:8, 16), so that it will cover all sins, weaknesses, inadequacies of each other to continue in fellowship in the Spirit in one mind for the Glory of God (Php 2:2).
If God expects such love from us humans, how much more the love of God covers the sins of us all who are His children? First of all the love of God is an everlasting love (Jer 31:3), which means once we receive God's love in Jesus Christ through believing Him (John 3:16), God forgives not only our past and present sins, but also our future sins to cover it all and thrown it all to a infinite distance (Eph 4:32; Col 3:13; Psa 103:12), and then cleanses our mind from the guilt of it to love us forever and ever as a Father (Psa 103:13-14; Heb 9:14). When we are saved this union with the Lord happens where we are already forgiven of all our sins past, present and future once and for all time (Heb 10:17-8). Yet because our Father in heaven is holy, we ought to be holy in order to have continual fellowship with Him, and we cannot continue with conscious sin and be in fellowship with Him at the same time (1 Peter 1:16; Psa 66:18; Isa 59:1-2). God and sin cannot go together because it is very much unlike His Character, so God expects us to confess our sins and come back in to fellowship with Him as soon as possible (1 John 1:7, 9). Sins must be confessed to the Lord continually as long as we are in this earth because we all have a sin nature that makes us to sin in thought, word or deed (1 John 1:8; Heb 10:23-25; Prov 28:13-14), and a soft and sensitive heart we must maintain to hear the voice of the Lord continually and live for His Glory (Heb 12:25).
Thus a lack in fellowship with God for God's children through sin will affect our abundant life on earth, but not the eternal life that God has promised forever (John 10:10, 28). That is why the great and the most eminent apostle of all who is apostle Paul explained in his writing, " 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 created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 8:38-39). If a believer can never ever be separated from the love of God which has covered all his sins once and for all time forever, and now that the blood of Christ also cleanses all his sins after he/she confesses to the Lord to keep him/her in fellowship with the Father and the Son, then no sin can ever separate any believer whatsoever to make Him lose the salvation that God has given to Him as a gift to enjoy for eternity ahead (Rom 5:18-19, 21; 6:23). Truly for a believer sin shall not have dominion over them because the grace of God has already achieved their victory in Christ Jesus for them personally and individually, when ever they use it they will see the victory and if they do not use the grace of God, they will experience temporary defeat against sin because we are all more than conqueror in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:14; 8:37). More than conquerors are those who do not have to fight and defeat a foe at hand, but only declare that the enemies they face are their subjects and that their enemies have to submit to them, because they have the authority over them already as the conquerors group captain and king has defeated their enemies already. Saints, if you are saved, you are more than a conqueror forever in Christ Jesus. Jesus has already defeated Satan, sin and self. You are saved for eternity ahead!
Eventually, each believer will not be left by themselves, but rather they will be constantly pruned by the Father for further growth, and chastised if they do not move further and choose to stay in spiritual stagnation which is not good for their spiritual health (John 15:2-3, 8; Heb 12:6-7, 9-10, 11). Salvation is not a fruit bearing process, but rather a instant personal event where one's soul is saved which was lost in the past (Luke 15:7, 10, 32; Acts 3:19; Jam 5:20), where in a moment a person is delivered and transferred from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of the Son of His Love (Col 1:13), in a moment the eyes that was blind suddenly get opened and could see Jesus as its Lord and Savior, a person who was in darkness suddenly is turned to stay in the light (John 3:19-21), in a moment a person is taken from the power of Satan to stay under the power of God (Acts 26:18), a person on whom the wrath of God stays suddenly in a moment receives forgiveness of sins (John 3:36, 18-19), a unsanctified sinner suddenly become a sanctified saint by faith to avail the inheritance of God as his child (John 1:12; 1 Cor 1:2; 1 Tim 1:13, 15-16; Eph 1:11; Col 3:24; Heb 9:15), in a moment of time from having no assurance of any future life suddenly we get sealed with the Holy Spirit as a assurance of a future life with God that is awaiting us in the life to come (Eph 1:13-14), all these things are the benefits of the event of salvation that we received as a gift from God, in a moment of time when we believed Jesus as our Lord and Savior we came to know that we were saved for eternity ahead to the praise of His glory (Rom 6:23; Eph 2:8-9; 1 John 4:13; 3:24)! I believe that we are not saved by good works, but saved for good works which means the fruit of holiness we bear through us is an effect of salvation and not a prerequisite for salvation. Thus eternal security of salvation is not only Biblical but is the only truth we see in the length and breath of the whole of Scripture (Heb 5:9; 7:25; 12:2).
Believers are born again (regenerated) when they believe (John 3:3; Titus 3:5). For a Christian to lose his salvation, he would have to be un-regenerated. The Bible gives no evidence that the new birth can be taken away.
The Holy Spirit indwells all believers (John 14:17; Romans 8:9) and He baptizes all believers into the Body of Christ when they are saved (1 Corinthians 12:13). For a believer to become unsaved, he would have to be "un-indwelt" and detached from the universal Body of Christ which is registered in heaven [i.e. not just the physical body of the local Church]. But we see no warning or any talk of Holy Spirit leaving a believer when in fact only a promise that He will never leave nor forsake the believer is only there on the contrary (Heb 13:5), even though the Holy Spirit can be grieved, quenched and resisted by a thankless life of a believer (Eph 4:30; 2 Thess 5:19; Acts 7:51; Rev 2:29).
Also John 3:15 states that whoever believes in Jesus Christ will "have eternal life," for example if eternal life does not continue for eternity then it means those persons who believe the same dispute the promises of eternal life in the Bible by saying that the Bible is in error. The Bible can never be in error and only our human understanding many times will stay in error when we believe the Scripture wrongly. So all misinformed person should change one's thinking to believe Scripture rightly and receive the joy of believing rightly (1 Peter 1:8).
Christ love is the end of sin, self and Satan, who had the power to separate us from God in the past. Now Paul the apostle asks us, "31 What can we ever say to such wonderful things as these? If God is on our side, who can ever be against us? 32 Since he did not spare even his own Son for us but gave him up for us all, won't he also surely give us everything else? 33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has forgiven us and given us right standing with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? Will Christ? No! For he is the one who died for us and came back to life again for us and is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us there in heaven. 35 Who then can ever keep Christ's love from us? When we have trouble or calamity, when we are hunted down or destroyed, is it because he doesn't love us anymore? And if we are hungry or penniless or in danger or threatened with death, has God deserted us? 36 No, for the Scriptures tell us that for his sake we must be ready to face death at every moment of the day--we are like sheep awaiting slaughter; 37 but despite all this, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us enough to die for us." (Rom 8:31-36, LB). Paul asked, "Who will bring a charge against God's elect?" No one will, because Christ having forgiven all our past, present and future sins positionally in the eyes of God forever, now acts as our advocate by speaking on behalf of us to cover our present sins and weaknesses before the Father by His own shed blood for us, whenever we confess our sins to Jesus to make us continue in close fellowship and intimacy with God (1 John 2:1-2). Who will condemn us? No one will, because Christ, the One who died for us, is the one who will judge the world and will condemn all sinners through His Word alike in the future on the day of White Throne Judgment for their lack of repentance and wickedness in continuing in their evil ways (John 12:48; Rev 20:11-15; John 5:22, 27). So because we have both the advocate and judge Jesus as our Savior, let us avoid sin and live for the Glory of God knowing that we are saved eternally, and that no one can do anything to take away our precious salvation from us which God has given to us as a gift.
But as for now as we come to know for sure that we are in right standing with God, and Christ is interceding for us at God's right hand by having died for all our sins once and for all time to forgive us forever and to keep us in constant fellowship with God and Himself, the next logical and scriptural conclusion that apostle Paul comes to is, "38 For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels won't, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God's love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, 39 or where we are--high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean—nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us." (Rom 8:38-39, Living Bible). Hallelujah! Glory to God!
In other words, Paul is saying to us that the same God who saved us is the same God who will keep us secure forever. Once we are saved we are always saved. Our salvation is most definitely eternally secure!
So the bottom line is not to worry about whether we will lose salvation or not, which in fact as we have seen in details we will not lose it according to the Bible. But rather, we should honestly check whether we are truly saved and have the assurance of the Holy Spirit within us (1 Cor 13:5-6; Rom 8:9; 1 John 3:14, 24; 4:13; John 5:24). Because once we are saved truly, we are saved for eternity ahead! Eternal security of a Christian is not only a Biblical fact, but it has also been proved above and expounded in details that a saved Christian cannot lose their salvation by anything they do in this life or in the life to come as salvation is completely a gift of God which is safely in God's hands, so that no one can take it away from them including the believer who is saved and who is on the way to heavenly bliss and glory! Salvation if God's gift, it cannot be earned even in a million years. But humbly it can be received by any repentant sinner who looks to God for salvation. A person does not do anything to receive this free gift of forgiveness of sins and assurance of an eternal life of friendship with God through Jesus Christ, so also a person who has received salvation cannot do anything to take away salvation from himself as it is already in God's hands. Thus we can be sure that the one choice of receiving salvation by believing Jesus Christ will affect our eternity forever! Praise the Lord! Glory to God!
Much Blessings....
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