Can You Lose Your Salvation?

The question is often asked, Can I lose my salvation? Christians from all walks of life need a clear answer to this question because their assurance, peace, and joy depend on it.

God did not intend for His people to go through life in constant fear and doubt, wondering if the blood of Christ was enough to save them and if the Holy Spirit has the power to seal them.

According to Scripture, you cannot lose your salvation. In this article, let’s first look at a few key passages that are iron-clad proof that God will keep you saved if you are truly saved, then let’s break down three important questions that people bring up when debating this topic.

Biblical Clarity on the Assurance of Salvation

Three landmark passages are all one needs to make this case, though you could pile on more from the Scriptures.

Passage #1

Philippians 1:6 declares, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” In this text, Paul the apostle is encouraging the Philippian believers by reminding them not only of God’s sovereign power in initiating their salvation, but also reminding them of God’s sovereign power in their sanctification and preservation! God doesn’t just save us from sin, He continues to cleanse us from sin. God doesn’t just save us. God keeps us.

Passage #2

Romans 8:33-39 is another glorious section of Scripture that gives us the assurance of salvation if we are truly saved. Again, the apostle Paul points to God’s sovereignty in saving His people, and God’s power to keep His people saved.

Who will bring charges against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, but rather, was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or trouble, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? Just as it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long; We were regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul writes all of this after presenting what many call the “golden chain of salvation.” Verses 28-31 emphasize the blessings upon the believer who loves God and is called according to His purpose (8:28). The believer is predestined, called, justified, and glorified (8:30).

There is no doubting that God chooses to save His people and then keeps secure those He saves. Not even death or the Devil himself can snatch the true believer from the hand of God.

Passage #3

Speaking of “snatching,” that’s precisely the kind of word that Jesus uses in John 10:26-30 when the Son of God boldly proclaims,

But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep. My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.

This is one of those comforting passages in the gospels. Jesus doesn’t lose His sheep.

Two Seemingly Insurmountable Questions

Whenever the doctrine of eternal security comes up (the idea of not losing your salvation), three very important questions come up. Let’s deal with those as well.

Question #1

Are you telling me that “once saved, always saved” means I can just say I believe and then live however I want and still go to heaven?

No. The doctrine of eternal security in Scripture means that the truly saved will persevere until the end. No logical theological would ever suggest that you can live however you want and still be saved. The idea that you can simply repeat a prayer after an evangelist at the altar, then go on sinning is in direct contradiction to what Scripture teaches. Romans 6:1-2 reminds us, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? James 2:19 comes on even stronger saying, “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.” James was making the point that faith without works is dead. You don’t do good works to be saved, but good works will come forth from a life that is saved. As Christ put it in Matthew 7:18, “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit.”

If someone claims “once saved, always saved” but lives in rampant habitual sin, they are like those who I will address in question #2. Instead of “once saved, always saved” I suggest we say, “The truly saved will stay saved.”

Question #2

But what about my friend who was really involved in church, believed in Jesus, and then fell away from the faith and isn’t a Christian anymore?

This is a very common experience in churches — especially in America. Two key passages help us understand that many people will jump in on Jesus, appear saved, be excited about church, and may even worship with passion, but then eventually walk away from the church and Christianity.

What happened?

1 John 2:19 says it plainly, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be evident that they all are not of us.”

Sadly, this is what happens to many professing Christians who get excited about the church because of hyped-up events, community service, entertainment, material blessings from God, or some other superficial reason, but when it comes time to count the cost as a true disciple of Jesus Christ, they are out (Luke 14:25-35).

Matthew 7:21-23 goes even further as Jesus paints one of the most frightful pictures in Scripture saying,

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

This means that there will even be people who meet the Lord one day who have done great works in His name and claimed to know Him, but He will not have known them. They were religious on the outside but lawless on the inside. Many false teachers will meet their plight through this passage as they tout so-called power in the name of God but live for the pleasures of this world. They will have not lost their salvation. They were never saved.

Question #3

Doesn’t Hebrews 6 say that you can “fall away” and lose your salvation?

Hebrews 6:4-8 is a very important passage that needs to be explained. The author of Hebrews writes,

Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and about the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. And this we will do, if God permits. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and produces vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.

At first glance, this passage appears to support the loss of salvation because people appear to have been saved and tasted the goodness of God, but that is not what the author has in mind here when we take a closer look. Two potential interpretations can be satisfactory and not be in contradiction with eternal security.

First, these words could be addressing unbelievers who appear to have a very convincing experience in the faith that included “having been enlightened” which would have given them all the knowledge needed to repent and believe. These unbelievers were being warned not to reject this opportunity for salvation, and thus, fall away from that and not “come again to the point of repentance.” This is a view outlined in John MacArthur’s commentary on Hebrews. An excerpt can be read here: https://www.gty.org/library/questions/QA198/hebrews-6-and-the-loss-of-salvation

Second, these words could be addressing believers because they are those “who have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit.” According to this view, these admonitions are a means by which God preserves His people to the end. In other words, the promise of salvation cannot be taken away, and God uses these types of passages as a way to keep believers in the healthy fear of the Lord throughout their lives. This does not mean we don’t sin, nor does it mean someone will not go prodigal for a season, but it does mean that God’s promise will be kept and warnings will be used to wake up the people of God and bring them back in humble repentance. Dr. Thomas Schreiner unpacks this view in this video.

Whichever view you land on, the evidence for one losing their salvation in Scripture is not strong. The bulk of the New Testament points to a God who is sovereign to save and sovereign to preserve.