Salvation Summaries

In this post, I will answer the question of whether a Christian can lose his (or her) salvation.

Churches disagree on the answer to this question. Some believe you can’t lose your salvation; others believe you can.  The former tend to believe God is the One who saves a person; the latter view salvation as a cooperative process between God and a person, with the person ultimately determining whether he or she will be saved.

I won’t settle the disagreement among churches with my review of the book of John.  However, I will show you what the verses in this book say regarding this issue.

Can you lose your salvation? 

According to the book of John, the answer to this question is “no.”  I’ll provide you with five reasons that support this.

FIRST, John tells us many times in his book that if you believe in Jesus, you will receive eternal life.  Examples are below:

• John 3:14-17 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 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. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

• John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”

• John 6:40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Now, let me make a simple observation about believing in Jesus for eternal life.  Eternal life is…eternal.  It’s everlasting.  It’s not something you receive for a while, then no longer receive. It doesn’t expire. As a result, once you receive it, you should expect to continue to receive it.

SECOND, other than believing in Jesus, there is no condition in the book of John that a person must meet to receive, or maintain, eternal life. If there were something a person must do, such as getting baptized, saying a certain number of prayers each day, or doing more good things than bad things, then eternal life would be conditional, and thus, it would be something a person could lose. However, there are no verses, at least in the book of John, that indicate this.  Instead, eternal life is portrayed as something you either have, or you don’t.

THIRD, there are no verses in John that mention the possibility of losing one’s eternal life.

FOURTH, John brings to light an aspect of salvation that some people may not realize, and if they did, they would see that losing one’s salvation is unlikely, if not impossible. What is this light? It is this: when a person becomes saved, that person “crosses over” from spiritual death to spiritual life, and will no longer be condemned for their sinful actions.  We see this in the following verse:

John 5:24 “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.

There is no indication in the book of John that when you cross over from death to life, you cross back again, to death. Also, there is also no indication that once you receive eternal life and are no longer condemned, you can later become condemned again.

AND LAST, John makes it clear that when you believe in Jesus and become saved by Him, He will not let anything, or anyone, change this.  In other words, He has your salvation in His control; it is controlled by Him, not you.

John 10:28-29 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.

Now, some of you may ask, “OK, I agree from the book of John that a person will not lose their salvation, but there are times when I don’t feel saved. How would you respond to this?”

That’s a good question. My advice to you is to read some of my prior posts where I address the issue of how to tell whether you are saved.

Others may ask, “While the verses in John appear to support the ‘once saved, always saved’ view, aren’t there other places in the Bible that indicate you can lose your salvation?”

Yes, there are.  For example, one New Testament book contains a verse that says, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”  Some believe this means that salvation includes works on your part, and if you don’t do enough works, or the right works, then your salvation can be lost (or, you never gain it).  I discussed this verse in a prior post, and interpret it in a different way.

Also, some verses raise the question of whether a person can lose their faith, and since faith is required for salvation, then salvation can be lost.  The key to the issue is understanding the source of one’s faith.  If it’s solely from God, and God gives faith to someone who doesn’t deserve it, then it wouldn’t make sense for Him to remove that faith (for what would the reason be – they no longer deserve it?).  If faith is solely produced by man, then it would appear that a person can lose their faith. I’m of the view that faith is a gift from God.

Conclusion

According to the book of John, a person’s salvation cannot be lost, for salvation is eternal.  Once a person is saved, he (or she) crosses over from death to life, and is no longer under condemnation for sinful actions.  Jesus, in His power, keeps that person saved, and no one or no thing has the power to take that person’s spiritual condition away from Jesus.

However, my answer to this important question was from the book of John only, and it would be best to answer this question based upon verses throughout the New Testament. I have asked and answered this question to some extent in prior posts, and will likely do more in future posts.

In my next post, I will review the book of Acts.