Warning: This is a long post. It will also be posted as a PDF you can access to the right under “Various Essays”.

Usually, a person who believes they can lose their salvation will, when discussing the issue with a proponent in the Eternal Security camp, set up the following straw man to attack:

So you’re saying if I accept Jesus Christ as my savior and then I go move in with my girlfriend, have sex with a dozen other women, kill the boy friend of one of the women, steal a car and kill three cops while I’m trying to escape, and then get a boy friend while I’m in prison, when I die, I’m still going to heaven? Is that what you are saying?

And of course the answer is: No, that’s not what I’m saying.

If, after professing to accept Jesus Christ as my savior, I can, without conviction, continue in the sins I practiced before, continue them as heartily as before I professed to accept Jesus Christ, it is very likely I was not saved to begin with.

A person who has contributed comments in response to the articles I post at www.pulpit-pimps.org has been trying to demonstrate that a Christian, a real live, truly born again Christian (yes, I know it’s redundant), can lose his or her salvation. I will call this person Anon. And for the sake of this essay, assign a male pronoun to him, politically incorrect though that may be.

According to Anon, I was justified when I became a Christian. And apparently that was it. The slate was wiped clean (at the moment I received Christ). But now I am responsible for making sure it is clean (”After that they are held accountable for their sins”). And I assume, based on the rest of his comment, this accountability shows itself as a loss of my salvation if I don’t confess the new sins and reestablish the relationship before dying.

While I want to be as fair as I can to Anon’s position, as indicated by his comment, I don’t want the essay to be repetitious or longer than it need be. In order to accomplish these two goals, I will provide Anon’s comment at the end of this posting and I will try to group the verses he has used. He has, I believe, been rather consistent in making every verse talk about the believer, sin, and salvation, whether that verse was talking about the believer, sin, and salvation or not.

The first thing I noticed about his comment was Anon’s view of Justification. It is a very limited view that distorts his view of salvation and a great deal of the verses he attempts to use.

For starters, Anon makes a statement near the beginning of his comment. He says:

“A Christian is “justified” at the moment they receive Christ as their Lord. After that, they are held accountable for their sins. “

Make no mistake about it, we are justified. But as I said, justification is only one aspect of the believer’s experience in salvation. And forgiveness from our past sins is only a single aspect of that justification. The Bible says that:

1. We are justified by faith (Gal 2:16)
2. No flesh is justified by the Law. The only thing the Law does is make us aware of our sin. (Rom 3:20; Galatians 3:11)
3. God justifies those who have faith in Jesus Christ (Rom 3:26, 30)
4. We have peace with God through Jesus Christ. This is a result of our being justified by faith. (Rom 5:1)
5. We have been justified by the blood of Jesus Christ (Rom 5:9)
6. We were justified in the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of our God). (1 Cor 6:11)
7. We are justified (considered righteous) because of our faith (Gal 2:16)
8. We are justified through faith in Christ, not by works of the law (Gal 2:16).

Anon rightly says the OSAS position is that all of my sins , past, present, and future were paid for by Jesus’ death on the cross. What he doesn’t seem to address is that I am made righteous in God’s eyes (Gal 2:16). This righteousness is not because of anything I did or didn’t do. It is because of God’s graciousness in my life. In fact, apparently to make sure we don’t misunderstand, God says in Titus 3:5 that:

5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,

And in Ephesians, Chapter 2, verses 8 through 10, as though to remove all doubt, God says:

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Anon’s idea of justification seems to limited to the idea that my sins (my past sins) are forgiven. Nothing could be further from the truth. Justification is also the idea of being made righteous in God’s eyes. James 2:23 is an example of this when it says:

23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God.

Notice what it says: Abraham, through faith, was pronounced righteous, not just that all his past sins were forgiven. He had, and we have, an entirely new standing with God. We went from enemy to friend. But as I said, Anon stops at “all of our past sins were forgiven.”

Just as an aside, how many of my sins were “future sins” when Christ died on the cross?

Let’s look at Hebrews 10:26, 27, another reference by Anon, which says:

26 For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.

The very first question we have to ask here is: Is this talking about the saved and their fate if they “go on sinning willfully”? I, of course, am of the opinion that it is not speaking of the saved. Here’ why I say this.

If it is speaking of the saved, then not only is it saying the person becomes unsaved, but it also says there is no way the person can ever be saved again (no sacrifice for sin).

Further, if God has saved me from the power of sin, I, as a Christian do not wish to sin, I will not, if I am truly born again, go on willfully sinning. The thing I have to be sure of is: am I saved?

I suggest, given what I am in Christ, this verse is not saying that I will lose my salvation if I willfully (consistently as opposed to through some weakness) sin. Rather, it is warning the church person (as opposed to the true Christian) who consistently refuses to obey God through the Bible. In other words, my behavior is an INDICATOR of my salvation. My salvation is not a result of my behavior. Anon spends most of his time making each of the verses he quotes say the second statement, that my salvation is a result of my behavior (or that my behavior dictates my salvation).

In his discussion of 1 Cor 5:13, Anon actually backs into what I would suggest is the correct reading of the verse. He says: After his initial belief in Jesus, the sexually immoral man either backslid OR he never repented. Hence, he’s a good example of an “unsaved” believer inside the church! Exactly! The man, very likely was never saved to begin with.

In fact, this very nicely follows exactly what I said in the previous section dealing with Hebrews 10:26, 27. The behavior is an indicator of one’s state. It is not a determiner.

Unfortunately, I think Anon really missed the boat when it comes to chapter 6 of Romans. Paul is not speaking about removing sin, he is (as he states in the last few verses of chapter five, dealing with the believer’s new relationship with Christ, his old relationship with sin, and the new power to live a life pleasing to God. Paul expounds on the fact that we can now live a life pleasing to God because we have moved from death to life, from enslavement to sin to freedom from sin and enslavement to righteousness (6:20-22). Verse 15 is not there to tell us our future sins have not been forgiven. Rather he is continuing his exhortation for us to live our lives free of slavery to sin (Rom 6:14) as we now can as those united with Christ in His death.

Anon doesn’t seem to realize that 2 Peter 1:9 is also tied to verses 4 through 8.

Together the six verses say:

4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge,

6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness,

7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.

8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

9 For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.

This isn’t really addressing past sin versus future sins and the forgiveness (or not) of those future sin. Rather, Peter is explaining what their growth as Christians should look like. It should be defined by moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love , each growing out of the previous one. An important thing to remember here is “former” isn’t talking about “the set of sins you committed up to the point you were saved”. But rather Peter is talking about the kind of life they lived before they were saved. Paul does the same thing in Romans 6:19 , 21. Before I was saved I lived a certain way , a slave to impurity and lawlessness. In Ephesians 2:1-3 Paul reminds the Ephesians of their former lives when they were dead in their sins, walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air.

Again, the objective here is not to tell the readers that only their past sins have been forgiven. Rather, it is to tell them they have been transformed, renewed, changed by the power of the Gospel (Titus 3:5). Sin is now a part of the old life and should be treated as
such.

Anon does with the rest of his references to Romans what he did with the first couple. He forces it to be about the penalty of sin rather than about the power of God acting in me to live a life pleasing to God. If I am living according to the flesh, then it is unlikely I am saved to begin with. James says that if there are no works, then the faith is dead. In other words, the person is not saved to begin with.
Rather than stretch this on interminably, I will summarize the rest Anon’s references by pointing out that his primary method seems to be to put into the verses the meaning that supports his position.

Even if the previous discussion has not sufficiently addressed the casual readers’ concerns, consider this line of reasoning (Isa 1:18). As stated previously, Anon limits (at least by the things he says explicitly) that the only thing that happens to us when we are saved, is that we are justified. However, consider the following.

What Happens to the Sinner When He Becomes a Christian (Romans 5:10 , God does the reconciling not us)

1. I was given eternal life
2. I became a new creation with a new nature.
3. I became a child of God
4. I ceased to be a child of wrath
5. I was made a child of the Light
6. I was baptized by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ.
7. I died with Christ.
8. I was buried with Christ.
9. I was placed in Jesus’ hand.
10. I was placed in the Father’s hand.
11. I was transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His (God’s) beloved Son.
12. I was sealed until the day of redemption by the Holy Spirit.
13. I died to sin

There are other references I could make, but these should suffice for now.

Let’s look at each of these briefly. Obviously I can’t spend a great deal of time on each one. You would click to another site before you finished the article. Of course, some of you still might.

At Salvation

1. I was Given Eternal Life - As obvious as it seems, I was given eternal life. John 3:16 says that whoever should believe on Jesus shall not perish but have eternal life. Some could say at this point that the eternal life mentioned is a future possibility as long as I keep my nose clean. But 1 John 5:11 says that God has given us eternal life. Verse 12 repeats the fact that I have- as in right now- eternal life. Verse 13 goes on to say that I can know that I have eternal life. These statements raise at least a couple of fairly obvious questions. First, if I can lose this life, how eternal is it? Eternal means…well, eternal. Secondly, if by committing some sin I can lose that salvation, how can I ever know that I have eternal life? The most I can do is hope I haven’s screwed up badly enough (however bad “badly enough” is) for me to have lost it. Afterall, is jaywalking a big enough sin? Will lying to a telemarketer put me in hell if I have a massive heart attack right after doing it? Yet the Bible says I can know that I have the life.

2. I Became a New Creation , 2 Corinthians 5:17 says that I became a new creation. The verse amplifies this by saying that old things have passed away and new things have come. Galatians 6:17 point out that nothing less than a new creation counts for anything. Circumcision doesn’t do it. Un-circumcision doesn’t do it. I had to become a new creation. Obviously, I did not make me this new creation. And if I didn’t do it, who did? The only person left is God. And with this new creation comes a new nature, or a new self. Paul talks about it in Romans 6:6 when he says that my old self was crucified with Christ. In Ephesians 4:22 he tells me to lay aside my old self, and that I be renewed in the spirit of my mind and put on the new self. In Colossians 3:9 he gives the reason we are to be truthful with one another: we have laid aside the old self. Paul even speaks in Romans 7 about the struggle between my flesh and that new creation that lives in the fleshly body.

3. I Became a Child of God , If I received Jesus Christ, I became a child of God. John 1:12 , 13 points out that the requirement is to receive Jesus Christ. And at that point I was born (not “will be born”, but “was born”) of God. Other places point out that I was adopted by God. Romans 8:15 says we have received a spirit of adoption as sons. As a result, we can look forward to our adoption being shown by the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23). We are adopted now. We will see the result of that adoption at Christ’s return. God adopted me, kindly and graciously making me a part of His family (Ephesians 1:5, 6).

4. I ceased to be A Child of Wrath , Ephesians 2:3 says I was (notice the past tense here) by nature a child of wrath. But I no longer am such a one. Instead I am seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6) and seated at the right hand of God with Christ.

5. I Became a Child of Light , Ephesians 5:8 points out that that we are Light in the Lord and that we are to walk as children of light. 1 Thessalonians brings the point home by stating that we are (again notice the tense , not “will be” but “are”) sons of light.

6. I Was Baptized by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ , Starting with Romans 6:3 Paul tells us we have been baptized into Christ Jesus. First Corinthians 12:13 says that we were all baptized into one body, made to drink of the one Spirit. Galatians 3:27 points out that we have clothed ourselves with Christ through baptism into him. And certainly, here we are not talking about a water baptism.

7. I Died with Christ , Going back again to Romans, Paul tells us that we died with Christ (6:4, 8 ). We were united with Him the likeness of his death - 6:5 . Colossians 2:20 repeats the fact that we have died with Christ.

8. I Was Buried With Christ , According to Romans 6, verse 4, I was buried with Him. And since I was buried with Him, I can now walk in the newness of life. Again, the burying was done to me. It was not something I accomplished through my own efforts or smartness.

9. I Was Placed in Jesus’ Hand , In John 10:28 Jesus told His listeners that He has given me eternal life and no one can snatch me out of His (Jesus’) hand. He tells me that I will never perish. Note there is no condition here, just the promise of not perishing and having eternal life. Again note He says “give(s)” , not “will give at some point if the future.” He says I will never perish , not that I won’t perish as long as I don’t sin. He also says that no one can snatch me out of His hand. This “no one” appears to be pretty universal. I can see no reason not to include me in the “no one” group. Afterall, he doesn’t say “No one, except the sinner, can snatch them out of My hand.”

10. I Was Placed in the Father’s Hand , John 10 also relays the fact that I am in the Father’s hand and that no one can take me from the Father’s hand. I am now in His hand, not that I will be at some point in the future if I don’t screw up, sin, and die without repenting of that sin. Again, a pretty universal ‘No one”. And if there is any doubt about who is included in this “no one” Paul, In Romans 8:35 , 39 says the following:

35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 Just as it is written,
“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,

39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Notice the breadth of this statement. “Nothing and no one.” I believe this includes me. It also says no created thing can separate me from the Love of God. And I believe I am a created thing. Of course at this point, the reader can say “Oh, but God isn’t going to make me stay saved if I don’t want to be!” However, this statement is a part of a completely different issue. I will discuss that a bit later in the paper.

11. I Was Transferred from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of His Beloved Son , When I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior, I was transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, Jesus. I was moved (I didn’t do it myself, God did it) from darkness to light. I became, as we discussed earlier, a child of light, a son of the Father of lights. It was not anything I did to accomplish the transfer. God transferred me.

12. I Was Sealed Until the Day of Redemption by the Holy Spirit , In Ephesians 4:30 Paul tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit with whom we were sealed for the day of redemption. Notice that I did not do the sealing. The sealing was done to me, not by me. Eph 1:13 says I was sealed (again by someone else) in Christ. 2 Corinthians 1:22 tells us who sealed me: God who also gave us the Holy Spirit as a pledge in our hearts also sealed us.

13. I Died to Sin , According to Romans (6:6-7) our old self has died to sin and we are no longer slaves to sin. Before I became a Christian, I could not obey God’s law. I didn’t want to even if I could have (Romans 8:6,7). Before I received Jesus Christ as my savior, I was disobedient and only wanted to be disobedient. I was an enemy of God (Rom 5:10) and wanted to stay that way. I was in the flesh and wanted to be in the flesh (v. 8 ). But when I became a Christian, I gained the ability to be obedient and more importantly, the desire to be obedient to God.

Back to Anon

If, by sinning, I can lose my salvation, then the following has to happen.

1. I have to lose my eternal life , which, or course, isn’t eternal if I can lose it.
2. I have to cease to be the new creation and become an old creation again.
3. I have to cease to be a child of God , He has to disown me.
4. I have to again become a child of wrath.
5. I have to cease to be a child of Light and become a child of darkness again.
6. I have to be removed from the body of Christ , un-baptized as it were.
7. I have to come alive again, outside of Christ.
8. I have to get unburied and un-united in my burial with Christ.
9. I have to take myself out of Jesus’ hand.
10. I have to take myself out of the Father’s hand.
11. I have to be transferred back to the kingdom of darkness.
12. I have to be unsealed for the day of redemption.
13. I have to some how come alive again to the power of sin.

And remember, this has to happen each time I sin. And when I confess the sin to God, he has to redo all of this , again. I’m sorry, but even though I know God can do all things, what would be the point of that?

Paul, Peter, James, and John state over and over again that our behavior is an indicator of whether or not we are regenerated. If it’s our behavior that keeps us saved, then we are kept by works. Paul, writing to the Galatians, hammered them, asking if they were saved by faith and then kept by works. The implied answer there is: No. We are saved by faith. Sinning doesn’t un-save us. Willful sin could very likely be an indicator that I am not saved to begin with.

Approaching it a little differently, how much sin is enough to cause me to lose my salvation? If I get hit by a Mack truck while jaywalking, and didn’t have a chance to ask forgiveness, will I lose my salvation and go to hell? If I surf on the internet for fifteen minutes during work hours and suffer a massive heart attack before I can ask forgiveness, will I go to hell? Again, how much sin, or how severe a sin is needed for me to lose my salvation?

First Thessalonians 2, verse 12 is one of my favorite verses for summing up what I just said. It (and Eph 4:1 and Colossians 1:10) tell us to walk in a manner worthy of the call with which we have been called. It’s a little like the prince being told to behave like the prince he is. His behavior doesn’t make him a prince, or keep him from being a prince. But his behavior should be consistent with who (or in our case “Whose”) he is.

Repentance

Finally, in order to group Anon’s last blast of Scripture, Anon drops the following Scripture on us:
Anon’s List of Repentance Verses: Luke 13:3-5; Acts 17:30; Matthew 11:20-24; Revelations 2:5; Revelations 2:22b-23; Matthew 7:13-14.

Earlier, I said I would try to group the mass of Scripture. After reading over Anon’s presentation, I did notice at least one grouping. Anon lists the above verses to demonstrate the need for repentance. Usually, the term “repent” is used by those who teach loss of salvation to mean to feel sorry for my sins, to want to turn away from those sins, etc. It’s usually used like this: “You have to repent of your sins and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior.” Since I don’t have a quick and efficient way of checking with Anon on this, I will go with the meaning most of them give to the term.

Let’s take a look at what is being said. In order to do that, I will print the text of the each of his references and then discuss the verse with respect to context and application.

Luke 13:3 , 5
1 Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.

2 And Jesus said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate?

3 “I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

4 “Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem?

5 “I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

The referenced verse is not speaking of any kind of repentance leading to salvation. Rather, He is pointing out that the men who died are no worse than the men He was talking to. Several times Jesus’ disciples assumed that some calamity was the result of sin, either by the person or by the person’s parents. An example of this is in John 9:1-4. The disciples assumed the blind man or his parents had sinned and brought this calamity upon himself.

In Luke 13 Jesus admonishes them, pointing out that these men were no worse or better than them. They were called to repent (to change their minds) about their position with God.

Acts 17:30
30 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,

Again, looking at the entire section, Paul was speaking to a group of idol worshippers. He was pointing out to them that they had to change their view of who Jesus is. Notice that they rejected the resurrection. This isn’t a matter of a Christian being sorry for his new sins. Rather, it is about a group of people changing their minds about who Jesus Christ is.

Matthew 11:20 , 24
20 Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent.

21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

22 “Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.

23 “And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.

24 “Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.”

Again, Jesus is not speaking of Christians who need to feel regret for their new sins. Again it is speaking of people who should receive the truth being preached to them by Jesus.

Revelations 2:22b - 23
21 ‘I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality.

22 ‘Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds.

23 ‘And I will kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.

This one is probably the worst of his efforts. The “her” here is the harlot in Revelation. I don’t want to get into a back and forth on who or what the harlot is, but needless to say, she is not individual Christians who now have to confess their new sins. Like wise for the people who commit adultery with her.

Matthew 7:13-14

13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.

14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

I take it back. This is his worst effort. Jesus is telling His listeners that the way to the Father is narrow. In fact, he goes on in John 14:6 to say that He (Jesus) is the only way to the Father. You can’t get much narrower than that. Not much here about being sorry for your sins or being forgiven (or not) for your future sins.

Some of you may, in disagreeing with me, want to say that we are just interpreting it differently. That’s not good enough. Give the reason you interpret the section the way you do. Don’t pull a “John Jenkins.”

Here’s Anon’s comment that generated my posting:

1 John 3:10 KJV says: In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is NOT of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” In this passage, John made it clear that one’s behavior dictates whether they’re a child of God.

This very limited view of salvation is, I believe, one of the reasons he can say, with what I believe to be all sincerity, that the believer is held accountable for his or her sins once that person gets saved, and that they can, in effect, lose their salvation. And by “accountable” I assume Anon means the person who sins would have to pay the penalty of that sin , death and separation from God unless he confessed it to God before he died.

Posted by Melvin Jones on Sunday, July 31st, 2005 at 6:59 am.