Once Saved, Always Saved
By Tom Holt
Back in the Sixties and Seventies, there was this man who for over a decade was the youth pastor of a fairly large church here in Connecticut. Under his leadership, the youth ministry prospered greatly. The young people in the church loved him dearly because he came up with all kinds of interesting programs and extracurricular activities.John 10:28,29 In the mid-Seventies, however, he had to resign in disgrace. He committed adultery. Later, he divorced his wife, married the other woman and relocated to a different town, where he found a secular job. According to those who had continued to keep in touch with him, the couple lived a worldly life thereafter; they didn't even bother to go to any church. Eventually, that former youth pastor died apparently without ever having repented.
With the world's materialism and depraved values having found their way much into the Christian community, tragedies like this are not really all that unusual nowadays. Long-time churchgoers, even reputed pillars of the congregation, would fall away from God and adopt all kinds of unholy lifestyles. Some even denounce what the Bible teaches, showing worse contempt for Christ than unbelievers.
The Bible speaks of these people in II Peter 2. We read in verses 20,21:
For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.Similar warnings are found in Hebrews 6 and 10, and in the parable where an uncleaned spirit, having gone out of a man, returns afterwards with seven even more wicked spirits. "The last state of that man," Matthew 12:45 says, "is worse than the first."Did these folks become saved and then lost their salvation? These passages certainly seem to suggest so. But of such backsliders, God explains in I John 2:19:
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.In other words, these people were never saved to begin with. They had known the gospel intellectually, they had tried to live like Christians, but they had never been born again.Comforting Assurances
The Biblical truth is: Once saved, always saved. This doctrine is what theologians call the Preservation or Perseverance of the Saints. By the preserving power of God, every believer will be able to persevere to the end. It is a truth that God reiterates throughout the Bible. Here are just four key passages:I. Jesus bore all the sins of believers.
He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isa. 53:5,6).If the iniquity of us all was laid on the Lord Jesus when He was smitten by God at the cross, then a child of God cannot possibly commit any sin that would cause him to lose his salvation. Once saved, always saved.II. Jesus intercedes for all believers.
On the eve before He went to the cross, Jesus prayed to the Father:And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. ...Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word (John 17:11,20).Having suffered to bring us salvation, our risen Lord continues to be deeply concerned with our eternal well-being. Hebrews 7:24,25 thus assures us:But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.With Jesus interceding for us, we can rest assured that God the Father will respond positively. He and the Father are one.III. God holds all believers in His hand.
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand (John 10:28,29).The word "eternal" is the opposite of ephemeral; it means everlasting, something that can never end. Anyone who is given eternal life, therefore, cannot fail to live forever. Since no one is able to pluck a believer from God's hand, moreover, even that person's own misbehavior cannot adversely affect his salvation. That's why Romans 8 concludes that nothing "shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."IV. God has given all believers a lifetime guarantee.
In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory (Eph. 1:13,14).Since Pentecost, every believer is sealed at the moment of his salvation with the Holy Spirit, who guarantees that he will receive a glorified, spiritual body on the last day. We who are truly saved can know for sure that God the Holy Spirit is indwelling us because He "beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Rom. 8:16). Indeed, His presence becomes more and more real as He reveals to us spiritual truths hidden in the scriptures and as He increasingly makes active our conscience with the word of God.All this is comforting assurances to us believers because no matter how hard we try, we can never be as perfect as God is perfect. Any time we take our eyes off the Lord Jesus, we succumb to disobedience. But knowing that we cannot lose our salvation, we need not ever live in the fear of condemnation; rather, we are just thankful that our Savior is so merciful and forgiving.
Portrait of a True Believer
This idea of "once saved, always saved" is often mistaken by professed Christians as a license to live a carnal life, however. To help us determine if we are truly saved, God has set forth in the Bible certain characteristics of a real believer. Check and see if you fit these descriptions:I. A true believer wants to obey God.
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him (John 14:21).Every born-again believer has been given a new soul that does not and cannot sin. United with Christ, that soul wants only to do the will of God. To be sure, we do not always succeed in being obedient, because
often we still yield to the sinful nature that is in our cursed body. But whenever that happens, our new soul makes us feel remorseful.So, if a person willfully disobeys God over and over again, his salvation is suspect. Jesus warns in Matthew 7:21: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."
II. A true believer pursues holiness.
Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord (Heb. 12:14).What is this holiness without which no one can see the Lord? It is to be set apart for the service of God. No one can serve God unless he is sanctified and purified. This goes back to why God had predestined us for salvation to begin with. We read in Ephesians 1:4: "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." Right from the beginning, God has wanted us to be holy and blameless.Again, we won't be perfectly holy and blameless until we get to heaven. Right now, God sees us through the righteousness of Christ. Even so, God wants us to mortify the sinful deeds of the body. By nature, we cannot do that, because we are enslaved to sin and Satan. But having been born-again, we have the indwelling Holy Spirit to help us put to death those misdeeds. This truth is implicit in the salutation of Peter's first epistle:
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.III. A true believer wants no part of the world.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him (I John 2:15).It's no exaggeration to say that most people in Christendom today want both religion and the world. They go to church regularly. Some even teach Sunday School and engage in all kind of church activities. But their everyday lives are not much different from those of the unsaved. They have the same wants for material things and seek more or less the same kinds of pleasures. They follow the same fads and rely on the same things for future security. By God's definition, the love of the Father is not in them.A true believer, God says here, does not love the world nor the things in the world. This does not mean that we cannot enjoy some of the things available in the world. After all, it is the living God "who giveth us richly all things to enjoy" (I Tim. 6:17). But our priorityon weekdays as well as Sunday, and at home or at work as well as in churchis always to serve and shine for the Lord that bought us with His own blood. To be the light and the salt of the world, our lifestyle must be markedly distinguishable from that of the unsaved.
IV. A true believer will endure to the
I started this message talking about people who fell away from God and died in sin, and suggested that they had never become saved. But we also know that even born-again believers occasionally stumble badly. In the Bible certainly David and Solomon did. How then are we to differentiate the two groups? Answer: By the grace of God, true believers will come back to the Lord in the end because God enables them to do so.
end.Incidentally, there's no doubt that Solomon was saved even though he acted wickedly in his old age. After his birth, II Samuel 12:24 says, David "called his name Solomon: and the Lord loved him." And the closing verses of Ecclesiastes reflects his repentance.
That Solomon repented underscores God's faithfulness in preserving His saints. Telling us to endure in our sufferings, God says in I Peter 5:10:
The God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.You see, God often allows Satan to tempt us as part of His program to refine us and strengthen our faith. Sometimes we succeed in resisting the devil; but at other times, we fail. The testing program may also cause us to suffer many afflictions. But ultimately, God Himself will restore us, making us strong and stedfast. Indeed, David was deeply remorseful after having been reminded of his sins and Solomon, judging by his closing remarks in Ecclesiastes, also repented before death.Self Examination
By all indications, we are now living very close to the end of time. This is the period the Lord describes as "great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be". We true believers are being persecuted by Satan's workers as never before. We don't know for sure how much longer or how much more severe the attacks from the devil will be. But it's reassuring to know that once saved, we are always saved. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ.Nevertheless, because the day of salvation may not last much longer, it behooves us to make sure that we are indeed born-again children of God. And so I close with these words from Philippians 2:12,13:
Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. oBack To Top