February 5, 2005

This is a Calvinist philosophy that is part of the doctrine of Baptists, Presbyterians, and Reformed Churches. United Methodist teachings disagree with this statement. There is plenty of scripture that will point a person either way and is quoted back and forth to argue this point. You will also find that a person who is pushing you to their particular belief will enhance the scriptures used to promote that belief and will only offer a couple of scriptures promoting the other side.

Before I go any further, I do not believe that this issue is a ‘make it or break it’ issue with God. He continues to draw us to Him and will do so until the very end. But it certainly has created much debate throughout the centuries. And I can’t imagine that the debate will be answered as you read this article or anytime soon. The only answer that will be certain is when we approach the throne of glory and all is made known to us!

I will also tell you from the outset I believe we have the ability to walk away from God and end up in eternity far from Him. It’s always our choice and no matter what we say or do, God gives us free will to make a choice to be with Him in eternity or not.

Some of the strongest preachers and most popular bible teachers out there are teaching that once God has saved you from the darkness of hell, you can never lose that salvation. I have a lot of issues with that belief structure, which I will lay out for you in the paragraphs ahead.

I believe strongly that we can be influenced by teachers and preachers, but we should never accept unconditionally all that they say. Everything that we learn should be tempered by our own study and searching of the scriptures and of God’s activity in our lives. Every single teacher and / or preacher is human and theirs is not the divine word of God. Do not allow yourself to EVER be swayed simply because someone that you respect says that something is a certain way. Search it out for yourself, learn the scriptures and the passages that they offer, read other opposing voices. Please be sure to come to your own conclusions after spending time in prayer and study.

Scriptures that support the “Once Saved, Always Saved” belief are very strong and very important scriptures. I’m not going to interpret any of them here – I believe they speak for themselves and may sway many people to believe this is true. (All Scripture is taken from the NIV Bible).

Ephesians 2:8-10
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

John 3:16
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.

Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 11:29
For God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.

John 6:37-40
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 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.

John 10:27-29
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.

2 Corinthians 1:21-22
Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

I John 4:13-17
We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. Love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.

Ephesians 1:13-14
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of his glory.

1 John 2:19
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

Philippians 1:6
Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Are you convinced? I would be also. These are pretty decisive scriptures. Yet, they are not the entirety of our scriptures. And to simply use these to prove a point can prove to be very dangerous. That would be like a person telling the story of Jesus and leaving out the resurrection. It’s only part of the story.

The scriptures that are used to prove that a person can lose their salvation follow:

Matthew 10:22
All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

John 15:6
If anyone does not remain in my, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

1 Corinthians 15:2
By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

Galatians 6:8-9
The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

1 Timothy 1:18-19
Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith.

1 Timothy 6:20-21
Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you.

2 Timothy 2:12
If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will disown us.

Hebrews 6:4-6
It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

Hebrews 10:26
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left.

2 Peter 2:20-21
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred commandment that was passed on to them.

2 Peter 3:17
Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position.

There is enough scripture to keep your mind occupied debating itself back and forth for awhile on this issue. Now I want to clarify a few points for myself as well as for anyone who reads this.

The doctrine of ‘Once Saved, Always Saved’ is part of the Calvinist “five points of the doctrines of grace” (taken liberally from Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia).
1. Total Depravity – people do not have the ability to turn to God. It is the grace and will of God through the Holy Spirit that causes men who are dead in sin to be reborn through the Word.
2. Unconditional Election – God’s choice from eternity, of whom He will bring to Himself is not based on foreseen virtue, merit or faith in the persons He chooses but is unconditionally grounded in His own mercy.
3. Limited Atonement – Christ’s death actually takes away the penalty of sins committed by those upon whom God has chosen to have mercy.
4. Irresistible Grace – Those who obtain salvation do so because of the relentlessness of God’s mercy. Men yield to grace, not finally because God found their consciences more tender or their faith more tenacious than other men. Rather willingness and ability to do God’s will are evidence of God’s faithfulness to save men from the power and the penalty of sin.
5. Perseverance of the Saints – Those whom God has called into communion with Himself through Christ, will continue in faith and will increase in faith and other gifts, until the end. Those who apparently fall away, either never had true faith to begin with, or else will return.

Let me explain a few of these things. First of all, the basic idea is that man has absolutely no control over his/her relationship with God. It is all done by God. God calls mankind to him and this is irresistible. This is the basis of predestination. If God knows that you will be with Him in heaven, you cannot resist the pull of God’s mercy and you will be a Christian.

Because God’s grace is irresistible and He calls His own unto Himself, there is no logical way for them to fall from grace. It’s already a plan set into motion and there is nothing that mankind can do to change or alter this force.

The substance of Calvinism is total dependence on God. Every good thing any person has is there because of God’s unmerited grace, and salvation is particularly dependent on grace. All credit for everything must go directly to God – humans are but miserable sinners.

Arminians (not to be confused with people from Armenia – but based on theology founded by Jacobus Arminius) questioned these five doctrines and suggested five anti-Calvinist corrections. (again taken from the Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia)
1. Conditional Election: God has decreed to save through Jesus Christ, out of fallen and sinful mankind, those foreknown (not fore-decreed) by Him who through the grace of the Holy Spirit believe in Christ, but God leaves in sin those foreseen, who are incorrigible and unbelieving.
2. Universal Atonement: Christ’s death was suffered on behalf of all men, but God elects for salvation only those who believe in Christ.
3. Free Will with Partial Depravity: Freedom of will is man’s natural state, not a spiritual gift – and thus free will was not lost in the Fall. The grace of Christ works upon all men to influence them for good, but only those who freely choose to agree with grace by faith and repentance are given new spiritual power to make effectual the good they otherwise impotently intend.
4. Resistible Grace: The grace of God works for good in all men, and brings about newness of life through faith. But grace can be resisted even by the regenerate.
5. Uncertain Perseverance: Those who are incorporated into Christ by a true faith have power given them through the assisting grace of the Holy Spirit, sufficient to enable them to persevere in the faith. But it may be possible for a believer to fall from grace.

John Wesley promoted this Arminian theology with its emphasis on personal responsibility. Many critics of Calvinist theology believe that it promotes anarchy and irresponsibility by depraved humans. If you do not believe that you are personally responsible for a life lived in God’s will, then you will believe you have the freedom to do whatever you like. It is no longer up to you as to whether you will go to heaven or hell. It has already been decided and you have no control over the end of you life.

I have used the very base structure of Calvinist theology to prove my point. Many teachers and preachers have modified this theology to be more acceptable to the masses, but if push comes to shove, these are the basic ideas.

This doesn’t begin to finish the debate over these issues that have divided denominations for centuries. And the good news? That’s ok. As long as we are teaching Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2) and as long as we teach the love of Christ – “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (I John 3:16) we will be completing God’s will for us on this earth. He hasn’t called us to know everything about theology and doctrine. He has called us to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with the world.