Can you lose your salvation? The short answer is, “No.” You can’t lose your salvation, well, not like you lose your glasses or car keys anyway. It doesn’t just get misplaced. It’s also not something that can be taken from you in that someone else can get between you and God and steal your faith or ruin your opportunity to have a home in Heaven. (John 10:28) God is certainly not going to go back on His generous offer of salvation. He won’t abandon you. Nothing can separate you from His love. (Romans 8:38-39)
I think the question that was being asked on the card that I received is, “Do we believe that once a person is saved that person is always saved?” Let me begin by defining salvation so we all understand just what is at stake.
When Jesus died on the cross, He paid the price we should have paid for our sins, the price sin required. He died in our place so we could go free. If we will trust Him to cover our sin AND trust Him to give us new life, a resurrected life, life with Him, in Him and for Him, He freely gives it to us. So, to be clear, we are saved FROM something, which is sin. AND, we are saved TO something, which is new life in Christ. We not only benefit from Christ’s death in that His death took care of our sin problem, but we also benefit from His resurrection because it means that we, too, can live a resurrected life, a new life, here on earth and a new existence one day forever in Heaven.
My understanding of salvation is that it happens in a moment of time but is lived out over the rest of a person’s lifetime. The moment you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, (Acts 16:31) the moment you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, (Romans 10:9) the moment you repent of sin to follow Jesus, (Acts 2:38) you are saved. So, salvation is a recognition that you are a sinner in need of a Savior, that Jesus IS that Savior, and is an acknowledgement that you are turning from a life of sin to receive the life He offers which is new life that heads in a new direction away from sin and self. Salvation involves inviting Jesus to live out His life in you. You’ll notice that when people are baptized here, I ask them questions to verify that this is the life they are seeking to live. Salvation is the beginning of a relationship with Jesus. A relationship isn’t a one-time meet up. Relationships are ongoing.
Scripture says that salvation involves belief. We believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe He is the Messiah. We believe He died in our place. We believe He was buried and rose on the third day. We believe He knows the way to a life that pleases our Heavenly Father. We believe He will usher us into Heaven. Those beliefs are more than intellectual beliefs. They are more than thoughts we think and ideas we ascribe to. Our beliefs are to impact the way we live.
The Greek word for belief (psteewo), “Pisteuo” means “to think to be true, to be persuaded of, to credit, to place confidence in.” Notice there is a thinking component that does involve a person’s intellect, but we move from mere thought, to the involvement of a person’s will. When you are persuaded of something it changes the way you live. When you are giving credit to someone, you are testifying to something about them. When you are placing confidence in someone, you are allowing the person you place that confidence in to guide and direct your life. So, faith is more than mere belief. James 2:17 says that “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:17) A dead faith isn’t a saving faith. Now, don’t hear what I am not saying. We aren’t saved by works, but works are a byproduct of our faith. If our lives never take on the character of Christ, if there is no spiritual fruit in our lives, we have to ask ourselves, if we have truly been persuaded, if we are truly crediting Christ with saving our lives, if our lives are a testimony to His saving grace, and if we have truly placed our confidence in Him to lead our lives.
So, there is supposed to be evidence that a person has been saved, has had their sin forgiven and has placed their trust in Christ and is walking in the newness of life that He offers. Scripture teaches that there will be a demonstration of that person’s faith through their will, decision-making, their testimony and their life’s direction. Now, only God knows the condition of a person’s heart, so we have to be careful about trying to decide who is in or who is out, but you know yourself if the condition of your faith is more than an intellectual belief.
Given all of that commentary as an underpinning regarding the definition of salvation, can it be lost? Scripture teaches we have free will. That means, no one can force us to become a Christ-follower, not even Christ himself. God created us with the ability to choose Him or reject Him. Exercising our free will, we can opt in, and exercising our free will, we can opt out. We do not lose our free will when we come to Christ. Following after Him, being in relationship with Him is a daily choice. So, while we may be saved today, tomorrow, or next month or next year, we may make a choice to trust in something other than Christ. We may decide we no longer believe in Him as the Messiah, that we don’t want to obediently serve Him or seek His will, that we no longer trust Him for forgiveness or that we no longer even think we need to be forgiven. A rejection of Christ will result in the loss of salvation.
II Timothy 2:11-12 says, “If we died with Him (Christ), we will also live with Him. If we endure, we will also reign with Him. If we disown Him, He will also disown us.”
Look at Hebrews 3:12-14 12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.
What is implied here is “to the very end of a person’s life.” Notice that verse 12 says a person can choose to turn away from the Living God. There are many words of warning about falling away from God all throughout Scripture. Think about falling away from God, from falling out of love with Christ as your Lord, like you might think about falling out of love with a spouse. You don’t accidentally fall out of love with a spouse. You don’t just misplace love for a spouse. You don’t make a mistake and fall out of love with a spouse. Falling out of love is a result of a lack of intention, a lack of effort, or a lack of time spent working on that relationship. Falling out of love follows willful decisions to make room for other things, other interests, other loves. Falling out of love is the result of avoiding tending to things that need to be addressed in the relationship, of avoiding the hard conversations or work that go with having a great relationship. I suppose I would say about marriage, you get out of it what you put into it.
The same is true of our relationship with Christ. Unlike marriage where one person may be totally invested and the other isn’t super present or committed, God is all-in with you. He will never not show up for you. He will always have your back. He will never say He is too busy for you. He will never have to work to pencil you in on His calendar. He will never deny you what you need. He will never withhold anything good from you. He will never give you the cold shoulder or the silent treatment. God will always make good on His promises and be present for you no matter what you are going through. He is a Covenant-keeping God. But you can decide to turn your back on Him. You can decide to withhold your love. You can choose to walk away and pursue other things than Christ. Listen to some verses that talk about a person’s ability to fall away, to walk away.
Matthew 24:10-13- 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.
I Timothy 4:1- The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
Jeremiah 15:6-You have rejected me,” declares the Lord. “You keep on backsliding.
So I will reach out and destroy you; I am tired of holding back.
II Peter 3:17 Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position.
II John 1:8-9- 8 Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. 9 Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.
Some other verses for your consideration would be:
Psalm 14:3
II Timothy 4:3-4
Hebrews 3:12
Hebrews 10:26-27
Revelation 2:4-5
So, we do not believe in the doctrine called “Eternal Security,” a once-saved-always-saved doctrine. Those who do basically believe that if a person turns away, they were never really saved in the first place. (I could probably be persuaded to believe such because after what I know about Jesus and His love for me, I would never want to choose anything else.) We don’t believe that a person can make a profession of faith and then live in ongoing disobedience to Christ and claim to be saved. Our Eternal Security believing friends would agree. I will tell you that I believe I am eternally secure because I never intend to turn my back on Jesus, and I KNOW He will never turn His back on me. When I sin, I will confess it, and He will forgive me, and I don’t have to worry that if I walk out of here today and do something that I shouldn’t that God will cut me lose. His grace is sufficient for me in moments when I fail because even though I may not get it perfect every day, I stand in the perfection of Christ, my heart is in it for Him, with Him, and my heart’s desire is to do His will.
II Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?
God knows what is in your heart, but so do you. You know if you are walking in newness of life with Jesus or if you are doing your own thing apart from Him.
The second question I want to tackle today is this one: Do you ever preach about Hell? I can honestly say I don’t like to. That isn’t something I get super excited to talk about, but I do address that following Jesus is the only way to get to Heaven and that eternal separation from God awaits those who won’t trust Christ for salvation. I have also said several times that what makes Hell, Hell is the reality that God isn’t there. While we are here on earth, even if you aren’t following Jesus, you are benefitting from the fact that His Spirit is still at work in the world and is at work in the lives of Christ’s followers. God is not absent from this world. The evil and chaos may tend to overshadow His work, but trust me, if God wasn’t working out His will and supporting His children through all of the craziness that is life, we would be in a Hell on earth. People still have access to God’s grace, goodness and power on earth. That won’t happen in Hell.
I think the question behind the question perhaps, is, what is my theology on Hell? Let me start with the statement that as beings, created in the image of God, we are eternal. That means we will live forever, somewhere. Death is not annihilation. We don’t cease existing when we die. Our spirits leave our bodies when we breathe our last breath here and our first breath in eternity, whether in Heaven or Hell.
Jesus had a lot to say about Hell. When you look at His commentary on Heaven and Hell, you will find that He had more to say about Hell than Heaven. He wanted to make sure we knew it was real. Here are a few light and fluffy texts:
Matthew 5:29-30 29 If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
Not exactly light or fluffy, is it? Jesus isn’t promoting the dismembering of our bodies, but He is illustrating that Hell is such a horrible place that you need to avoid it at all costs. If something you are doing puts you in a spiritual condition that your eternal destination would be Hell, you need to be radical about making a change.
Jesus referred to Hell as a place of fire in Matthew 13:49-50. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The people in Hell are crying. They are gnashing their teeth, literally grinding their teeth in pain. There are a lot more Scriptures about hell being the place where people gnash their teeth. They’ll be in the transcript on our website. You can look them up. (Matthew 8:12; Matthew 13:41-43; Matthew 22:13; Matthew 24:51; Matthew 25:30; and Luke 13:28) I will also include other references to Hell as fire, a fire that never goes out, in the website transcript. (Isaiah 66:24, Mark 9:43, Mark 9:48, Matthew 13:42, Matthew 5:22, Matthew 18:9, Matthew 18:8, Matthew 25:41, Revelation 14:10)
Pastor, are you trying to scare us into Heaven? I would love for everyone here to have a revelation of the love and grace of God that would be so compelling, so convicting, so convincing and so appealing that you couldn’t wait to enter into a relationship with Jesus, but if the reality of eternal fire in Hell is the starting motivation for you to give your heart to Jesus, it isn’t a bad one! I am not trying to scare anyone into Heaven, but I was asked the question regarding a theology of Hell, and I can’t sugar coat what the Word says.
From the oldest book of the Bible which scholars agree is Job, to the book of Revelation, there are many Scriptures that define Hell as a place of darkness. See Job 10:21-22, Job 17:13, Job 15:23, and Nahum 1:8. Jesus referred to it as darkness in Matthew 8:12, Matthew 22:13, and Matthew 25:30. Jude 1:13 and Revelation 16:10 also refer to it as darkness.
In Mark 9 Jesus describes it as a place where worms eat you, but the worms never die. That torment is never over. “Worm” is from the Greek root word, “scolex” and refers to a maggot that eats dead flesh. The synthesis of Bible teaching regarding Hell is that it is a place of ongoing, eternal torment.
There are some different names for Hell in the Bible. In the New Testament, the word, “hell” is translated from a Greek word, “Gehenna.” It is an actual place that was southwest of Jerusalem where pagan people would sacrifice children to the false god, “Molech.” It was literally a dump where burned bodies were placed. There were constant smoldering fires of human flesh and festering worms. It became a picture of what Hell is like.
“Sheol” is a word in the Old Testament which means “underworld” or “place to which people descend at death.” In the New Testament, the word is translated into the word “Hades” in Greek which has the same meaning.
The fire is awful. The worms are tormenting. The darkness is consuming, but the worst part about Hell is that it is a place of separation from God forever. There won’t be second chances. You can’t pray people out of Hell. God isn’t going to change His mind on the eternal consequences for unrepentant sin. II Thessalonians 1:9 talks about being shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might. I cannot imagine one day being shut out of God’s presence here on earth. How in the world could I endure that for eternity?
The reality is that God didn’t create Hell for us. It was created for the devil and his angels. Matthew 25:41 It’s not God’s desire that we wind up there. Satan and his demons have no choice. That is their eternal fate. They cannot repent, but there is still time for you.
Why does Hell have to exist? As I have established, we have free will. Free will requires that there is an actual choice to make. We can choose Christ and Heaven, or we can reject Christ and Heaven. The opposite or antitheses of that choice is Hell. We can choose Heaven or we can choose Hell. God is completely holy. No unholy thing can enter His direct presence. So, those who die apart from Christ, cannot enter His presence in Heaven.
Many people will ask, “How could a loving God send someone to Hell?” He doesn’t. We choose Hell when we reject the gift of grace through Jesus Christ. That isn’t on God. It is on us. Hell isn’t a threat for a Child of God. I never wake up one day and wonder if I am in danger of going to Hell. I know the God who saved me has power to keep me. I know He will deliver what He has promised. I know my best life here and in eternity result from following Him. So, today, and every day thereafter, I resolve to exercise my free will to choose the One who has chosen me!
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