Loss Of Salvation (September 24, 2006)

"Can someone lose his salvation?"

I was asked this the other day. I've been asked it before, and will be asked it again. It seemed good to write out a response.

I have come to believe that the key word in that question is the word "someone". Who exactly is the "someone" whose security of salvation we are questioning? Presumably "someone" here is understood to be "someone who believes in Jesus." But clarification is needed. Do we mean someone who believes in Jesus with living faith or dead faith? James distinguishes the two in James 2:14-17:

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

James says that faith without action is dead, and when he asks the rhetorical question, "Can such faith save him?" the answer is no. Even demons have dead faith, according to verse 19 of that chapter. And they're damned. (See Jude 6.)

So now the question is, "Can someone who believes in Jesus with living faith lose his salvation?"

I have one more thing to clarify first. By "believe" do we mean believe permanently or temporarily? For example, when Paul told the Philippian jailer, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31), suppose the jailer had asked, "How long do I have to believe before I can go back to my pagan religion?" Would Paul have given him a safe time period? Believe in Jesus a day or two, or a month, maybe 10 years - and that ought to do it? Or was it understood that the man was being called to permanent faith?

I don't think it is debatable that this, and all biblical invitations to believe in Christ, are invitations to believe in him permanently. What is debated, though, is whether it is possible to believe in him temporarily. Frankly it bothers me that this is considered controversial, since Jesus spoke directly to the issue in Luke 8:13 in the parable of the sower and the seeds: "Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They
believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away." Any who think it is impossible to "believe for a while" are met with a Scriptural rebuke in the plain words of Christ.

Now I feel hat the question we started with is answerable. "Can someone who believes permanently in Jesus with living faith lose his salvation?" Absolutely not. All such people are children of God and eternally secure. Nothing can separate them from the love of Christ (Romans 8:35-39). They hear the voice of Jesus, follow him, receive from him eternal life, and nothing can take them out of his hand. (John 10:27-28).