Heresy in the church 3 - Once saved always saved

or 'You'll never lose your salvation'

I’m sure every one has heard this one before. Once you’re saved, rest assure, you’ll be in heaven, guaranteed.

Is it true?

Technically, it is true within a specific context.  But if it is used to give people assurance of their salvation, it is misleading.  If it is misleading, it is not true.  If the question is whether I will always be saved after saying the sinner’s prayer, then I will have to say ‘no’, even if it was a sincere prayer.  This comes from a flawed assumption that saying the sinners prayer is equivalent to conversion.  It is not. Conversion is the work of God.

Just because a person professes ‘Christianity’ does not mean that he or she has been converted.  The profession of faith means nothing.  The question is whether that person has been converted by the Spirit of God?

If the person’s conversion is genuine, then yes, that person will be saved in the end.  Not because he has made a confession some time in the past, but because he will continue to trust in Christ until he dies.  The evidence is that he will continue believing from the time of his conversion until he dies.  If someone asks me now if he will go to heaven when he dies, my answer is ‘if you continue in the faith, you will be in heaven’.  So the genuine Christian will not lose his salvation because God will will keep and sustain him/her to the very end.

What is more accurate is ‘ Once genuinely converted, a Christian will persevere to the end and be saved’.

When a person is saved, the author of his salvation is Jesus Christ.  He is the author and finisher of our salvation.  My confidence is in God – what He starts, He will always finish.  If He has changed me from a self willed rebellious sinner, deadly opposed to Him, to a person who loves Him, don’t you think He has the power to lead and sustain me to the end?  Of course.    Nothing can take us from the love of God.

Someone told me “yes nothing can take us from the hand of God, but we can jump out ourselves’.  This statement shows a lack of understanding of our salvation.  Did we ‘decide’ ourselves to be saved in the first place or were we drawn by the mercies and power of God in the first place?  If you decided yourself, then yes, you can undecide later.  I would say that such a belief is based on a shaky foundation – its up to you to decide to be saved, and its up to you to remain saved.  It is a man centred gospel.

However if I am saved by the will and power of God in the first place, where He woos and draws me to His Son Jesus Christ, and shows me the beauty and grace of His Son in saving me, then I am confident that He is faithful to work in me to keep me believing and trusting Him until the end.  My hope is in Christ alone to keep me, and not in my ability to keep myself.

Once the new birth has occurred in me by the power of the Holy Spirit, then I will continue to believe to the end, not by my sheer will power, but by the grace of God working in me, and empowering me to reach the end of my journey.