Can one lose his salvation? This is a nagging question in the lives of many. Let us see if we can discover the Biblical teaching concerning the subject of eternal security, which is somethimes called the perseverance of the saints.

In answering the question of the security of our salvation, we should begin by an understanding of the nature of the salvation God has provided for us. The Biblical picture of unsaved man is that he is a sinner. He is a slave of Satan both in body and soul. He is altogether rebellious against God. In his whole being he is perverted and spiritually destitute (Jeremiah 17:9, Romans 3:11-20, Ephesians 2:1-3). As a result of his sin, he is under sentence of death. The Bible declares "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). The nature of that death is not only physical death, but also being eternally under God's wrath. There is no way to come into God's holy Heaven unless the penalty of sin, eternal damnation, first has been paid.

This brings us to the nature of the salvation God has provided for those who are saved. Christ has come as the Mediator, as the Redeemer, as our substitute to pay for our sins. In order for him to do this it was necessary that he be a man like we are because it was man who sinned, and therefore it is man whom must pay the penalty for his sins. It was necessary for him to be God because the wrath of God is so overwhelming and so terrible that, had he been any less than God, he would have been utterly consumed as he sought to pay for our sins.

As our Mediator, he became sin for us (II Corinthians 5:19). That is, he took upon himself all the sins, the whole sinful nature, of those who have placed their trust in him. As our substitute, burdened with our sins, he stood before the judgment throne of God and was found guilty.

Because he had become quilty for our sins, God poured out upon him the wrath that we should have suffered by spending an eternity in Hell. Only because he was the God-man could he suffer so intensely that in the three days and three nights of the atonement he was able to completely pay for all our sins. What a wonderful Savior he is!

We, therefore, who have experienced this salvation, now stand before God as if we had just spent an eternity in Hell paying for all the sins we had ever committed.

The criminal who has just come out of jail after paying in full the sentence demanded by the law for his crime now stands without any further guilt before the law for his crime.

Likewise the law never again can make any demands upon us for our sins. Never again is there any way that we could stand guilty before God, for every sin that we had ever committed or would ever commit has been atoned for by our Savior. He ransomed us from Hell by paying the price of Hell in our place. Therefore the Bible declares that there is "no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). We are in him because he was our substitute. When our Lord Jesus went to the cross it was as if we were hanging there experiencing the wrath of God for our sins.

Since Christ has paid for all our sins, there is no way that we could commit a sin that would cause us to lose our salvation. Any sin we would do was already anticipated by Christ when he paid for our sins. As John 5:24 teaches, we do not come into judgment. Therfore we are eternally secure in Christ. Once we are truly saved, we can never lose that salvation because each and every sin we would ever commit has been covered by Christ's blood.

Moreover, the Bible teaches that as a result of our salvation some changes have occurred in us that have everlasting consquences and which further emphasize that we could never lose this salvation. John 5:24 teaches that we "have eternal life." If Christ had gone to the cross just to give us life, conceivably we could commit a sin and lose that life; but because he has given us eternal life, by the very nature of something that is eternal, it must be forever and ever. Thus there can be no sin that we could commit that could cause us to lose eternal life. This very statement, eternal life, implies that we can never lose this life that God has given us. We can never lose our salvation.

The phrase eternal life is not a philosophical term of some kind, thus having no real substance. Rather it is speaking of something that has become very substantive and real in our lives. It is related to the fact that in a very important part of our personalities we who are saved have become new creatures. We have been resurrected from being spiritually dead into eternal life.Let us see how this is.

The Bible teaches that in our essential beings we are body and soul. The Bible sometimes uses the word "spirit" in speaking of the soul or spirit essence of man. When man has conscious existence, as we all do on this side of the grave, we cannot see the soul of man. We are a completely integrated personality.

However, it is upon the death of an individual that a separation of soul and body does occur. At one moment there is a whole personality consisting of both body and soul. At the next moment there is only the body, which has no life in it whatsoever. Something has left that body. It is the soul, as real a part of that individual as his body, that has separated from the body and has left the body.

An example of the separation of soul and body is seen in the death of the thief on the cross. Jesus told the thief next to him,"Today thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." A bit later Jesus declared, "Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit." Shortly thereafter the body of Jesus was placed in a tomb. The body of the thief was also buried. But both Jesus and the thief were present with the Father in Heaven. They went there in their soul existence.

The apostle Paul speaks of this separation as he, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, emphasizes "willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord" (II Corinthians 5:8). Again, in Philippians 1:23,24 he confidently asserts "having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." Furthermore we read in Revelation 20:4 of the "souls of them that were beheaded...; they lived and reigned with Christ..."

The reason the believer can and does go immediately into Heaven upon death is that at the moment of salvation he receives the resurrection of his soul. Before salvation both in body and soul he is spiritually dead. We saw this so clearly in the chapter on Total Depravity. This is why I Peter 4:6 declares, "for this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead." Obviously the Gospel is not preached in a cemetery where bodies lie. Rather it is preached throughout the world to those who are spiritually dead. But when he becomes saved, he experiences a resurrection. This glorious fact is taught so incisively in the Bible. In Colossians 3:1 God declares, "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above." Our Savior experienced the resurrection when He arose from the grave. Since we are risen with Christ, we too must have experienced the resurrection.

In Ephesians 2:4-6 God insists, "God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace are ye saved; and hath raised us up together..." How beautifully God is teaching that we have been raised with Christ . Since he arose, that is, he experienced the resurrection, and since we arose with him, therefore we too have experienced the resurrection.

But in which part of our persons have we experienced the resurrection? It was not in our bodies. That can be seen so readily. Our bodies go into the tomb at death to await the resurrection of the last day. The whole Chapter 15 of I Corinthians discusses the wonderful event of the resurrection of our bodies.

Rather, it was in our soul or spirit essence that we experienced the resurrection. This is why at death the believer can go immediately into God's presence. While he cannot go into Heaven or be with God in his body until his body is resurrected a perfect spiritual body (cf. I Corinthians 15:42-44), in his soul or spirit he can go immediately into Heaven at death. His soul was already resurrected from the moment of salvation.

This resurrection is called the first resurrection in Revelation 20:5, as God is explaining why the souls of the martyrs can live and reign with Christ. These martyrs have already experienced the resurrection of their souls, the first resurrection, and therefore can go into God's holy presence immediately upon death. In this connection, in Revelation 20:6 God emphasizes five characteristics of those who have experienced the first resurrection. They are (a) "blessed", (b) they are "holy", (c) on such the second death has no power (cf. Revelation 20:14, where God teaches that the second death is Hell), (d) they are priests of God: and (e) they reign with him.

All five of these characteristics apply to those who have been saved. We are the blessed. Think for example of the Beatitudes of Matthew Chapter Five, where our Lord speaks of the various ways believers are blessed. We are holy (I Peter 2:9, "Ye are a holy nation"). We are those who will not come into the second death, He.. (Romans 8:1 reads, "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.") We are priests of God. (I Peter 2:9 reads, "Ye are a royal preisthood; cf. Revelation 5:10.) We reign with him. (Ephesians 1:20-22 shows us that Christ is seated at the right hand of God reigning over everything in this age as well as that to come. And Ephesians 2:6 declares that we are seated with Him.)

Therefore, we too are reigning as we serve as his ambassadors on this earth (cf. Revelation 5:10). Thus we can know that the first resurrection applies to the one who has experienced salvation.

This explains, also, why the believer has within himself a great love for God and an earnest desire to do God's will. We read in I John 3:9, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." You see, it is in our soul that we have experienced the new birth, that we have been born from above, that we have experienced the resurrection, that we have become a new creation. Therefore, in our soul existence we will never wish to sin again.

Only because our bodies have not experienced the resurrection are we still troubled by sin. In our bodies, which are as real a part of us as our souls, we still lust after sin, and therefore we are commanded to crucify the flesh and its desires. In our soul, wherein we have already experienced the resurrection, and which is as real a part of us as our body, we never wish to sin again. God speaks about this struggle in the life of the child of God through the apostle Paul, as we read in Romans 7:21-24:

I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man (in his soul, where he has become born from above); but I see another law in my members (in his body, where he has not yet experienced the resurrection) warning against the law of my mind ("mind" in this context is a synonym for soul) and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

When we realize that the child of God had experienced the resurrection, not only can we understand the conflict that continues in the life of the one who has been saved, but we can also understand why the Bible declares in I Peter 4:6 that those who were preached to when they were spiritually dead might "live according to God in the spirit." In our "spirit" or "soul" we experienced the resurrection, and therefore we can live to God.

Now we can understand, too, why God declares in I Thessalonians 3:13 that when Christ comes He will come with all his saints. In I Thessalonians 4:14 this truth is further underscored as God promises at the coming of Christ that "them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." Those who have been saved eventually die; that is, they fall asleep (to use the Biblical language). But while their bodies are placed in the graves to await the resurrection of the last day, in their souls they continue to everlasting life. Death is simply the time when they change residence. At death they leave their bodies and continue to live and reign with christ in Heaven.

All these marvelous truths and promises are certain and sure because at salvation we receive eternal life. How wonderful is the grace of God that He has provided such a magnificent salvation. Surely we should be able to see that one who is truly saved is eternally secure.

Before I leave the subject of eternal life I should comment on the future of the unsaved who remain dead in their sins. When they die there is likewise a separation of soul and body. But they in their soul existence cannot go into the presence of God. They cannot go there because they have not experienced the resurrection of their souls. The Bible tells us they go to a place of silence (Psalm 115:17). They will not have conscious existence again until they are raised at the end of time to stand for judgment. God speaks of this in Revelation 20:5, "the rest of the dead" (the unsaved) "lived not" (did not have conscious existence) "until the thousand years were finished."

In other words, when unsaved persons die, the next thing they will be aware of is the resurrection of the last day when they are raised to stand for judgment. How awful that judgment will be! How eternally important it is that we become saved while it is still the day of grace. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" (Hebrews 2:3)

Returning to the matter of the eternal security believers enjoy, we find many other passages which teach this grand truth. In John 10:27-31 God declares that we shall never perish, and no one shall snatch us out of God's hand. In Ephesians 1:12 we have the promise that God has given the Holy Spirit to the believer as the guarantee of his inheritance. In Phillppians 1:6 the Bible faithfully promises that God will complete His work within us. In the closing verse of Romans 8, God promises that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. Specifically, we read these beautiful promises:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Verses 35 and 38-39)

Here we have the very confidence of salvation. As we consider these verses, how can we think even for a moment that we can lose our salvation?

But aren't there verses that seem to indicate beyond the shadow of a doubt that, after all, we can lose our salvation? What about such passages as Hebrews 6:4-8 or Hebrews 10:26-27 or II Peter 2:20 or John 15:2,6? If we read these passages superficially, isolating them from the rest of Bible, we can indeed come to a conclusion that a believer can lose his salvation. However, when we read them and study them as we should, that is, viewing them in the light of everything else the Bible teaches, we know that under no circumstance could they be teaching that we can lose our salvation. If they are teaching this, then we would have a major contradiction concerning all the other passages of the scripture that indicate the nature of our salvation and the promises of God concerning the eternal character of our salvation.

But these passages that seem to teach the possibility of the loss of our salvation must be faced. They, too, are part of the Bible. We can understand them if we will keep in mind, as we saw earlier in our study, that the Bible presents the body of Christ or the church in two ways. Somethimes, when the Bible is talking about Christ's body or the church, it is speaking of individual believers who personally have become born again. These individuals are, of course, eternally secure in Christ, as we have seen from the foregoing passages.

The Bible also, however, presents the body of Christ as a corporate body, that is, as an organized membership of those who have declared their desire to serve God. This corporate body is seen in the congregations and denominations and groups of believers which have been formed throughout the New Testament period and who declare that they will serve the Lord Jesus Christ. But within this corporate body of church members there are many who are not born again. Corporately they have become citizens of God's Kingdom by virtue of their church membership.

But personally they have not become new creatures in Christ. Personally, their sins have not as yet been paid for. They have never personally accepted the fact of their spiritual bankruptcy and the fact that it is only by grace that they can be saved. They are those who believe that because they have joined the church, because they are seriously attempting to live a holy life, therefore they are worthy before God. They have a knowledge of many things that the Bible teaches. They know the Bible declares that mankind is sinful and is under the wrath of God. They know that Christ is the only way, But personally, individually, this has never become an intrinsic, intimate part of their lives. They are yet in their sins.

Israel of old is an excellent example of this. Every Israelite was convinced he was saved, that he was acceptable to God. He believed this in view of the fact that Israel was the chosen race, in view of the fact that He kept the ceremonial laws. But the Bible teaches that most of Israel at any time in its history was unsaved.

Hebrews 3:15-19 declares this most graphically, as God states that they could not enter into His rest because they believed not.

This passage remembers ancient Israel in the wilderness on the way to the land of Canaan. They were intimately associated with God as He guided them in the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by nigtht. They drank the water that miraculously come from the rock. They tasted of the manna that came from heaven. They were enlightened concerning the will of God. They were under the personal leadership of that great type of Christ, Moses. But most of them were not saved. The Bible sadly records "that they could not enter in" (Hebrews 3:19). It explains further that "the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it" (Hebrews 4:2).

Corporately they were members of Christ's body. Corporately they had become identified with the Lord Jesus Christ. Corporately they were the bride of Christ. Corporately they were well acquainted with the promises of God. Corporately they experienced many blessings of God in their lives. But personally they were not saved. They individually had not trusted God with saving faith. Therfore they were still subject to Hell.

So is the case in the church today. There are those who are members of the congregation in good and regular standing. They may teach Sunday School. They may be pastors. They may pray fervently. They may read the Bible. They may do all the things that true believers do. But if they have not become new creatures in Christ, they still are not saved. These are the people whom God has in view in such passages as Hebrews 4:4-8, Hebrews 10:26-27, II Peter 2:20, and John 15:2,6. Like Nicodemus, who was a faithful member of the Jewish congregation of his day, they must still be born from above before they can enter Heaven.

Obviously, those in the congregation who have not experienced the new birth and yet believe they are saved rightly should believe they can fall from grace. The salvation they are following is one in which they are expecting to be declared worthy before God because of their church membership or because of their actions as seemingly committed Christians. When they stop living this way, they no longer are identified with the body of Christ.The fact is they were never saved.

The doctrine that we can fall from grace or lose our salvation is indeed very dangerous in the sense that effectively it makes our works a ground for salvation. If we believe that somehow by God's grace we are saved, but now, being weak in ourselves in departing from the law of God we would stand guilty before God, effectively we are declaring that a condition of our salvation is our good works. In other words, we think we are saved by God's continued grace in some sense, but in actuality we are attempting to gain salvation by living some kind of holy life.

We therefore have effectively designed our own salvation plan whereby we can merit God's continued favor and salvation by our acts in doing good works. Our salvation, therefore, is no longer a gracious bestowal of God's grace, God's unmerited favor upon hopelessly bankrupt sinners, but is something we have earned because of our holy lives. We have then fallen into the snare of the Jews of whom God speaks in Galatians 5, who were insisting that a requirement of salvation was circumcision. There God declares that those who believe this are then not under grace but under the curse of the law. Ephesians 2:8-10 clearly indicates that by grace we have been saved, not of works.

That our works could never save us is clearly indicated when we realize that the Bible teaches our best works are as filthy rags in God's sight (Isaiah 64:6). In James 2:10 God declares that if we have broken one of the smallest points of the law, we are guilty of the whole law of God. In other words, if we think for a moment that we can be saved by doing good works, we have elected to follow a salvation plan whereby we would have to be absolutely perfect before him. If we deviate in the slightest from the perfection of God's law, we immediately come into the condemnation of sin and will be cast into Hell. Praise God that our salvation is of grace! The works that we do are a result of God's grace in our lives.

Some are afraid that if we teach that we cannot lose our salvation, someone who is a believer will become a very profane, wicked person in the security of believing that every sin has been paid for. He therefore will wish to enjoy the pleasure of sin.

Anyone who has become a true child of God will realize the impossible nature of this statement. He is a new creature in Christ, living with an eternal resurrected soul. Sin has become abhorrent to him. He doesn't require the threat of God's condemnation to be motivated to live a holy life.

In the eyes of an unsaved person, who lusts after sin both in his body and soul, sin is very attractive. But in the life of the true believer, who has received his resurrected soul, there is a severe conflict within his own personality when he sins. In his new soul he feels violated if he gives in to the lusts of his sinful body. He finds that his highest pleasure is in obedience to God because this is the kind of life in which his soul has pleasure.

Moreover, God indwells him. He has become the property of God, in view of the fact that he was ransomed by Christ. God therefore will begin to deal with him if he continues in sin. It is thus impossible for a born from above believer to backslide, to again live as the unsaved person that he was before he had become a new creature in Christ.

We therefore see very conclusively that there is no question at all about the eternal security of our salvation. What a tremendous comfort to us who have experienced God's saving grace in our lives! We never have to live with that feeling that possibly we might commit a sin of which we are not aware, or for which we have not specifically asked forgiveness, and thus end up in Hell in spite of the fact that at one time we were saved. We live with the peace of God in our hearts that we eternally are sons of God. We live with that tremendous joy that all our sins have been paid for. We will never have to answer to God for our sins. We will never stand before the judgment throne of God. The Lord Jesus Christ, as our substitute, as our Mediator, has already stood condemned before God on our behalf. As our sin-bearer He has already borne the wrath of God we so rightly deserved. What a magnificent salvation God has provided for us!

On that note we conclude our consideration of Eternal Security, which is also referred to as the doctrine, Once saved, always saved. We have considered it under the topic of the Perseverance of the Saints.

On our next and final page we will conclude our study of Gods Salvation Plain

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