Can a person loose their Salvation?

Question:

Can you be saved and then loose your salvation again?

Submitted by DH on March 26, 1998

Answer:  (Answered by Brian Swaim, editor, Christian Crusaders Monthly)

This is a very good question. Many people today are under the impression that once a person is saved, he can never lose that salvation, no matter what they do. This is not taught in the scriptures; in fact, the exact opposite is taught. Let us examine the word of God to see exactly what God says on the subject.

"Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12) Recently at a volleyball game of mine, I was discussing this very topic with one of my teammates and he claimed that this verse was referring to someone who thinks they are saved but really were never saved. If we examine what the word "fall" means, we will see that to fall you must first be standing. No one can fall from somewhere they are not. If you're already on the ground, there is nowhere for you to fall. If falling were impossible, the Holy Spirit would not have warned us not to fall.

Paul was preaching about the way to heaven using the analogy of a race in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27. He talks about how after we run the race we can win the prize which is heaven. In verse 27, he writes, "but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified." Paul was saved, no doubt, and was also an apostle of Christ. Paul knew it was possible for him to fall, so he buffeted his body. If it's possible for an apostle to fall, surely we can!

The Bible teaches that if we stop believing we will fall from grace (Hebrews 3:12). In Galations 5:4, Paul is writing to the church in Galatia. The church is not the building, but the body of Christ, we are forced to conclude that the Galation church was saved. In Galations 5:4, Paul writes, "You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified." The word "severed" means "to cut off or separate." If something is severed, then it has to have been attached. In other words, Christians who were part of Christ were severed or cut off from Him.

2 Peter 2:20-22 says, "For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment delivered to them..." My friend, once again after seeing this verse, proclaimed that it meant one who heard the word but rejected it and was never saved. Closer examination of the scripture will prove this false. It starts off by saying that they have "escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of...Jesus." To escape the world by Jesus can mean nothing but that they were saved.  Then it goes on to say that "they are again entangled in them and are overcome" which means that they have gone back into the world. It finally says that "the last state has become worse for them than the first." The first state is
before you're a Christian when you're lost so for the last state to be worse, it must mean that they are no longer saved and fallen from grace.

Christ spewed the Laodiceans out of His mouth for being lukewarm. Remember that a church is all the Christians or the saved. Revelation 3:14, 16 says "And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write... because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot; I will spit you out of my mouth." The church (saved) were spit out of Christ's mouth."

Paul writes in James 5:19-20, "My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth, and one turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death, and will cover a multitude of sins." Paul identifies them as his brethren (Christians) and then says that if they stray from the truth and are turned back that their soul will be saved from death.

These are just some of the many, many scriptures teaching that a child of God can fall away from God so as to be eternally lost. Remember that man is saved by grace (Ephesians 2:8), a Christian can fall away from grace (Galations 5:4), and therefore, a Christian may be lost. On a last side note, my friend on the valley team admitted I was right and that he had just believed what he had been taught all his life and had never seen those scriptures.

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." (Matthew 7:15)

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