Can Christians Lose Their Salvation?

Will a Christian, once saved, stay saved? Or do people have the capacity to reject the salvation they once chose? Can they turn from Jesus after having embraced Jesus? Calvinists do not believe so. If a person has truly been regenerated by an act of God, then they will continue in salvation to the very end of their lives. This is called “perseverance of the saints.” Arminians believe that Christians can persevere, but don’t believe they are guaranteed to never fall away.

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The Real Question

We’ve talked about the Calvinist T-U-L-I-P, an acronym that summarizes the main points of Calvinist theology. Calvinists like to joke that the Arminian flower is not a tulip, but a daisy. They imagine someone picking the petals off a daisy, saying, “He loves me. He loves me not.” This uncertainty about salvation is a misrepresentation of Arminian thinking. If a Christian is to lose their salvation, it is not because God is fickle or withholds his love. 

Like in so many other areas of this debate, at the heart of this issue is human choice. If a person initially chose to respond to God’s invitation, what would prevent that person from changing their mind and rejecting God’s invitation, at a later date? 

The question is not: “Can Christians lose their salvation because they sin?” Some people wonder if they can fall out of God’s grace by living a worldly life, or by committing some kind of unpardonable sin. But generally, neither Calvinists nor Arminians believe that a genuine Christian will ever be disqualified by God from salvation based on how well he or she lived up to God’s law or lived a holy life.

The real question is whether a person, once saved, can choose to not be saved. Having embraced Jesus Christ by faith, can a person later choose to reject Jesus Christ and thus be eternally lost?

Absolute Security in Christ

The Calvinist view is that perseverance to the end is a promise of God. Because God is the author and finisher of our faith, we cannot fall away from salvation. Since God’s will cannot be changed or influenced, not a single one whom God has chosen, for whom Christ died, and who were drawn and transformed by God’s irresistible pull of grace, can ultimately be lost. All of them will be glorified when Christ returns. Based on the direct gift of grace from God in their lives, all those who are delivered by God’s grace in this way will show evidence of it by living a life of perseverance in faith and obedience to the Word. They may have ups and downs in their intimacy with and obedience to God. They may have times of wandering. But because believers are kept in faith by the power of God, the elect will ultimately persevere in righteousness and will never lose their salvation.

Calvinists argue this conclusion from the sovereign nature of God. If God is king of the universe, his will cannot be successfully opposed. What God chooses will come to pass. Thus those whom he has called to be saved will never fall away.( John 6:39; 10:28).

Some also argue for the perseverance of believers based on the essential nature of salvation. The New Testament describes salvation as much more than just a transaction between two parties. A mere transaction could become void if either party backs out. But salvation is based on a covenant, ratified by the blood of Jesus, which God will always keep even if we don’t (2 Timothy 2:13). 

More to the point, salvation involves the transformation of a believer’s nature. Someone who was spiritually dead is made alive (Ephesians 2:5). Is that act of God to grant life reversible? Likewise, a Christian is someone who has died with Christ (Romans 7:4). Anyone in Christ is a new creation. “The old is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Christians have a new nature, created after the likeness of God as truly righteous and holy (Ephesians 4:22-24). Consider this illustration. A butterfly can never go back to being a caterpillar again. Why not? Because its fundamental nature has been changed. It is no longer what it once was. This kind of change seems irrevocable. A child, once born, cannot enter its mother’s womb again. Human beings, once born again of the Spirit, cannot revert to their previous existence, because their new condition is based on the transformative work of God.

Calvinists tend to emphasize Bible passages that focus on the power of God and the eternal nature of his work in a believer’s life:

• Matthew 24:24 – For false messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even God’s chosen ones.

It seems that it is not possible to deceive the elect in a way that nullifies their salvation.

• Luke 15:11-32 – “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger!’ I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and you…”’

The prodigal son falls away for a time, but not permanently. He never stops being a child of his father.

• John 4:14 – “But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring with them, giving them eternal life.”

This is an unconditional promise. Those who drink the water of salvation will never be thirsty again.

• John 6:39 – “And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day.”

God’s will is that of all he gives Christ, none should perish. So perseverance is based on the success of Jesus to accomplish the Father’s will.

• John 10:28 – “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me…”

Jesus gives believers eternal life and they shall never perish.

• Romans 8:29-30 – For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that this Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.

Those whom God calls he also justifies and glorifies. Glorification is a future event. Those called by God and justified will make it to that point.

• 1 Corinthians 1:8 – He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns.

The verse doesn’t say that in the future, when Christ returns, believers MAY still be free from all blame, but they WILL be.

• Philippians 1:6 – I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

Christians are assured that God will complete what he began in them.

• 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 – Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful.

The final verse gives the assurance that “God will make this happen”. So perseverance is based on God’s faithfulness, not ours.

• 1 John 2:19 – These people left our churches, but they never really belonged with us; otherwise they would have stayed with us. When they left, it proved that they did not belong with us.

Apostasy reveals that a person “never really belonged with us.” When people leave the faith, it proves that they were never truly regenerated.

Conditional Security in Christ

Generally, Arminians hold that true believers can forsake faith in Christ and perish as unbelievers. Because people have free will, and in the process of salvation can choose for or against God, it must then be possible to fall away from this grace. God can never impose his will upon us in a way that we lose our free will. If salvation is conditional upon faith, it follows that an individual can recant their faith and reject God’s grace at any time. If someone goes from being an unbeliever to a believer, that person will be saved. If he or she goes from a believer to an unbeliever, that person will be lost.

Calvinists respond: if someone who once professed Christ no longer appears to have faith, one of two things must be true. Either that person is still a believer and has fallen away from following God for a time (though not from salvation). Or that individual was never saved in the first place. They are always weeds among the wheat (Matthew 13:24-230), which are not easily distinguished from the real thing. They may have even been convinced that their faith was real, when it was not. Arminians, in turn, bring up the many examples of people who have impressive track records of loving, trusting, and serving Christ, often for years, but who ultimately fall away from him. During those years of bearing fruit, their self-awareness was of fully being a follower of Jesus. Did they really never trust Jesus, or have the Holy Spirit?

Early Arminians left the question of absolute security in Christ open, as did Arminius himself. However, they expressed doubt about whether the doctrine of perseverance is taught in Scripture, and emphasized an individual’s personal responsibility. But the Wesleyan branch of Arminians would later conclude that it is indeed possible to be truly regenerated and yet fall away and ultimately perish. Arminians in general thus deny three of the five points of Calvinism (unconditional election, limited atonement, and irresistible grace), while Wesleyan Arminians deny four of the five (the three above, and perseverance of the saints).

The Arminian approach to perseverance is that God’s grace is absolutely all a Christian needs to be able to persevere. Upon conversion, a believer receives the life-giving Holy Spirit, and thus has every ability to win the spiritual battle against Satan, sin and the world. A person will persevere in salvation as long as he or she remains in Christ. This security is grounded in the ongoing work of Christ and in the promises of his word, rather than in some unknowable divine decree. A person who wants to persevere in faith can always do so because of God’s provision.

Arminians emphasize Bible texts that suggest believers can forsake their faith and forfeit salvation:

• Matthew 5:13 – “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as useless.”

It is possible for salt to lose its flavor, in which case it will not be kept.

• John 15:6 – “Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.”

Vines can be cut off and burned if they don’t bear fruit.

• Romans 11:22 – Notice how God is both kind and severe. He is severe toward those who disobeyed, but kind to you if you continue to trust in his kindness. But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off.

It is possible to be cut off “if you stop trusting.”

• 2 Corinthians 11:4 – You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed.

The context of this verse is that people have fallen away, and Paul is trying to bring them back.

• Galatians 5:4 – For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.

People in the Galatian church have fallen from grace and are cut off from Christ.

• Hebrews 6:4-6 – For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened - those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come - and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance…

People who have experienced the Christian life can turn away irrevocably from God.

• 2 Peter 1:10 – So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away.

The implication is that those God called and chose can fall away, and there are actions to take to prevent it.

• 2 Peter 2:20-21 – And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. It would be better if they had never known the way of righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life.

People who know the way of righteousness can turn from it.

• Revelation 2:5 – “Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.”

God threatens to remove the church’s lampstand if they do not repent.

Assurance of Being Saved

The question of perseverance raises a practical issue for Christians: how can we know with assurance that we are saved? What confidence do we have that we are, in fact, children of God, right with him, and forgiven of our sin?

Arminians often argue that if salvation is based on some unknowable decree of God, no one can know before the end of this life whether or not they are among the elect. They can never be sure that their faith will endure to the end until it actually does endure to the end. Only then will it be proven to have been genuine. So the security of salvation, they say, does not actually contribute to a person’s sense of confidence in their salvation. 

Calvinists say that if one cannot be sure whether or not they will indeed persevere in the faith, then that person cannot possibly have any assurance of salvation along the way. Arminians reply that the Bible gives assurance of present salvation only, which is based on present faith in the work of Christ. Based on the promises of God, as long as one trusts in Christ, he or she can have assurance of salvation.

Both groups have much common ground when it comes to assurance of salvation. In practice, both experience assurance by the same means. This includes subjective experiences like a personal sense of belief (1 John 5:12-13), a changed life (1 John 3:9,14) and the inner witness of the Spirit (Romans 8:16). It also includes confidence in objective truths, including the promises, love, mercy of God, and in the merits of Christ’s blood. 

Both Calvinists and Arminians appeal to the same verses to give believers confidence in their relationship with God: 

• Romans 8:16 - For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.
• Galatians 4:6-7 - And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.”

Our heart’s approach to God as a father is evidence of the Spirit’s work. He confirms to our inner self that we are truly God's children.

• 1 John 3:9 - Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God.

One proof that we are children of God is that we don’t keep on habitually sinning. Our motives and behavior change.

• 1 John 5:11-13 - And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life. I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life.

Objectively, if you have the Son, you have eternal life. John writes to give believers confidence about their eternal standing: “so that you may know….” Who are the ones who have the Son? The ones “who believe in the name of the Son of God.”

The Takeaway

How do our doctrines about perseverance affect our discipleship? Consider this illustration: we’re riding in the back of a pick-up truck. The tailgate may be open or it may not. If you don’t want to fall out, then you will stay as close to the cab as possible. In the same way, whether it is possible for Christians to lose their salvation or not, the lesson is to stay as close to Jesus as you can. Someone who is staying close to Jesus will not fall away.

In the end, both the ones who believe in perseverance and the ones who don’t will live the same way. They will seek to honor God. They will live for God’s purposes, adopting his mission in the world. They will bear the fruit of an obedient life.