Can We Lose Our Salvation?

By Chuck Ness

Let us glean what the Scriptures have to say about this subject?

Well, some verses imply that the covenant with God, once made, can never be unmade:

John 10:27-29

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. 

Romans 8:35, 38-39

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 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 created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Philippians 1:6

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 

II Timothy 1:12

For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.

While other verses imply that the covenant with God can be broken, like a divorce:

John 15:1-2

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 

I Timothy 1:18-20

This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck, of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. 

Hebrews 6:4-6

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. 

Hebrews 10:26-29

For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?

These verses may help to justify both understandings by putting them together;

Matthew 24:12-13

And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. 

I Corinthians 10:12

Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. 

II Corinthians 6:1-2

We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says:

                   “In an acceptable time I have heard you,                                                 and in the day of salvation I have helped you. ”

Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 

I Corinthians 9:27

But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. 

II Peter 1:10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble;

 A man who was a well known Calvinist actually admitted to a very interesting fact when he wrote; 

”It seems to me that the path of truth is to believe them both; to hold firmly that salvation is by grace, and to hold with equal firmness that the ruin of any man is wholly and entirely his own fault; to maintain the SOVERIGNTY OF GOD, and to hold to the RESPONSIBILITY OF MAN also.

To believe in the free agency of both God and man; neither to dishonor God by making Him a lackey to his creatures’ will, nor on the other hand, to rid man of all responsibility, by making him to be a mere log or a machine.

Take all that is in the Bible to be true. Never be afraid of any text that is written by the sacred pen. When you turn the pages over, I do hope you never feel as if you wish that any verse could be altered. I trust you never desire that any text might be amended so as to read a little more Calvinistic, or a little more like the teaching of Arminius. Always stand to it that your creed must bend to the Bible, and not the Bible to your creed, and dare to be a little INCONSISTENT with yourselves, if need be, sooner than be inconsistent with God’s revealed truth “ (Spurgeon)

I offered four passages that state you cannot lose your faith, four that state you can, and four that seem to melt the two beliefs together which truly can confuse a believer. I offered them to give you an idea of how confusing the argument can be by choosing certain Scriptures. However, to truly set the record straight, there are many more passages that tell us we cannot lose our faith., and the ones denying we will never lose salvation

As for me, I stand by the understanding that if one lost, what we thought was their Salvation, then they never were truly saved in the first place. I do know that the only way to never be saved is to die in disbelief. Ultimately only God, and God alone, can read one's heart, so only God will ever know if one was saved when they died.