Southern Baptists and Once Saved Always Saved

[FaithfulPilgrim]

Greetings! I am a Southern Baptist and attend a Southern Baptist church. Where I live, 90% of the churches are Baptists and all of the churches my parents took me to were Baptist., so growing up, I had a very narrow taste of what Christianity was like and was unaware that there were other kinds of Christians. I was familiar with Mormonism, but never considered them Christian.

I first became aware of denominations when I attended a Seventh Day Adventists private school in the sixth and seventh grade. This is where I started learning about other groups like Adventists, Methodists, Lutherans, Catholics, etc.

The SDA taught that you could lose your salvation and eating non-kosher foods would send you to hell. I did make good friends there, though.

I had discussed the differences between Baptists and Adventists with my family and they told me that Baptists believe that you cannot lose your salvation. I was told that if you are saved, you will go to heaven no matter what, and that if you were saved in the past but go on later to commit murder, you would still go to heaven, but God would be upset but keep His promise, or that you were never saved to begin with.

I took this the wrong way and thought it meant that I could sin and it would not really matter, so I started experimenting with other religions such as Buddhism and Deism. Of course, I repented and started to study the Bible more.

To me, it seems that perseverance of saints is biblical as I believe God saves you and it is not of any works you do, and that the true believers hold on until the very end. Eternal security seems to teach that when you are saved, even if you fall away or give up your faith, you will still be saved and still go to heaven.

Southern Baptists believe salvation is through faith alone, but they do believe good works are important. They are a result of salvation, and a true believer will have a changed lifestyle as evidence that his repentance is sincere. They also teach that if you sin willingly or show no change after claiming to be saved, you were never really saved. This sounds like perseverance of saints to me.

In Southern Baptist churches, I think eternal security and perseverance of saints are used synonymously, and "Once saved, always saved, is just an oversimplified definition of it. I am sure most of them would say that true believers are eternally secure and will remain believers until the end, but still believe that avoiding sin is important. My church talks about "fake Christians" all the time. They are referring to those who claim to be saved but do nothing with their faith or live worldly lives.

What do you think? Do Southern Baptists really teach eternal security as in no matter what you do, you will never lose your salvation?

 

[JAM2b]

I know this was posted years ago, but I wanted to respond.

I grew up attending Southern Baptist Church and this is what was always taught.

It was said that you could backslide, but that doesn't mean you're not saved. There could be consequences and conviction but that God would forgive you.

If anyone truly fell away or renounced their faith, they weren't saved to begin with.

The teaching was that salvation is a by faith through grace, and that you can't be snatched out of the hand of God.

 

[98cwitr]

Not necessarily an SBC thing, but a Reformed Theology thing. SBC just so happens to only recently be shedding Reformed Theology for more Armenian tenants.

 

[Learning & Growing]

I know this was posted years ago, but I wanted to respond.

I grew up attending Southern Baptist Church and this is what was always taught.

It was said that you could backslide, but that doesn't mean you're not saved. There could be consequences and conviction but that God would forgive you.

If anyone truly fell away or renounced their faith, they weren't saved to begin with.

The teaching was that salvation is a by faith through grace, and that you can't be snatched out of the hand of God.

Coming from an SBC background starting as a teenager and my husband was always SBC (from birth, LOL)... we met in youth group go-figure, but I agree with this narrative. It's what we both have understood as well in regards to once-saved-always-saved

 

[BobRyan]

I first became aware of denominations when I attended a Seventh Day Adventists private school in the sixth and seventh grade. This is where I started learning about other groups like Adventists, Methodists, Lutherans, Catholics, etc.

The SDA taught that you could lose your salvation and eating non-kosher foods would send you to hell. I did make good friends there, though.
...

What do you think? Do Southern Baptists really teach eternal security as in no matter what you do, you will never lose your salvation?

I am an Adventist - but I always thought that OSAS (once saved always saved) had two versions and that Southern Baptists are most often one or the other. Either they believe in "perseverance of the saints" and so reject the idea of "no matter what you do" -- rather the ones I know teach that if you start "living like the devil" ten years from today - then whatever assurance you think you have today is deleted... you were never saved to begin with. I think John MacArthur and Chuck Swindoll, Charles Stanley (who was president of the SBC at one time as I recall) are in that group.

In the past I have attended SBC churches for a few years (while still attending the Adventist church) and so some of my impression about what they teach comes from that and from "the Baptist Faith and Message"

The other version is as you say - it does not hold to "perseverance" and argues that once in , no matter what you do later in life you are still in.

I am interested to watch this thread thread and see what they say about it.

But one thing is for sure - I don't think I have met any that reject OSAS entirely.

 

[GodLovesCats]

This is my concern with the "once saved, always saved" idea: People can and do change their minds when they fall away from Jesus and decide not to believe he is God anymore. Just like people become Christian, they can become anything else after choosing God over man. If this happens and you do not change your mind to be a Christian again, I believe you go to hell.

 

[enoob57]

For the truly converted we have God's seal

Ephesians 1:13 (KJV)

[13] In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

John 14:16 (KJV)

[16] And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

[17] Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

the dependency is upon God's presence within us...

 

[actionsub]

There's a slight difference between the Reformed doctrine of "perseverance of the saints" and OSAS (which some Reformed wags call "preservation of the sinners"). Theoretically, they're supposed to be the same thing. In time the Reformed perseverance doctrine, which states that the saint only authenticates himself or herself by persevering in the faith until death, was given a populist spin by various revivalists which took the focus from the saint's fidelity to the faith to the idea that salvation cannot be lost because God preserves the saint.