Can Salvation be lost?

[The Liturgist]

Because I know I'm weak.

Even as it is now it's hard for me to resist a beautiful girl.

This is very wise. St. Anthony the Great warned us to “expect temptation until your last breath.” Salvation should be understood as a process, and not an event, and we must also remember the warning from the epistle of St. James “Faith without works is dead.”

 

[The Liturgist]

You cannot lose your salvation. When Peter says that our salvation incorruptible, undefiled and kept in Heaven for us I believe him.

And we cannot throw out Jesus's numerous statements that he will not lose even one of the Elect.

You can claim a man can lie about our salvation but when it comes to Christ whom we believe to be Christ in flesh declares it, it HAS to be true. The only conclusion one can draw other than the truth is that God lied. If you say you can lose your salvation that's what your saying. That God is a liar because there is not ONE statement that Jesus made where he said we could lose our salvation. Not one.

Yes, but it is presumptuous to assume we are one of the Elect. Recall the parable of the Unprofitable Servants.

 

[Hammster]

This is very wise. St. Anthony the Great warned us to “expect temptation until your last breath.” Salvation should be understood as a process, and not an event, and we must also remember the warning from the epistle of St. James “Faith without works is dead.”

Justification is an event. Sanctification is a process. Using “salvation” in a generic sense can be misleading.

 

[Hammster]

Yes, but it is presumptuous to assume we are one of the Elect. Recall the parable of the Unprofitable Servants.

Why is it presumptuous to assume we are loved by God?

 

[The Liturgist]

Why is it presumptuous to assume we are loved by God?

It is presumptuous to assume that we will not yield to temptation and reject God’s love in favor of love for the world or apostasy. From a Calvinist perspective, therefore, if one accepts the perseverance of the saints, the challenge is that one does not know if one is regenerate; from a non-Calvinist perspective the challenge is that one does not know if one will fall away.

There is scriptural backing for either a deterministic or a non-deterministic perspective, but equally strong support in scripture for being wary of a false sense of security concerning our soteriological outcome. For example, the Holy Apostle Paul worried that he might fall alive; the Holy Apostle Peter warns us that our adversary the devil is like a roaring lion, our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ warns us of false prophets and false Christs who will deceive, if possible, even the elect, and to that end Paul again warns us to anathematize anyone who comes preaching another Gospel - which the Church in Rome did in the case of Montanus, but Tertullian, who had been a pious Christian, followed Montanus, and this was the major Early Church Father who coined the word “trinitas” from which we get Trinity. Paul also tells us that we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

So, by all means, one can, on a purely scriptural basis, believe in the perseverence of the saints* but as @98cwitr says, “salvation cannot be lost, but it can be misperceived.” This is why we are told to pray that God will forgive us our trespasses, even as we forgive those who have sinned against us. We should pray to our Lord and Savior for His mercy, which He does show in this life and in the next.

*That said, the early church did not interpret 1 Peter as teaching the perseverance of the saints, and was non-Calvinistic and non-OSAS; of the five solas, only sola gratia has a Patristic origin; sola fide, sola scriptura, even to a certain extent sola dei gloria are 16th century concepts, since the early Church understood Salvation as Glorification and rejected monergism formally at the Fifth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in the early Sixth Century.

 

[zoidar]

Is that the only sin you think you’d commit if you thought your salvation was secure?

I don't know if I would... hopefully not! I just think it would be harder to resist. I believe it helps me to live more faithfully to not hold to eternal security. Also I feel if I would start to believe I can't lose salvation, I most certainly will. That is how my mind works. To me it would be like taking God's grace for granted.

You still sin in other ways now, correct?

Yes, I sin, I shouldn't but I do.

 

[Hammster]

I don't know if I would... hopefully not! I just think it would be harder to resist. I believe it helps me to live more faithfully to not hold to eternal security. Also I feel if I would start to believe I can't lose salvation, I most certainly will. That is how my mind works. To me it would be like taking God's grace for granted.



Yes, I sin, I shouldn't but I do.

So you sin even though you think by sinning you can lose your salvation. How is that any different than sinning if you think your salvation is secure?

 

[zoidar]

So you sin even though you think by sinning you can lose your salvation. How is that any different than sinning if you think your salvation is secure?

Some sins I think can lead you to losing salvation. All sins are not the same. Like David's sin was so terrible that he might have lost his salvation. I know that's up for debate. If I believed in eternal security, I think it would be easier to slip into such graver sins that eventually will kill your faith.

 

[Hammster]

Some sins I think can lead you to losing salvation. All sins are not the same. Like David's sin was so terrible that he might have lost his salvation. I know that's up for debate. If I believed in eternal security, I think it would be easier to slip into such graver sins that eventually will kill your faith.

I just don’t understand that mentality. I would hate for my kids to think that about our relationship.

 

[A_Thinker]

Some sins I think can lead you to losing salvation. All sins are not the same. Like David's sin was so terrible that he might have lost his salvation. I know that's up for debate. If I believed in eternal security, I think it would be easier to slip into such graver sins that eventually will kill your faith.

What if a belief that God is holding on to your salvation for you ... might lead you to sin less ... out of gratitude ?

 

[A_Thinker]

I just don’t understand that mentality. I would hate for my kids to think that about our relationship.

Excellent point.

Christ said that God is a better Father to us than our earthly fathers were ... and most earthly fathers wouldn't disown a child even over disobedience. Parental love is the type of love which
leads parents to plead for mercy for their obviously guilty children.

 

[zoidar]

I just don’t understand that mentality. I would hate for my kids to think that about our relationship.

You can't think of anything your kids could do to ruin your relationship to them?

 

[zoidar]

What if a belief that God is holding on to your salvation for you ... might lead you to sin less ... out of gratitude ?

I believe God does! Just not in an eternal security sense. I don't think believing that God is going to keep me eternally secure whatever I do, will make me sin less. I know you said "what if". Is it so?

 

[Hammster]

You can't think of anything your kids could do to ruin your relationship to them?

The relationship can be affected. But their place as my children cannot be changed. That was Jesus’ point in washing the feet. The feet can get dirty and need cleaned, but the body is still clean.

 

[Fervent]

Justification is an event. Sanctification is a process. Using “salvation” in a generic sense can be misleading.

Justification isn't an event, though. It only came to be viewed as an event because the historical context shifted regarding legal justification. The model Paul was using was the king/governor model in which there was no consideration of anything like double jeopardy. The declaration was no a final one, it only stood so long as the conditions instigating it remained rendering it entirely reversable. The Roman court model with a final verdict changes the context entirely which is why every element of salvation was considered a process throughout patristic literature and only saw a shift with the humanists and found its final form with the writers in the reformation. We can't separate out the elements of salvation, to be justified is to be glorified and so it also is to be sanctified. There's a reason Paul said to work out salvation with fear and trembling, and it's not because he was teaching eternal security. We should be secure in God's love for us, but out of knowledge of God's character must never become too comfortable in our own salvation. Too often security becomes assurance, and when it does the proper fear of God is lost and we end up with a caricature of Jesus that lacks severity. The hippy/buddy Jesus that is so prevalent in western imagery. There is no sense of the fear that comes with falling into the hands of the Living God.

 

[zoidar]

The relationship can be affected. But their place as my children cannot be changed. That was Jesus’ point in washing the feet. The feet can get dirty and need cleaned, but the body is still clean.

God doesn't cut us off. We cut God off. I think the parable of the prodigal is about this. The Father never stopped thinking of his son, yet his son was dead. He had cut his father off.

 

[A_Thinker]

You can't think of anything your kids could do to ruin your relationship to them?

What would it take ... for you ?

 

[A_Thinker]

God doesn't cut us off. We cut God off. I think the parable of the prodigal is about this. The Father never stopped thinking of his son, yet his son was dead. He had cut his father off.

Yet ... he was always ... his father's son, whether alive ... or "figuratively" dead. The relationship never severs ...

 

[The Liturgist]

God doesn't cut us off. We cut God off. I think the parable of the prodigal is about this. The Father never stopped thinking of his son, yet his son was dead. He had cut his father off.

Indeed, this is my view, and this is why we are warned in Scripture and the Fathers to resist temptation, lest we cut ourselves off.

 

[BNR32FAN]

God doesn't cut us off. We cut God off. I think the parable of the prodigal is about this. The Father never stopped thinking of his son, yet his son was dead. He had cut his father off.

Jesus specifically stated in John 15:2 “The Father cuts of every branch in Me that beareth not fruit”. He also gave a similar message in Luke 13:6-9.

“And He began telling this parable: “A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?’ And he answered and said to him, ‘Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.’ ””
‭‭Luke‬ ‭13:6-9‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬