Can You Lose Your Salvation, or "once saved always saved'? As I prepare to teach Hebrews chapter three this afternoon, that will be the question that will rightly pop up. It will pop up again in chapter six. I knew I could teach this two different ways (knowing that there are even more ways than that). First I could teach it from the way that some scholars, churches, pastors, and teachers erroneously teach it. This way my hearers get a good idea of where these false teachers are coming from. Remember, usually false teachers are not out to purposely deceive, knowing that what they are saying is wrong; but are deceived themselves, and are only teaching what they themselves believe in. I prayed about whether I should teach it this way first or not. Ne 8:8 immediately came to mind, which says "So they read in the book, in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." So I decided not to teach the wrong way first just so my hearing get an idea of why people people believe the false teaching. Therefore I won't do that on this post either, but will come out right here and answer the question. "No. One can not lose their salvation, once they are (really) saved." Those that appear to lose their salvation (either in passages or verses in the Bible, or in what we see in people's lives today) were never really saved in the first place.
Imagine two people hear the gospel from the same person, at the exact same time. They both then are lead in prayer to say the exact same thing; for example "Lord Jesus, I am a sinner who is now repenting of their sin. Thank You for dying on the cross in my place to pay for my sins. I now ask You to come into my life as my personal Lord and Savior, trusting only in You for my salvation, and for going to Heaven. Amen."
If God was then to say "One of these people I will accept, and one of them I will not, because one of them really was saved and one of them was not." What would be the difference? God might say "They both said the exact right words, but only one of them really believed in and trusted those words, and really believed in and trusted Jesus to save them." With that being the case, say these two people both started to faithfully attend church, get baptized, contribute regularly to the offering, teach Sunday School, and a long list of other things that "good Christians" do. Would they both be saved? No, because one of them still didn't trust Jesus to become their Savior. The good works would not make the unbeliever saved, or be KEEPING the believer saved; but they WOULD be a testimony that the believer was saved. In Hebrews ch 3, the subject of "Eternal Security" isn't even in mind, though it comes to our minds. The writer of that chapter is speaking of signs that a person really is saved, not stipulations of what will keep them saved. The Bible teaches that we are to be born again; not born again, and again, and again, each time we sin and lose are salvation again, and again, and again.
