The false belief of "Once Saved Always Saved."

The false belief of "once saved always saved" really is a variation of saved by (your own) works, as its adherents feel that they did the work so they now have divine pardon for any sin they do instead of repenting from them and letting God work within them. They have no real "faith" in the gift of salvation but depend on their "works" and that is not how Paul shows us in scripture, so far as salvation is concerned, grace and works are mutually exclusive. Salvation is by grace through faith alone; there is no such thing as divine grace plus human "works". "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God--not because of works, lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2:8, 9).*

God's saving grace is: the means whereby "we might be justified . . . and become heirs in hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:7).

God's free gift, "through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith" (Rom. 3:24, 25).

The Bible's teaching however is clear that no person has sinned to much or gone too far to be brought home by God's grace when that person approaches God in absolute surrender and faith. "Whoever comes to me I will never drive away" (John 6:37, NIV) . However, we do not take this "grace" and then say nothing I do will now be sin, or I got a pardon so now I can sin all I want. Even a pardon from the President would not stop the police from rearresting a pardonned felon who then goes and commits a new crime. If we work hard just to get a pardon and care not about what the pardon frees us from and we work to get it just so we can go and commit more sin, then it is not by "grace you have been saved through faith." Here is a good explanation of how by John M. Fowler:

"...Redemption has its source, its means, its completion, in God's love as manifested in Jesus Christ. That's the foundation upon which the entire gospel is built and proclaimed. Those who believe in Jesus are saved, and those who do not believe are condemned. "The gospel . . . is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith. . . . For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith; as it is written, 'He who through faith is righteous shall live'" (Rom. 1:16, 17).

But the very fact that salvation is intertwined in God's love shows that the first limitation of God's grace is our human response to that grace. "God is love" (1 John 4:8), and love cannot force allegiance. All that God does--His plan of creation, providence, redemption, relationship, restoration, and judgment--proceeds from love. While He does not "drive away" any sinner who may come to Him (John 6:37, NIV), He cannot force anyone to come to Him against that person's will.

Freedom of choice plays an essential role in salvation. If salvation comes by a forced allegiance to God, it would not be an act of a loving God, but the desperate measure of a super tyrant--something totally different from the very character of God. Hence God's abundant, free, and all-powerful grace cannot save a sinner unwilling to come to Him and accept through faith the redemption that God has provided in Jesus. Our freedom of choice can effectively limit the working of grace...."

"...Another limitation to God's grace comes from human pride that one can save oneself by one's own works. The doctrine of righteousness by works is as old as sin itself. "The principle that man can save himself by his own works lay at the foundation of every heathen religion," wrote Ellen White.1 ...."

"...Another word for such pretension is legalism. The apostle Paul indicted the Galatians for quickly deserting "the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel--not that there is another gospel" (Gal. 1:6, NRSV).
The Galatians, who accepted Christ and entered into a salvation experience through faith in Him (Gal. 3:1, 2), were now in serious peril of losing that experience because they were attributing their salvation to their works. The apostle asked, "Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?" (verse 2, NRSV).

Paul was quite firm: "We have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law (Gal. 2:16, NRSV). Wrote Ellen White: The robe of Christ's righteousness, "woven in the loom of heaven, has in it not one thread of human devising."2 ...."

"..We are saved by grace through faith, and the resulting freedom is not meant to live as one pleases, but to live in accordance with God's will, as revealed in His law. Salvation comes by faith, but must lead to obedience, the natural sequence to God's gracious liberation from sin.

Consider Jesus' assertion and hope in John 14 and 15. Just as the relationship of Jesus with the Father preceded His obedience to the Father, so should the disciples' relationship with Jesus precede their obedience to Him. "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15).

Observe the hope Jesus has for His disciples. "Abide in me," He said, "as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me" (John 15:4, NRSV).

Christian discipleship is not the achievement of a moral status, but the reception of Christ's calling; it is not moral perfection, but a constant abiding in Him. Once that abiding is established through faith in God's grace, fruit follows as a natural course. The principle is simple: first love, then fruit; first grace, then obedience......"

Paul wrote: "By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them [the apostles], though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me" (1 Cor. 15:10).

Paul did not receive grace in order to sin or get to eternal life because he faked it and got a pardon. Nowhere does the Bible teach such a false assumption"once saved, always saved.". It just leads Christians to take their salvation experience for granted and lead lives of lethargy and indifference.

While the power of God's love and grace is great and abundant, it does not guarantee that once a person accepts that love and grace he or she will not fail. Scriptures is clear on this:

"Be watchful, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong" (1 Cor. 16:13).

"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" (Gal. 5:1).

"Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil" (Eph. 6:11, 12).

"Let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall" (l Cor. 10:12).

"Be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall" (2 Peter 1:10).

So what do we do when someone comes and ask "I'm saved. Are you?" God says that when we receive Jesus as our Savior and Lord, we receive the gift of salvation (Acts 4:12; Heb. 5:8, 9). No matter how we feel about our status with God, He has promised the gift of salvation to us because we have accepted a relationship with Jesus Christ, and we must speak with assurance of our salvation.

This however doesn't advocate the "once saved, always saved belief." We are created with free choice. We can choose to consistently disregard God's Word, and keep ourselves in league with sin and to sever our relationship with Christ. But we are also not to live in fear of sin in each moment of our lives, never feeling assured of our salvation, that is where faith not works comes in. So you can with assurance say "by grace I have been saved through faith".

Help us understand and use your spiritual gifts for the edification and building of the body of Christ...

What is GT?

Well, then let me go and choose to rob a bank, cheat on my wife, and cut off my father and mothers medicines so I can get their assets (just giving hypothetical examples), and then it would make it clearer.........Can God keep me saved if I take his grace then ignore his truth embodied in the law and endevour to sin?

Many will pretend to accept grace but are still deep within the influence of evil, ONLY GOD can see what is truly within ones heart......

Amen...




Is it possible for someone to have an encounter with God, become a Christian, but later to turn their back on God, no longer live a Godly life and thereby lose their salvation? In other words, can a a truly saved person ever lose their salvation, or once they claim they are saved are they are saved no matter what?

So just what does the Bible have to say about all this?

John 10:27-30: “My sheep recognize My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them away from Me, for my Father has given them to Me, and He is more powerful than anyone else. So no one can take them from Me. The Father and I are one.”

These verses tell us that those who “follow” Jesus Christ cannot be taken away from God. Now let’s look at Romans 8:38-39, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This verse tells us that God will never stop loving us, because in 2 Peter 3:9 it says, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

These verses show us that God never gives up on us. But what happens if we give up on God? What if we turn completely away from God and never look back? 2 Peter 2:20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.

It basically says it would be better if they had never known about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up with sin and become its slave again, as they are worse off than before.

These verses seem to tell of someone who knew God and then turned away from Him and that it would have been better if this person had never known God. There was debate even among the early Christians as to whether they could be saved and just continue in their sinful lifestyles and habits and still remain Christians. They were literally using their new found freedom in Christ as a license to commit sin without the guilt.
Romans 6:1-7 answers that question quite well... “Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we became Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ Jesus, we died with Him? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with Him in His death, we will also be raised as He was. Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.”

Some people then say that if someone claimed to know Christ and then turned away that they probably were never really saved in the first place. If a person comes to Christ and then there is a complete about face - turning away totally from God - the question of losing their salvation becomes a reality, whether he was truly converted is only up to God so we cannot claim one way or the other except by faith. However, we know that God will never give up on us - it is man that makes the choice to give up on God and walk back to sin.

Here is a good excerpt from a sermon by Pastor Armando M. Camacho - "..Can a person come to Christ, be converted, be in a saved relationship, and then fall out of love with Christ and His truth, rebel against Him, and lose their salvation? Can a saved person choose to be Christ’s and then later choose to be lost? How does the grace of God work? The work of God’s grace is illustrated for us right at the beginning of the Bible. According to Genesis 1, God created a perfect world before man was even made. By His grace God gave to man physical life, a Paradise home to live in, and access to the tree of life in order for man to continue living forever (Genesis 2:8-9). All of this was done, not because man asked for it, but because God wanted to do this and by grace gave to man as a gift, life, the tree of life, and a Paradise home.

Then what do we see which pertains to our subject matter? God could have programmed man or willed man to serve Him faithfully for all eternity but instead we read that our God, wanted to be worshiped by man of man’s own free will. We read that man was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). As God exercised His freedom to choose by choosing to create our world, and choosing to create man, and choosing to save man after man sinned, so God, our Creator, created man with the ability to choose. Immediately God places man, perfect and sinless man, in a position where he is to exercise his God-given ability and right to choose...."

"..We read in Genesis 2:19 that Adam was given the freedom to name the animals whatever he chose to name them. We read in Genesis 2:15 that Adam was allowed to ‘keep house’ however he chose to and make it his home. We read in Genesis 2:16-17 that Adam was allowed the freedom to choose whether or not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God created man perfect and sinless. But in order to keep that, shall we say, “saved” relationship he would need to choose on a daily basis, (we don’t know how many days, weeks, months, or years man was in the garden) man was to daily choose to be faithful to God. The basis for choosing to be faithful was easy: simply stay away from one tree in all the garden. The test was simple, yet important to God, because God desired for man to serve Him of his own free will.
After being created in God’s image as a free-willed individual, immediately God places man in a situation where he must choose. Our freedom of will must be very important to God. In fact, our power to choose is what set us apart from the rest of God’s creation. Only man was created with the power to choose and to think for himself. In Adam naming the animals, God demonstrated to His creation that man was superior to all things on earth because he was created in God’s image. So what happened? After some time past, Eve exercised her freedom to choose and chose to rebel against God’s will and did her own thing. Adam, likewise exercised his freedom to choose and chose Eve over God (Genesis 3:1-12).
Man lost his “saved” status by loving something more than loving God. I use the term “saved status” because the consequences of man’s disobedience was death (Genesis 2:17; 3:2-3) and not just physical death but spiritual death as well because now man found himself in need of a Savior (Genesis 3:15).
Man, in a perfect, sinless, saved state of being was given by God the freedom to choose to continue to love Him and be faithful to Him or not. No wonder the Bible concludes as it begins by declaring to the church of John’s day, “you have left your first love.” (Revelation 2:4 NKJV). That is an interesting term, “left.” Leaving constitutes a choice that is made. When someone is said to have “left” their spouse, it is a conscience choice that was made. A choice was made to fall in love with their spouse and a choice is made to fall out of love with their spouse and “leave” them. God gave man the choice of loving Him more than anything else or not. Man chose and God made man “leave” Paradise, and had it not been for God offering to send a Savior, man would have been lost eternally.

How does any of this apply to you and I today? The answer to the question of: Can a person choose to come to Christ and be saved and then choose to get out of that saved relationship is based on the fundamental principle that man is made in God’s image and therefore has the ability and freedom to choose whom he will love and serve. And it speaks to an even deeper truth and that is that God allows us to choose and respects our freedom of choice. He did so in Eden and does so today....."