No 8

(Can We Lose Our Salvation?)

More often than not, new believers ask this question.  I’m not really sure why; possibly because it is so easy to become saved.  However I have, on occasion, heard other, more experienced believers not ask the question but state that salvation can be lost.  The Bible is so clear on this point that it is beyond my comprehension that there would be the least worry or doubt as to the power of the cross.  There is, of course the distinct possibility that these doubters are not saved at all.

As to the ease of being saved, the Lord made it so that it would not be difficult to attain justification for our sins; otherwise more learned persons would better understand the intricacies of this wonderful grace gift.  There is a good illustration of the ease of God’s demands in the Old Testament in 2 Kings 5 with the story of Naaman, the leper who thought it too easy to bath in the Jordan River seven times to be healed.  His servants however had understood this truth and said to him “My father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, 'Wash, and be clean'?” v13b)  So Naaman went and bathed seven times in the Jordan River and, voila, he was cleansed of his affliction!

The Bible says in Ephesians 2:8, 9  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”   In other words, someone cannot earn his or her salvation – again, some could be more “deserving” than others.  No one deserves to be saved; everyone deserves to go to hell, but because God made it so easy, I suppose that the above question does need an answer. 

NO, WE CANNOT LOSE OUR SALVATION.  To say that we can lose our salvation is to say that Christ’s work on the cross was not enough and that we can somehow “fall out of grace.”   This is a lie forged in the pit of hell to confuse believers and to make them unfruitful in their testimony.  Jude’s epistle really nails this truth with one simple word:   “Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ.” (v1)  True believers are kept for Jesus Christ.