3 Reasons “Once Saved Always Saved” IS Biblical [Eternal Security]
“I believe we are saved by faith alone, but I do not believe in that once saved, always saved nonsense”.
I have heard this statement many times while speaking with people about their salvation.
Of course when they say “once saved, always saved” they are referring to the eternal security of the believer. Eternal security is the belief that once a person is saved they can never lose their salvation.
People who make this comment usually have somewhat of a prideful tone. It’s as if what they are really trying to say is “ I almost never sin now that I am saved, and if I do, it’s never bad enough to lose my salvation. I am a pretty decent person”.
If these people held themselves to the same standards as they do everyone else, they would see that they too would lose their salvation and have to get saved all over again on a daily basis.
Why is eternal security important? It is important because this is a matter of heaven and hell, a matter of life and death. Is teaching once saved, always saved just giving people a license to sin? No. I do not believe it is.
I have been called a false teacher and a devil for teaching this, but these accusations only motivate me that much more to preach this truth from the rooftops!
The very fact that such a basic Christian doctrine is so contested shows me that we are in trouble in this spiritual battle that we find ourselves in today. The very fact that this can even be called a “debated” doctrine shows me the Devil has sunk his teeth far into Christianity and he would love nothing more than to swallow it whole.
The Bible teaches once saved always saved. The bible teaches the eternal security of the believer. It is impossible for a Christian to lose their salvation. If you read through this with an honest and open heart I believe you will come to the same conclusion. If you already hold to a once saved, always saved position, I believe this will help you refine and reflect on this teaching, as well as prepare you to expound on eternal security to others.
This is a hill I am willing to die on. Christianity today needs to step up and defend this doctrine because people’s eternal destinations are at stake. I am going to show you very clear Bible verses that prove once saved, always saved, and I will also share a personal story that shows you the need to defend this doctrine.
Let us get into 3 reasons why I believe once saved is always saved is Biblical…
Eternal Means Eternal
The words that God has given to us are not just any words, they are His words. This sounds simple, but it is very important to understand. God chose to reveal His truths to us and reveal Himself to us, through the scriptures.
God chose to give us certain words on purpose. Words matter. And as followers of Jesus we should know what the words in our Bibles mean.
You might say “Blake, this is so obvious” but in order to have an effective conversation with somebody in regards to anything Biblical, we must ensure that we are working with the same definitions of words.
If I believe that the word “pencil” represents an animal that slithers around on its belly and bites someone if provoked, and another person believes it's a small piece of wood with a lead core and used for writing on paper….we will not be able to come to the same conclusion about a conversation regarding pencils.
Words mean things, and in order to effectively communicate we need to agree on what things those words represent.
Yes of course sometimes context will dictate how a word is being used, such as the word “watch”. But the word “eternal” or “everlasting” does not fall into this category.
Eternal means forever. Everlasting means forever. There is no way to miss what the Bible is trying to tell us about these words, especially because the context in which they are used is making these already obvious words even more obvious.
I would submit to you that people who claim a Christian can lose their salvation are ignoring or changing the very definition of eternal and everlasting. With their logic, we might as well take a red marker and cross out “everlasting life” and “eternal life” in our Bibles and write in “temporary life”.
God is not trying to be secretive when it comes to salvation.
God is not waving a red cape around like a matador in a bullfight waiting to trick us. God cares about us and therefore cares about making this subject easy to understand.
There are plenty of things that are hard to be understood in the Bible, but salvation (eternal life) is not one of them.
Take a look at just a few verses and how clear God is intending this to be for us…
John 3:16, 36
16. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
36. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
John 6:47
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
John 10:28
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Everlasting life or eternal life undoubtedly means life that can never end. It means that when a person has salvation they can never die. Jesus so clearly expresses this in John 11.
John 11:25-26
25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
It is clear that the moment a person is saved they are passed from death unto life. Jesus says that when a person gets saved, they will NEVER die…how could this be possible if a person is constantly at risk of losing their salvation?
To argue that eternal life/everlasting life/ salvation could ever be taken or surrendered from a person, is to call Jesus a liar. Who would dare call God a liar?
2. God is Not a Liar
“I think God is a liar!”
Have you ever heard somebody say this before? This statement would not come from the mouth of an atheist, because they would have to say that someone who they do not even believe exists, is also a liar. It does not make sense.
Let's assume we are talking about a person who actually claims to believe in the God of the Bible. So have you seen this before? Chances are, you HAVE.
Now, perhaps you have not heard those exact words come from a self proclaiming Christian’s mouth, but I would submit to you that even if you have not heard that exact phrase, “I believe God is a liar..” they have still said it in a different way altogether.
A person can essentially say the same thing while masquerading the true intent of their comment in a way that is not so obvious on the surface. Even if they don’t know they are doing this, it is still not only possible, but common.
Self proclaiming Christians unknowingly accuse God of being a liar all the time.
Before I lose you, allow me to explain myself with scripture.
1 John 5:10-11
10 He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.
When a person trusts Christ alone for salvation, that person is saved.
Upon getting saved, that person is from that point living with God inside of them. To be more specific, the Holy Spirit resides within every believer.
Romans 8:16
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
The Holy Spirit will reveal to you that you are saved, and that you are a child of God. This is proof that you have believed God…but WHAT exactly have you believed?
When it comes to salvation, we cannot be too careful in defining and expounding on these key details. Far too long people have either over complicated these details about salvation, or just as harmful, have glossed over and expressed in too shallow of a manner these details.
When a person believes God for salvation, it does not just mean that you believe Jesus exists, or even that Jesus died for you. You must believe the truth about Jesus as well. You must believe the correct things about Jesus.
It is important to understand that God did not send his only begotten son to this world to die a brutal death, so that a person could work their way to heaven. We are saved by faith alone, through God’s grace.
God did not send Jesus here so that a person could get saved until they mess up again, or until they decide they do not want to be saved anymore.
Jesus is not some band-aid that limps us by and “hopefully” gets us to our destination, Jesus IS the destination!
He is the savior, the great physician, the legitimate end to our sin condition. Jesus saves and HE saves in full. There is no partial redemption, a person is either redeemed by the blood of the lamb or they are not.
It’s important that we understand what is actually taking place when a person gets saved. An incredible trade is happening. This is the trade:
We are sinners. We do not deserve to be saved. Jesus was sinless and perfect. He took OUR place on the cross, and rose again, so we could be saved. He took our sin and we received His sinless perfection on our account.
In the clearest way I can possibly say it, God traded the life of Jesus Christ His son for your life, for my life, and for the life of every single person on the planet who has ever lived and ever will live.
If we believe this, if we accept Jesus as our sacrifice, we accept the free gift of salvation. And with this, the understanding that salvation is eternal life.
It is important to note that God is not offering us temporary life, He is offering us eternal life. In order to receive this, we must accept the record that God has given of Jesus Christ his son.
11 And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
Eternal life, or salvation, is available to us through Jesus alone. And notice, again, this life mentioned is eternal life…meaning the life that we get from Jesus lasts forever.
Let's look at verse 10 again now that we have established what exactly a person is believing when they believe God, and also let us talk about when someone does not believe God..
10 He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.
The Bible could not spell it out any more for us. If a person does not believe that salvation, or eternal life is forever, they are quite literally calling God a liar. Many people unfortunately believe that God is a liar.
When they say “well you're saved by faith alone without works…but after you're saved you can't just live however you want”, that person is calling God a liar.
When a person says “of course we are only saved by grace alone through faith alone, but you can give your salvation back” that person is calling God a liar.
Titus 1:2
In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began
Notice this is the second verse we have seen now that draws a correlation between eternal life, and the truthfulness of God. There is obviously an important message that God wants us to get ahold of.
God calls our salvation eternal life. Eternal means forever. God is not a liar.
3. Salvation Is Not Based on Our Works
We can never lose our salvation because salvation has nothing to do with our works.
I am not saying that testimony is not important, we can show people our faith by our works. But the works themselves are not what is gaining us access to eternal life. There are plenty of people in this world that are nice, friendly, and unfortunately these people if they are unsaved will go straight to hell when they die.
Nobody has ever been saved by works, nobody ever will be saved by works, and nobody can keep themselves saved by works.
Friend, please understand the clear distinction between our works and our faith. Only our faith is what determines if we go to heaven or hell.
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Salvation is a gift, which by definition is freely given. If you have to work for it then it no longer is a gift, it's a reward. There is a huge difference.
Eternal life is not a reward, it is clearly a gift. Something God gives because He loves us. If a person is trusting in not sinning to be saved, or to continue being saved and not lose their salvation, then that person is banking on receiving a reward from God.
Any person who wants to get a reward from God based on their works, instead of receiving a free gift, are willingly choosing to destroy themselves.
Salvation is not a teeter totter. What I mean by this is that we don't get to heaven by making sure our good works outweigh our bad works.
The reality is, even if you spend 99% of your life being perfect, and Christ like, you still have 1% of sin that will send you to hell. You would still have a remaining balance that must be paid.
Let me say that a little differenlty. In this situation, if a person wants to be on the “rewards system” instead of the “gift system”, then that person would end up not getting a reward at all, not in the way we think of a reward that is, they would instead be found in debt to God for their sin.
ONE sin is all it takes to go to hell. Just one. And because we have all sinned (Romans 3:23) people need to get off the rewards system and get on the gift system of God’s grace.
Now, again, because we are not saved by works, that means we cannot keep ourselves saved by our works…
Well then, how does a person stay saved?
The answer to that is we are saved by the power of God and we are kept saved by the power of God!
Ephesians 1:13
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,
The moment a person believes and trusts Christ for the free gift of salvation, their soul becomes sealed with the Holy Spirit. Although we still live in a fleshly body, which will one day pass away and get buried in the ground….who we really are (our soul) remains intact and sealed…and we will at that point be with the Lord.
Let's look at John 10:28 again..
John 10:28
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
When someone is saved they are from that moment forward in the very hand of God. Is there a place more safe? Is anyone strong enough to pull you from His hand? Are YOU strong enough to pull yourself out? Absolutely not.
We are kept saved by God. We are not saved by our own works, and we are not kept saved by our own works. Should we try to live Holy? Yes. Should we try and abstain from sin? YES!
However, we must understand that we are not saved by abstaining from sin.
One time while out preaching the gospel door to door I ran into a devout pentecostal. This lady was very upset with me because I kept informing her that salvation was a free gift (Romans 5:15).
She took major offense to this terminology. Her position was that I was somehow speaking lightly of the death of Jesus. This is far from the truth.
I recognize that salvation was not free for Jesus, He paid it all. And in doing so, He has made salvation free for us.
This was not the only issue she had with me, her biggest issue was the fact that I was preaching to her what I have presented to you in this article…the issue of eternal security. I told her clearly that I believe in once saved, always saved. Here was her reasoning for being at odds with me…
She told me “I don’t want my kids hearing what you're saying. I don’t want my kids just thinking they can live however they want”.
I politely pushed back with this statement: “I hope my kids understand this. Of course I want my kids to live a Holy lifestyle free of sin. But what is the alternative to what I am teaching? The alternative would mean teaching the opposite of what I am teaching, which would be if you do not live a Holy lifestyle, but instead live a life of sin.. then you will go to hell. And if that is what a person believes, they are not saved because they are trusting in their own works.”
This woman thinks it's dangerous to teach a child that even if you sin, you are still saved…but in reality what is dangerous is teaching a child to trust in their works and abilities to keep themselves saved. The real danger is teaching the child a false gospel.
I hope and pray that my children know that when they mess up, although they should try not to, there is nothing they could ever do to lose their salvation. I hope and I pray that my children would understand that their faith and their works are two separate things.
Eternal security is an essential doctrine that people need to understand. If you found this helpful or interesting, please share this with a friend. Let’s help people grow in Christ!
If you are not sure that you are going to heaven, please get this settled today by clicking here: How to Go to Heaven.
