Once saved, always saved?

Q. We are a group of Christian medical students with a question that has baffled us. If a believer apostasizes, never repents and dies, what fate will he face when the final roll is called? Some of us are of the view that acceptance of Christ as personal savior assures God’s Kingdom, while others take the view that anyone who “falls away” is hell-doomed as they have rejected Christ. Please help us with this problem.

A. Your question seems to hinge on the foundational issue of eternal security, or as some who are inclined to disbelieve eternal security call it — “once saved, always saved.” The “problem” is this:

The Bible teaches that when we are “born again” we are saved. That action/decision/decree is not by human works, but by God’s grace. Most Christians agree so far. Most Christians agree that only Jesus can save us. However, are we given eternal life when we are saved, or are we merely saved from our past sins? Is the maintenance of our salvation, and God’s subsequent granting of eternal life up to us? Some believe eternal life to be a reward in addition to the initial granting of God’s grace. Do our deeds and meritorious works “help” and “assist” Jesus in the granting of eternal life? Many believe that they do. It is the view of PTM that they do not.

If eternal life is granted as a result of the life that we lead after becoming a Christian, then it follows, naturally, that we could “lose” our salvation. But the Bible says that when we are saved we enter into a new life, the life of the age to come, the life of our risen Lord, resurrection living — and that we now have eternal life. How can God give us eternal life and then take it away when we fail to live up to certain standards — whether they are biblical standards or extra-biblical religious standards imposed by a church? PTM’s answer is simply this — he doesn’t. God gives us eternal life. Period. Nothing we can do saves us, and nothing we can do maintains our salvation. Christ and Christ alone is capable of saving us and “keeping” us that way. He will not lose any that are entrusted to him.

Questions that arise from eternal security:
1) “Well, that sounds like Christians can do anything they want after they are saved, and God will still save them. This teaching sounds libertine and permissive, like it’s encouraging people to sin. It sounds like easy-believism.” ANSWER: Let us not place ourselves in the position of determining how far God’s love goes. God has made the determination that he will begin a work in us and that work will not fail. God has determined that he will love us and save us no matter what. We forget, as we self-righteously doubt God’s grace, that God knows we will sin after has has saved us. The only way for him to ensure that we do not sin after we are saved is for him to terminate the life of all those who have been saved, immediately after they have been saved, so that we all leave this body of flesh and therefore no possibility of sin would ever exist. However, as we all know, God has not chosen such a plan. We continue to live in this flesh, in this sinful and imperfect world, culture and body, after we have been saved. That means we do sin.

Sometimes our sin is “small” — sometimes it is “big.” Sin is sin. No sin can invalidate our salvation. You see, the saved individual is not living his or her own life, but Christ is living his life in them. Therefore, they belong to God — and God will not let them go. That means that God is prepared for the times when we fall — when we skin our knees, when we fail to live up to the standards God has given to us in the New Testament. God’ mercy and grace still covers us — it’s still enough for us. We should also realize that deliberate, willful, habitual sin does not characterize the life of someone who is saved. By definition, because Christ lives his life in us, we are not living an immoral lifestyle. We may struggle with particular sins — and that struggle may continue until the day we die. But as Christians we do not habitually pursue a life of sin — as Paul says we have “put off” such behaviors (the word picture he uses suggests taking off clothing) and we have “put on” (again, think of putting on Christ-like clothing) Christ.

2) The second question that arises about eternal security are those individuals we know, or that we have heard of, who once were Christians, but now are not. If the Bible teaches eternal security, what about them? ANSWER: Two possibilities: Let’s suppose that we once knew a person who worked with us, or we were married to them, or we lived next door to them, or they attended church with us. They exhibited all the external moral behaviors of Christianity. They seemed Christian to us. They may have seemed to us to be better Christians than we were. But they became notoriously immoral. Not just one mistake — or even one “big sin” — but they completely turned their back on any pretense of morality. What about such a person? First of all, we are assuming this person was a Christian. Christianity involves an internal, change of heart. It is a new birth, from above. Yes, external behaviors accompany and illustrate this new birth — or perhaps better stated, external behaviors follow and are produced by the new life that Christ lives in those who accept him and trust in him. But — can similar, seemingly identical right behavior be produced humanly — apart from Christ? Yes, it can. Atheists can be moral people. People of other religions — Jews, Muslims, Buddhists — can be people who develop character and live moral lives as good citizens. As strange as it may seem for some people morality is not the bottom line of Christianity. Jesus is the bottom line. If we have him, or rather, if he has us — if he lives his life in us, then we are Christians. If he does not, it does not matter how many righteous deeds we might perform, we are not Christians.

So what about the person who seemed to be a good Christian — or even a better Christian than us — only to become the very antithesis of all that Jesus produces in the life of those who accept him? That person was never a Christian. Perhaps we thought they were — but God has not left the determination of who is and who isn’t a Christian to us. Perhaps the person actually thought they were — because they were blinded and deceived by the idea that doing enough of the right things will convince God to save us (the tenet of what I call “Bad News Religion”). In any case, the person was never a Christian, for if they had been they would not have completely and habitually renounced, in word and deed, all that Christianity stands for. John tells us that there are those who go out from us (the universal body of Christ) because they were never part of us (see 1 John 2:19).

Thanks for allowing PTM a chance to be of service to you and your peers in medical school.

In Christ
Greg Albrecht

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