 Can a Christian Lose His/Her Salvation?
Dear teacher:
Can a Christian lose his salvation? R.T.
Dear R.T:
The doctrine of Once saved, always saved" is not found in God's Word. In fact just the opposite is found by those who carefully read. In Galatians 5:4 Paul wrote about Christians who were tying to find justification by keeping the Law of Moses, "Ye are severed from Christ, ye who would be justified by the law; ye are fallen away from grace." II Peter 2:20-22 speaks of Christians that had "escaped the defilement's of the world through the knowledge of the Lord" and "are again entangled therein and overcome, the last state is become worse with them than the first."
Before they became Christians they were lost. They then learned how to be saved and escaped the defilements of the world through salvation. Then they became entangled again in sin and were overcome. Their last state or condition was worse then their first state. That was because in the beginning, although they were lost, they found Christ and eagerly accepted salvation. Now that they had known Christ and rejected him, there is nothing left for them to look to for salvation.
In I Timothy 4:1 Paul warned that in the days to come, "some shall fall away from the faith..." these verses say it loud and clear. A Christian can fall back into sin, he can fall away from the faith of the gospel and his latter state will be worse than his original condition of being lost.
John Waddey |
