Eternal Salvation

Hebrews 5 v 9, “And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him”

Many of us have been faced with doubts as to our salvation. We have wondered, “What if I lose my salvation? What will I do?” To be quite frank, many of us have lived in dread of losing our salvation. But can a true believer of the gospel lose their gift of salvation? Is it possible that once God has written your name in the Book of Life He will at some point command His angels to erase it after changing His mind as concerning your status before Him? Now some of you reading this may be saying to yourselves, “This is ludicrous. Does he not know that once you are saved that’s it, you remain saved forever?” To you it may be straight forward, but try and discuss this issue with your friends at church. Speak to anyone on this subject, and you will be shocked at how many Christians actually believe it is possible to lose your salvation. You may be one of them reading this message right now probably about to give your reasons why you think it is possible to lose your salvation. However, let us dig into the Word of God and see if it so otherwise, if not, change your mind and believe the truth.

I will list the some of the chief reasons that have been brought up to support the notion that it is possible to lose your salvation and place them under the light of God’s word to see if they will be able to stand. The first has to do with “free will”. Many people say that God has given man “free will” and therefore man is free to choose whatsoever he wishes to do. Since man has “free will”, he is free to believe the gospel and thus is saved and later on in life, they say, he is still free to change his mind and so loses his salvation because he no longer believes the gospel. Such an explanation comes out of people misunderstanding what the plan of salvation actually is. Look closely at the explanation. At first glance it appears reasonable but when you dig deep, it begins to fall apart. The “free will” of man has to do with man’s ability to make choices out of his nature as man. Man has a sinful nature and therefore will always be contrary to God’s nature. Given that, it is only right to say that with his “free will”, man can only make sinful choices, cannot make a choice to follow God and only until the gospel is preached and faith is given by the preaching of the word, can man make a choice to repent and believe. John 6 v 44 says, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him…” and John 6 v 65, “And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” So in light of these two verses, when does your “free will” allow you to choose to come to Jesus? Hebrews 12 v 2 says, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith” and Romans 10 v 17 says, “So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” Faith cannot be generated in the “free will” of man. Man with his “free will” still needs God to give him faith to believe the gospel as those two verses have shown, so then clearly even with his “free will” man does not have the ability to believe the gospel. Man has the “free will” to reject the gospel because he has a sinful nature as has been clearly seen throughout the ages but, man’s “free will” does not have the ability to allow him to desire to seek God let alone even believe the gospel as Romans 3 v 11 says, “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.” In light of that, how is it possible for man’s “free will” to even give him the ability to believe the gospel? Faith is a gift of God. Remember, before you receive the gift of salvation you need to repent and believe the gospel and that not of yourselves because the Holy Spirit has to convict you and cause you to believe. Ephesians 2 v 8 says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God” This verse clearly shows you that nothing that originated in you had a part in bringing you salvation but that everything from the grace to the faith originated with God. The biggest misconception people have with salvation is that many think a man is saved because he has chosen to be saved. It is not so. A man is saved because God has chosen to save him. You are saved by God being willing to save you not by you deciding to get saved. Your desire to get saved did not originate with you but with God. So you can see that your “free will” is under God’s control from the day you are saved thus granting you the ability to believe. So at which point with your “free will” are you ever going to decide you do not believe anymore? Philippians 2 v 13 says, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure.”


John 15 v 16 says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and [that] your fruit should remain…” That verse shows that Jesus chose you and ordained you to bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain. Does that not speak of the faithfulness of God in keeping you saved when He says “And [that] your fruit should remain”? Does not Jude 1 v 24 say, “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present [you] faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy” John 10 v 27 -28 says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any [man] pluck them out of my hand.” Jesus is giving us assurance that He never loses any of His sheep. Once He has saved you, He keeps you forever saved because it was His desire to save you in the first place and not yours. Remember you were not even seeking after Him in the first place. So bear in mind that for you to lose your salvation, God has to change His mind about saving you which He doesn’t do because we know that Numbers 23 v 19 says, “God [is] not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do [it?] or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” I know some of you may be questioning the part of this verse that says neither the son of man, that he should repent, that has nothing to do with repenting from sin because God cannot sin but it means He does not change His mind and go back on His word.

Another argument that is brought forward to support the notion that it is possible to lose your salvation is based on Hebrews 6 v 4-6 which says, “For [it is] impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put [him] to an open shame.” The general explanation hangs on the interpretation that the people spoken of in these verses are saved. Phrases like once enlightened, have tasted of the heavenly gift, were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, have tasted the good word of God and the powers to come are taken to mean these people are saved. If you read the verses in context you will begin to see that they do not speak of saved people but rather unsaved people. One thing we need to understand about the book of Hebrews is that it was written, as the name suggests, to Jews that had become professing Christians. The whole book seems to act as a warning to professing Christians, who were Jews in this case, from fully disbelieving the Gospel. What you will need to understand is that Jews that turned to the faith were persecuted and some because their faith was not genuine began to fall back into their old Jewish practices in order to avoid being persecuted. Examples of such warnings are Hebrews 2 v 3, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard [him;]”, Hebrews 4 v 1, “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left [us] of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.”, Hebrews 6 v 4-6 as quoted above and Hebrews 10 v 26-27, “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” The question we need to ask is why Paul has taken pains to issue these warnings. He does this because Jews believed in the first covenant which dealt with the law so he is warning them not to fall back into those practices after having been shown that Jesus is the true Messiah and that the law was a shadow of the real salvation that was to come; the true salvation that is in Jesus Christ. In chapter 1 he tells them how in the past God spoke to the fathers by the prophets but now speaks to us by His Son and in that chapter he clearly shows how the Son was God chosen and that He is higher than the angels making Him God. In chapter 2, he talks about how the Son obediently came in the flesh to bring about deliverance from sin and death. In chapter 3 and 4 he reminds them of how their forefathers displeased God in the wilderness after they had been delivered from Egypt through disbelief. He warns them in those chapters not to follow suit by disbelieving the gospel. In chapter 5, he sets Jesus Christ as the high priest chosen by God and how through His obedience, God made Him perfect and after being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation to all that obey Him. In Hebrews 5 v 11-14 Paul says, “Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which [be] the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk [is] unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, [even] those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” Paul tells them that there are so many things about Jesus Christ he wants to tell them which will be more difficult for them to understand seeing that they are slow in understanding (dull of hearing). He then says to them that by now they should have been teachers but still needed someone to teach them again the first principles. He said they were like babies that need milk to grow as opposed to adults that need solid food for nourishment. He explains to them that their need to be taught again the first principles shows that they are immature/unskillful in the word of righteousness. When we move onto chapter 6 he says in Hebrews 6 v 1-3, “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this will we do, if God permit.” Paul is exhorting them saying they needed to move on from these first principles unto perfection, which is faith in Jesus, because they should not be laying again the foundations of the principles he lists in those verses. The question we ask is why should we move on to perfection? Perfection has to do with salvation because in Hebrews 7 v 19 he says, “For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope [did;] by the which we draw nigh unto God.” Here he is saying perfection is not found in the law and in Hebrews 10 v 14, he says “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” Here he shows that it Jesus who brings about perfection which is salvation and that perfection is forever. So in Hebrew 6 v 1-3 he is exhorting them to move on from the law to faith in Jesus Christ which brings about true salvation. Why? This leads us to verse 4-6, and in these verses he is warning them that after having been taught the gospel, if they continue in their unbelief it will be impossible to bring them again to repentance. What he means is that if they do not repent and believe the gospel, they cannot be brought to repentance because the gospel is the only message that brings about true repentance. So in short if the gospel is preached to you and you do not produce fruit in keeping with a repentant heart then there is no hope for you as there is no other way by which you can be saved because that will mean God will have to come again in the person of Jesus Christ to die on the cross and that’s not going to happen at all. How do we know Paul means this? Hebrews 6 v 7-8 says, “For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: But that which beareth thorns and briers [is] rejected, and [is] nigh unto cursing; whose end [is] to be burned.” Here we are given an analogy of land and Paul says if land is rained upon and produces herbs as desired by the Farmer, it receives blessing from God but if it produces thorns and briers i.e. plants not as desired by the Farmer, it is rejected, cursed and should be burned. Therefore to paraphrase Hebrews 5 v 12 – Hebrews 6 v 8, Paul is saying, “You should be teachers of the word by now but you still need to be taught the basics of the word of God henceforth move on from these basics onto faith in Jesus Christ through which you will be made perfect instead of having to be taught again the basics of the word because if you remain immature it shows that you are unrepentant and therefore not saved and as a result nothing can be done for you because the gospel is the only way by which you can be saved so if you do not repent and show evidence of repentance you are good for nothing and so God rejects you and condemns you to the everlasting fire.” So we see that those verses are not proof texts that you can lose your salvation.

The last of the other arguments that I want to deal with is based on 2 Peter 2 v 20-21 which says, “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known [it,] to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.” Here people say that the people spoken of in these verses are saved and have now lost their salvation by being entangled in sin again. If you read the entire chapter in which these verses are found, you will notice that Peter is speaking about false prophets. Now what are the chances that a false prophet is saved especially if they continually practice their false prophecy as Peter describes in this chapter? False prophets are unsaved so there goes that argument. So what does 2 Peter 2 v 20-21 mean? Let’s take it in its context. 2 Peter 2 v 1 says, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” In this verse Peter identifies the people he speaks of in this chapter and their future destiny. I will not reproduce the entire chapter but you will need to read it for yourself to see what I am about to explain. From verse to verse he describes their actions. In v 3 “make merchandise of you” i.e. they will strip you for all the cash you have, in v 10 “selfwilled”, in v 14 they are adulterers, covetous and deceitful, in v 15 they have forsaken the right way, in v 17 they are wells without water i.e. they do not have the everlasting water of the Spirit in them and in v 19 they are servants of corruption. In v 20 we are told that they had escaped the “pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”. That cannot mean they were saved because had they been saved, they would not have been unfruitful as described in the chapter. So it can only mean that the gospel being taught to them was their escape from the pollutions of the world but they did not repent but instead used it for their own selfish gain and now their sinful lifestyles are a witness to their reprobate state because they were entangled again in their sin being worse than they were before. As a result, it was better for them not to have known the gospel because they are more sinful now than they were before and therefore there was more hope for them before than there is now. Once again these verses do not support that a person can lose their salvation.

The Bible teaches that God saves you and keeps you. You cannot undo what God has done. It’s His decision to save you not yours. That is the absolute Sovereignty of God. You were not at anytime consulted as concerning your salvation but you were informed of it through the gospel. If you could not save yourself how are you then able to “unsave” yourself? God is not a liar. He said He will keep you and so He will. Christians who misunderstand this truth are either still grappling with the doctrine of the Sovereign grace of God or are still depending on their own goodness for salvation. To the latter I say examine yourselves for you may still need to repent and believe the gospel. Salvation is eternal it is not given with strings attached. All the conditions that were needed for salvation to be given to man were met by Jesus Christ. You do not need to do anything to be saved let alone to keep yourself saved. Only Christ Jesus can do that. God bless you.