John 10:27-28
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.
Within Christianity, many oppose the doctrine known as “once saved always saved.” Let’s talk about this.
THE SECURITY OF SALVATION
There is nothing in all creation able “to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). Anyone who is in Jesus Christ is forever secured. As Charles Spurgeon said, “If God has loved me once, then He will love me forever.1” If you are one of the elect, you are justified, and you will finish the race. Salvation is an unmerited gift from God to those who believe in Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9), ensuring eternal security.
FREE WILL AND GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY
One of the main arguments against “Once Saved, Always Saved” is that man still has the free will to reject God. However, I like how John Calvin put it: “To be adequate disciples of Him, we must put away all confidence in our own intellect and seek light from heaven, abandoning the foolish notion of free will.2” Only the Father can change a heart of stone to a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26), securing the elect in His will.
SANCTIFICATION VS. JUSTIFICATION
My main concern is that people often confuse justification with sanctification.
If you are justified in Christ, you are His, and nothing can change that. The Lord loses none whom the Father has given Him (John 6:39), and no one can snatch anyone out of His hand (John 10:28). The elect are forever secure.
The one in Christ, though he still sins (1 John 1:8), will no longer “go on sinning willfully” (Hebrews 10:26-27). Consider 1 John 3:9, which tells us: “No one who has been born of God practices sin, because His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin continually, because he has been born of God.” The key is “continually” (or, as the ESV puts it, “practice of sinning”).
Although Christians sin, we do not make a practice of it. Sanctification is a lifelong journey, and at times, a believer may not appear to be a Christian at all. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains what a backsliding Christian is: “What is backsliding? A child of God being disobedient... He may do it to such an extent that if you just look at him at that point you’d say this man is not a Christian... How do you know if they are Christian? A backslider always comes back [to Christ].3”
THOSE WHO LEAVE THE FAITH
Who among us has not seen church friends abandon the faith? They might have read solid Bible commentaries, watched videos, listened to sermons from faithful pastors, never missed a church service, been baptized, and yet they left. What, then, of big-name Christian celebrities—pastors, authors, influencers—who end up leaving the faith? In 1 John 2:19, we read: “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.” To leave the faith shows one was never truly born again. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explained:
They were members of the Church, these people [in 1 John 2:19], they appeared to be Christians, they said the right things and up to a point their life seemed to be right, but they “went out.” Why? They went out “because they were not of us” — they were not regenerate. They had never been born again. That is why they have gone out, says John, in a sense, to give proof of the fact that they have never really had life.
“But what about Hebrews 6 and 10?” asks someone. The answer is that there is nothing in either of those chapters to suggest that those people were ever regenerate. They had had marvelous experiences, but there is nothing to say that they were born again. They were not, and that is the explanation. The regenerate abide. They may backslide, they may fall into sin, they may fail, but they abide, because the life is there. The others may appear to be fully Christian but if there is no life they will not abide. Life shows itself, it gives proof of its existence — as we shall go on to see.4
Someone can do all the “right” things for Christ, have “a form of godliness” (2 Timothy 3:5), and still hear Christ say: “I never knew you” due to their “practice [of] lawlessness” (Matthew 7:22-23). As J.C. Ryle said: “Beyond all dispute there are always two classes in the outward Church: the class of those who are Christians in name and form only, and the class of those who are Christians in deed and in truth... All are not Christians who are called Christians.5”
ASSURANCE AMID DOUBTS
Can a Christian have doubts? Yes, they can. I understand why someone might question their faith, especially after stumbling into sin. However, as evangelist James Dorman IV said, “It’s possible for a Christian to lose their assurance; it is impossible for a Christian to lose their salvation. Once in Christ, always in Christ.6”
This is a point Paul Washer also stressed when he said:
I know and have seen and will see again genuine believers who struggle with doubting their salvation. I have seen that. Sometimes you hear the false teaching that if you doubt your salvation, it's because you're lost. That's not true… A genuine believer can doubt their salvation, but a genuine believer will never doubt, will never doubt one truth: that Christ is their only hope.
A genuine believer may go back and forth in this: “Am I saved? Am I not saved? Am I saved?” But they will not go back and forth with: “Am I righteous enough to be saved? Or am I not righteous enough to be saved?” That's been settled in their heart.7
The regenerate abide, even through struggles, because they’ve been “sealed with the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13).
CONCLUSION
The simplest way to think of “Once Saved, Always Saved,” I believe, comes from a short statement given by R.C. Sproul: “[The doctrine of eternal security] teaches that if you have saving faith you will never lose it, and if you lose it, you never had it.8”
John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries, A Harmony of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke, Volume III, (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1994), p. 245
Charles Spurgeon, The Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon: 1834-1854, Vol. I, (F. H. Revell, 1898), p. 172
“Moral Perversion,” https://www.mljtrust.org/sermons-online/isaiah-5-20/moral-perversion
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Great Doctrines of the Bible, Three Volumes in One, (Crossway, 2012), p. 94
J.C. Ryle, Knots Untied, (Hunt, 1874), p. 134
https://twitter.com/alfredsparks/status/1583128198899900417
“Paul Washer — When Genuine Believers Doubt Their Salvation,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRsAMJbhFS4
R.C. Sproul, Essential Truths Of The Christian Faith, (Tyndale House Publishers, 1992), p. 207