"Do you believe in 'once saved always saved?'" I can't tell you how many times I have been asked this question. Once Saved Always Saved is a belief that once you accept Christ, it is impossible to fall away. Your "saved" forever regardless of how you live or what you believe. This has led to a popular question; can a Christian lose his/her salvation?
To me, it seems like a rather ridiculous question. I mean, sure it's possible. If a Christian were to completely renounce Christ, reject the Gospel, reject the Word, and deny God, then yeah, they could lose their salvation. But who in their right mind would do that? The question just seems way too theoretical for me with almost no practical value to warrant such a debate.
Now, I have noticed when I respond this way people say, "well, what I mean is can you lose your salvation by sinning?" In other words, how much sin is too much sin before you stop being saved? That's a very dangerous question. The moment you begin to answer that question, you are automatically talking about a works based, performance based Gospel.
There's no way around it. If there is an affirmative answer to the question" how much sin is too much sin before you lose your salvation?" then our salvation is dependant if only by a small portion, on our own goodness. We know that salvation by works is the greatest heresy in the New Testament. We know that claiming to made right with God by our own goodness is harshly condemned ins scripture. That's why this is such a dangerous question.
What people really want to know is, can a person get saved, go and live their life how they want too, and still be saved. I think this is another ridiculous question. There's no merit to it because no Born Again Christian is going to accept Christ, then go out and just live it up, party like rock star and sin like heathen... Now I know that raised some major doubt eyebrows and I'm sure many of you wonder whether I live in the real world, but let me explain.
When you are born again, there is a change that takes place. You receive a new heart with new desires. Your going to want to live for Christ. It's just part of your new identity. Sure, you may do some things you shouldn't do, get involved in things you shouldn't get involved in, even go down a road that you shouldn't go down.... maybe two or three times. But at the end of your life, the sum of who you are, is a person perusing Christ. Despite your failures and wanderings, you never said, "Forget it, I'm done. Forget God, forget Christ, forget the Word. I reject it all want nothing to do with it."
That's what I mean. No human being, is going accept Christ as the savior then immediately Turin around and say, "Okay, got that over with. Now let's ditch this stupid Jesus stuff and go live it up!" If someone ever did, they clearly never were saved to begin with and therefore couldn't lose their salvation since they never had it to begin with.
Like I said, it's a ridiculous question. Can a Christian lose his/her salvation? Sure... in theory, but why would they?
