Once Saved, Not Always Saved - Part One
In recent times, a teaching that has pervaded the Church to the detriment of the hearers is one that once one has put his trust in Christ and has been initiated into the Body of believers, he/she will remain in that
state of ‘being saved’ irrespective and completely independent of how he chooses to live. This however is a teaching foreign to the written Scriptures and to that of the apostles of Christ. This premise is faulty even at first
glance because it purports that there is a ‘permanency’ so to speak of one’s initial decision even in the case that the believer himself chooses to abandon the faith and walk away.
Paul wrote the following to Timothy:
Jesus taught us explicity a message very similar to that Paul delivered...
In recent times, we have seen individuals who once professed Christ, now making public confessions of recanting their beliefs and deliberately turning away. They made a deliberate and conscious choice to do so. It would be superfluous to point
out that they are ‘no longer saved’. The above scenario, though not uncommon represents one end of the spectrum of believers whose common end goal is salvation.
We must place emphasis on the fact that salvation is a PROCESS and the end goal of our faith. Sadly, the Church today has been bereft of teaching that emphasizes this and along with an unScriptural
focus on ‘grace’ has inadvertently sent thousands to hell.
Here, we will look at the SCRIPURAL basis of how a professing Christian can forfeit eternal life and how we as diligent, wise believers can avoid the same pitfall. We must allow the Scriptures to speak for themselves rather than force popular
teachings into the mold we have constructed. Primarily, we will examine every Scripture where Paul warns BELIEVERS that their LIFESTYLE and PRACTICES will cause them to disinherit God’s kingdom.
But first, the Scriptural definition of ‘GRACE’:
Grace has often been misconstrued to be a passive construct. But Paul taught Timothy that grace is a TEACHER , one that teaches and induces us to : 1. DENY UNGODLINESS and FLESHLY LUSTS and 2. Live SOBERLY, RIGHTEOUSLY and GODLY. This is the grace
that ‘BRINGS SALVATION’. Any teaching that offers an alternative to, a watering down of or a contradiction to these tenets must be discarded and aggressively refuted.
Consider this verse: “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no
one will see the Lord. ‘Sanctificaton’ can also be rendered ‘holiness’. This was a command to BELIEVERS accompanied by a stern warning.
Paul is placing a condition before the Roman church; now that they are believers in Christ, IF and ONLY IF they were to put to death the deeds of the flesh, they would inherit ETERNAL life. He defines these ‘deeds of the flesh’ to the
Galatian Church:
The very thing that Paul warned the Ephesian church that they were not to be DECEIVED by is the very thing that has the Church today deceived, namely that a believer can live and
practice these deeds of the flesh and yet inherit God’s kingdom.
The contradiction of true Biblical grace, the deafening silence from the pulpits on holy living and the hesitancy of today’s preachers to WARN CHRISTIANS that their life of unholiness will lead them to hell is the single scariest prospect
in Christianity today. May God bring us to repentance for the blatant compromise of His Word and failure to examine the Scriptures for ourselves. To neglect to do so bears very dire consequences.
2 Timothy 2: If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will DENY US. (NASB)
Matthew 10:32: “Therefore, everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.
33: But, whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven. (NASB)
1 Peter 1:8: whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,
9: receiving the end of your faith — the salvation of your souls. (NKJV)
Titus 2:11: For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men
12: teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age (NKJV).
Romans 8:12: So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh —
13: for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if
by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will
live.
Gal. 5:19: Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality,
20: idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions,
21: envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Eph. 5:3: But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you,
as is proper among saints;
4: and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting,
but rather giving of thanks.
5: For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
6: Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
Rev. 21:7: He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.
8: But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and
brimstone, which is the second death.”
Rev. 22:14: Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.
15: Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying.