Most Bible-believing Christians fall into a few camps on whether salvation can be forfeited, and I don’t really know what I think.
Can you lose your salvation?
No. God finishes the work he starts in us (Philippians 1:6), a bad season or even a serious sin doesn’t cost a Christian their salvation.
Walking away from Christ for good is different, that may show the profession was never rooted in him (1 John 2:19) (see this thread).
No, I don’t think you can lose it. Not forever at least… maybe if you continue down a path that you don’t repent from. You at least have the opportunity to keep it.
"I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand
John 10:28
In Luke 15, the father doesn’t stop treating the kid as his son when he comes home wrecked and ashamed. Still a son, so no, I don’t think you can lose your salvation.
The hard part is figuring out when someone’s departure is permanent. How would you apply 1 John 2:19 to someone who rejects Christ for years, the prodigal scenario, and then comes back after all that time?
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The father running out to meet the son before any apology was even finished has always settled that question for me.
The father cuts him off before he can even finish the “make me like one of your hired servants” speech, which backs up your “still a son” point.
Still a son, still waited for, the father in Luke 15 was already looking down the road before the kid got close. But the picture does hang on him coming home wrecked and ashamed.
What would you say about the son who never turns back toward the house?
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Picture a guy who storms out of church, spends 20 years running a goat yoga studio in Nevada then shows up at Wednesday prayer night holding a casserole and crying. 1 John 2:19 only reads in the rearview mirror, so we keep the porch light on while someone’s still breathing.
Luke 15 does show a son who won’t come in, the older brother standing outside in anger. The father goes out to him too and pleads, and Jesus ends the story without telling us his answer. I think that open ending is deliberate. We’re rarely given the final chapter of someone else’s story, so we keep praying and leave the porch light on. Hebrews 3:13 calls us to encourage one another daily while it is still ‘today.’
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Paul says believers are marked with the Holy Spirit as a seal the moment they believe… a seal is meant to stay put.
If you care about pleasing your Father and you hate your own sin, that’s a pretty good sign the Spirit is still in there doing his work.
Paul tells Timothy to hold on to faith and a good conscience, and he warns that some people who rejected this have made shipwreck of their faith. You can’t wreck a ship you were never on.
Salvation is a free gift, and I believe a person can still throw it away.
Sin can’t cost you salvation. You didn’t earn it by being good, so you can’t lose it by failing, and the Spirit is the guarantee.
Idolatry is the one exception I see. When Israel turned to other gods, God pulled His presence out of Zion. All of Israel was elect, but that didn’t put unrepentant Ba’al worshippers in the new earth.
Blasphemy of the Spirit is someone who knows the gospel and has an actual relationship with God, then knowingly rejects Him and speaks against His Spirit. I’d put an agnostic or atheist phase in a separate category.
A lot of this comes from Michael Heiser.
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I used to lie awake going over every bad thing I’d done that week, wondering if I’d already lost it. If God put the seal there, I can’t break it (Ephesians 1:13-14).
Yes, if the person walks away from their faith.
Works don’t keep you saved. Salvation comes through faith. Saving faith is an ongoing, believing loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you have to keep it up.
My view now is that your security is only final once you’re in eternity. I grew up in a once-saved-always-saved church.
Then I sat down and read the Bible for myself. I’d always been told the issue was unclear, but it read pretty plainly to me.
Everlasting is the word. John 6:47: ‘he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.’
Hath is present tense, so you already have it. I don’t see how something everlasting can run out partway through.
Once you’re born again, there’s no ‘unborn again’ button. A butterfly can’t crawl back into the caterpillar suit (2 Corinthians 5:17).
God doesn’t do refunds on His own work.
I still go back and forth… many Protestant churches teach ‘once saved, always saved.’ The Catholic view is that we have to cooperate with grace, and living in mortal sin without going to confession puts your salvation at risk.
God gives wisdom to anyone who asks, so I’m going to keep asking.
I think a believer can walk away through their own choices, like refusing to repent. In 2 Peter 2:20-21 these people “escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” then got tangled up again, and turning back implies they were on the road.
Acts 3:19 still says to repent and turn back though.