Can a Christian lose salvation?
The question behind this one is really about where salvation rests — on the believer's grip on Christ, or on Christ's grip on the believer. Commentators in this collection answer with one voice that a true believer cannot be lost, while being careful to distinguish that from a claim that everyone who says they believe is safe.
The Lord's own promise to His sheep
The clearest ground given is what Jesus says about His sheep in John 10. One writer counts the assurances there and notes that nothing is attached to them:
Leslie M. GrantHe declares these things as absolute facts. He attaches no conditions to them whatever… "I give them eternal life," a free, unconditional gift, not temporary, but eternal. Then He further presses, "they shall never perish." What clear assurance to the believing heart! Further, "neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand," and also, "no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand" (vv. 28-29). They are held by the double power of the Father and the Son for eternity.
Eternal life that could be lost would not be eternal
There is also a simple argument from the words themselves. If real faith could end in being lost, the gift would have to be renamed:
The Christian's FriendWherever there is true faith in Him, that is, wherever He is owned in the heart (as in Rom. 10:10), the soul is eternally safe, or, as Scripture puts it, "has eternal life," "does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life," and is one of "the sheep" who "will never perish." (John 5:24; 10:27-30.) To say that someone could be right in heart with God, and then fall away from this so as to be lost, is to say that a person may have eternal life and lose it — that is, that after all it may turn out not to be eternal life. And it is also to say that some power can snatch His sheep out of His hand, even though He states the opposite.
Two different questions: safety and communion
Being safe and being happy in God are not the same thing, and confusing them causes much of the anxiety around this subject:
J Wilson SmithThen can he be lost? That is, thank God, another question altogether. The salvation of the true believer is not contingent on his faithfulness, but on God's settled purpose. On the other hand the present peace and comfort of his soul depend entirely on his faithfulness to Christ. Relationship is one thing, communion another.
How far a believer can fall — and where the line is
None of this denies that a Christian can sin seriously. What is denied is that such a fall can undo redemption:
Walter ScottA believer may, sadly, go down into terrible depths of evil, and for the time being wreck his present happiness and usefulness, as Lot did in Sodom (but see 2 Peter 2:7-8), and Jonah (Jonah 1:2-5; Jonah 2:9), and the man guilty of immorality in 1 Corinthians 5 (but see 2 Cor. 2:6-8). But there is one thing he cannot do. He cannot, like Judas, absolutely give up Christ. How many weak yet true believers needlessly worry about being lost, pointing to the sin of Judas and his terrible end. But reasoning from Judas, Satan, angels, and Adam falling overlooks the difference made by the "eternal redemption" that is in Christ Jesus for the believer (Heb. 9:12; Heb. 10:39; Rom. 8:34).
What is at risk, then, is not the relationship but the good of it:
Alfred E. BouterIf we read verses that seem to contradict the assurance of salvation, we must at the same time submit to God's Word as it clearly confirms that one cannot lose his salvation, although one can lose the enjoyment of salvation. Scripture confirms that a believer does not lose his salvation, just as a child never loses the inherited link with his parents.
The warning passages: apostasy, not backsliding
Hebrews 6 is the usual objection. Commentators read it as describing people who had the outward privileges of Christianity without life:
Hamilton SmithThe fact that they were clinging to the forms and ceremonies of Judaism might indicate that some who were enlightened by the truths of Christianity, and had tasted its privileges, had given up their profession and had returned to Judaism. For such there would be no recovery. This "falling away," of which the Apostle speaks, is not the backsliding of a true believer, but the apostasy of a mere professor.
Assurance that produces watchfulness, not carelessness
Security is not an excuse. One writer, commenting on Paul's own self-discipline, keeps both truths together:
William KellyIt was not that he in the smallest degree doubted his security in Christ, as some so foolishly say, or that those who have eternal life may lose it again. But it is plain that people who merely take the place of having eternal life may, and often do, abandon that place. Those who have eternal life prove it by godliness; those who do not have it prove the lack of it by indifference to holiness, and by lack of that love which is of God.
Summary
- Held. The sheep are kept by the hand of the Son and the hand of the Father, and no conditions are attached to the promise that they will never perish.
- Grounded. Safety rests on God's settled purpose, not on the believer's faithfulness — which is why it can be certain.
- Distinguished. What faithfulness does affect is peace, comfort and enjoyment; relationship is one thing, communion another.
- Bounded. A believer may fall into real and terrible sin, but cannot finally give up Christ, because redemption is eternal.
- Tested. The warnings about falling away describe those who had privilege without life, so real faith shows itself in godliness rather than in carelessness.