Question: Can we lose our Salvation

Faith alone or good works?

I once met someone who believed that preaching that salvation is permanent meant that we were giving people false hope and telling people that they could continue to sin after being originally saved. However, to take this view, fundamentally destroys the very purpose for which we are saved, i.e. to be given liberty, joy, peace and to be without fear so that we can worship God in freedom of heart, enraptured with the one who loves us so much. We cannot be persons who are worshipping God if we are still focussed on our own failings and weaknesses. Likewise, we cannot be worshipping Christians if we are going back to our sins and old fleshly pleasures. This view of being saved today and then going back to sin actually indicates that the new creation in Christian has not been fully understood. A Christian doesn’t want to go back to sin because they have found such tremendous peace, joy and liberty in our Lord Jesus, by the power and indwelling of the Holy Spirit and in relationship with the Almighty God as our Father. Our hearts have been changed to find joy in God’s divine will and finds little pleasure in the temporary entertainments and lusts of this world. (Read the studies on ‘Salvation’ as well as ‘Faith’ and ‘Justification’.)

Let’s look closely at some of the scriptures relating to this:

God’s purpose involves salvation: He is satisfied with Jesus’ life and person

God’s purpose is that we should be saved. This was the purpose of God in sending the Lord Jesus who came to do God’s will. God’s will, we are told, is that he “desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). God has been so satisfied in the perfection and person of His Son that He has made Him the basis for our salvation. He declared on two occasions that the Lord Jesus was His beloved Son. The first time He declared His delight in the Lord’s life and in the second time He said “hear him” placing His seal of approval thereby on the Lord’s teaching and ministry. We find in several scriptures that it is the Lord’s life and His faith that is the power that gives us life, for if the Lord had not been perfection itself then He could not have been a sacrifice for our sins. Hebrews 7:27 says of the Lord Jesus that he “has not day by day need, as the high priests, first to offer up sacrifices for his own sins, then for those of the people; for this he did once for all in having offered up himself”. He offered up Himself for He had no sin. He has no need to offer up any more. We are told that as our great high priest He continues to intercede for us but there is no question of our needing another sacrifice for dealing with sins.

“For if, being enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much rather, having been reconciled, we shall be saved in the power of his life” (Romans 5:10).

"For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son, and believes on him, should have life eternal; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40).

“He that believes on the Son has life eternal, and he that is not subject to the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him” (John 3:36).

“And this is the witness, that God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son. He that has the Son has life: he that has not the Son of God has not life. These things have I written to you that ye may know that ye have eternal life who believe on the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5:11-13).

God was infinitely satisfied with the Lord Jesus and therefore the Lord Jesus is the fundamental basis of salvation. We have either believed on God’s Son and have salvation; or we have rejected God’s beloved Son and have no salvation.

“But when the kindness and love to man of our Saviour God appeared, not on the principle of works which have been done in righteousness which we had done, but according to his own mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that, having been justified by his grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4-7).

This quotation from Titus shows clearly that it is not we who have cleansed ourselves but God who has washed us according to His own mercy and by His own power. His aim is that we should become heirs according to eternal life. We have not influenced God’s decision but it was according to His own mercy that we have been saved.

“He came to his own, and his own received him not; but as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God, to those that believe on his name; who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh's will, nor of man's will, but of God” (John 1:11-13).

Once we have been saved then we have been made children of God by receiving the Lord Jesus. We have been born again according to God’s will. We cannot be unborn or lose the new creation that is referred to in 1 Corinthians 5:17 and Galatians 6:15. God has started something new in us and while we still have our sinful bodies (what the Bible calls “the flesh”) that body has been crucified with Christ and can’t be uncrucified.

So, our salvation is founded on God’s delight in His Son and the Lord’s life was a complete delight to Him.

The Lord Jesus’ sacrifice is the reason why we are saved.

“For ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is God's gift: not on the principle of works, that no one might boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). This scripture makes it abundantly clear that we are not saved by our own efforts. Even if we could live a life that was outwardly holy we would fail because our thoughts are governed by sinful emotions such as lust and pride. If the Lord’s death on the cross only partially removed our sins up to a certain date we would still have to live in fear because of our daily failings. God desires to show mercy to all (Romans 11:32) and so He has given the Lord Jesus. All the offerings given in the book of Leviticus speak of the sacrifice being unblemished and give us an image of the perfection of the ultimate sacrifice. Peter tells us that we have been redeemed “by precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, the blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:19). His blood was valuable to God because it represented a perfect life given up in love for sinners (see Leviticus 17:14 and Deuteronomy 12:23). God’s will was all that mattered to the Lord Jesus and it was by that will that “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).

The blood of Jesus was shed according to the will of God. That blood was infinitely precious to God because it represented a perfect life which was surrendered in death out of love for God. God has saved us because of the value of that blood and not because of anything we have done. The scripture is clear that we are worth nothing in our sins. However, God has valued us even though we are naturally ungodly and saved us by virtue of the blood of the Lord Jesus.

The basis of our salvation

Nothing can change the value of the Lord’s shed blood to God.

“For ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is God's gift: not on the principle of works, that no one might boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). We can’t influence our own salvation, but God has given the faith needed to secure it. He gave it, we did not earn it. It is based on the value that God has for Jesus and the value God has on the blood that His Son so willingly shed to save us.

Not only that, but once we are saved we begin to realise that God had actually had us in mind for His blessing from before the world existed. The fact that someone has repented and been saved is evidence of the fact that the Lord has worked in us to bring us to salvation. It is not we who decide to repent. It is the “goodness of God [that] leads thee to repentance?” (Romans 2:4).

“Because whom he has foreknown, he has also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he should be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29).

“And all that dwell on the earth shall do it homage [the image of the beast], every one whose name had not been written from the founding of the world in the book of life of the slain Lamb” (Romans 13:8). Every Christian has their name in the book of life. This scripture shows that our names were written there before the world’s foundation.

The thief on the cross beside the Lord Jesus was told “This day, shalt thou be with me in paradise”. It was not conditional on his being pure in thought during the next few hours before he finally succumbed to death. It was certain and secure.