Can a Born Again Christian lose thei salvation?

[Robert William]

Question: I wonder how many Christians here in this Baptist forum believes that a Born from Above Christian can lose their salvation?

I personally believe that salvation is given as a free gift by Grace, (unmerited favor) and that a Christian can never lose their salvation.

Joh 10:25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.
Joh 10:26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
Joh 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
Joh 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
Joh 10:29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
Joh 10:30 I and my Father are one.

Please notice in verse 26 it says the reason why some do not believe is because they are not His sheep, it doesn't say they are not my sheep because they don't believe.

 

[Zaac]

NO.

We can't give ourselves salvation. And we most certainly can't undo what we didn't do in the first place. :jesus:

 

[sag38]

We may break the terms of the Covenant but God doesn't. And, thank God He doesn't because I certainly have on more than one occasion.

 

[Marooncat79]

If you can lose it, then according Hebrews 6:1-4, they could never be saved again. The text says it is "impossible" to renew them again

 

[Rebel]

I believe you can forfeit it. I have yet to see anyone successfully defend how people have freedom to choose before salvation but not after.

 

[HankD]

I believe you can forfeit it. I have yet to see anyone successfully defend how people have freedom to choose before salvation but not after.

Because we can't be unborn.

HankD

 

[Rebel]

Because we can't be unborn.

HankD

What applies to the physical does not apply to the spiritual.

 

[Revmitchell]

I believe you can forfeit it. I have yet to see anyone successfully defend how people have freedom to choose before salvation but not after.

Unintentional as it may be this is a strawman argument. The issue is not about having the freedom to choose after salvation. The issue is how our salvation is maintained. 1 Peter says our salvation is kept by the power of God. The world kept is a word picture of making deposit before something happens to it. It is kept for safe keeping.

 

[Scarlett O.]

I believe you can forfeit it. I have yet to see anyone successfully defend how people have freedom to choose before salvation but not after.

Certainly you have free will after salvation. That's why people still sin even as Christians. We are in a fleshly body and make wrong choices every day. But God chastises those that he loves and we are forgiven. We don't sin more so that God can bestow grace more, yet we still have the freedom to choose.

Our freedom of choice has nothing to do with "forfeiting" salvation. It's impossible for us to do so. We did not save ourselves. God saved us.

For our salvation to be null and void, four things would have to happen that are absolutely impossible:

• God would have to "sell" us to the devil. He has purchased us or redeemed us through the blood of Christ. God would have to consciously sell us back.
• God would have to "un-justify" us. He has declared that we are justified through faith and He would have to undo His declaration.
• In Christ, we are new creatures. Not just altered or "cleaned up", but a totally new creation. The Bible says that in Christ, the old creature is "gone". A butterfly cannot be transformed back into a caterpillar. Once Christ has made us a completely new creature, it is impossible for the old to come back.
• The Holy Spirit would have to go back on his promise as a seal that guarantees us our spiritual inheritance. The Holy Spirit would have to break his promise.

"Forfeiting" salvation is impossible. Only God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit own the power and authority of salvation and its permanency.


Mankind is fallible and Christians go through spiritual crises all of the time. Doubts, fears, getting angry at God, questioning God and more can mar our witness, cause us to sin, and cause us to even question our own salvation.


Thank God our flaws and failures and spiritual doubts cannot undo what God has done for us just as our spiritual successes and growth do not contribute to our salvation.


We are either saved or we or not.

 

[Zaac]

Certainly you have free will after salvation. That's why people still sin even as Christians. We are in a fleshly body and make wrong choices every day. But God chastises those that he loves and we are forgiven. We don't sin more so that God can bestow grace more, yet we still have the freedom to choose.

Our freedom of choice has nothing to do with "forfeiting" salvation. It's impossible for us to do so. We did not save ourselves. God saved us.

For our salvation to be null and void, four things would have to happen that are absolutely impossible:

• God would have to "sell" us to the devil. He has purchased us or redeemed us through the blood of Christ. God would have to consciously sell us back.
• God would have to "un-justify" us. He has declared that we are justified through faith and He would have to undo His declaration.
• In Christ, we are new creatures. Not just altered or "cleaned up", but a totally new creation. The Bible says that in Christ, the old creature is "gone". A butterfly cannot be transformed back into a caterpillar. Once Christ has made us a completely new creature, it is impossible for the old to come back.
• The Holy Spirit would have to go back on his promise as a seal that guarantees us our spiritual inheritance. The Holy Spirit would have to break his promise.

"Forfeiting" salvation is impossible. Only God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit own the power and authority of salvation and its permanency.


Mankind is fallible and Christians go through spiritual crises all of the time. Doubts, fears, getting angry at God, questioning God and more can mar our witness, cause us to sin, and cause us to even question our own salvation.


Thank God our flaws and failures and spiritual doubts cannot undo what God has done for us just as our spiritual successes and growth do not contribute to our salvation.


We are either saved or we or not.

BEAUTIFUL. Nothing else needs to be said lest we remake GOD in OUR image and into a liar.

 

[Rebel]

Unintentional as it may be this is a strawman argument. The issue is not about having the freedom to choose after salvation. The issue is how our salvation is maintained. 1 Peter says our salvation is kept by the power of God. The world kept is a word picture of making deposit before something happens to it. It is kept for safe keeping.

But you didn't finish the verse. It says kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. I maintain that one can lose his or her faith, or forfeit it and thus salvation.

 

[Rebel]

Certainly you have free will after salvation. That's why people still sin even as Christians. We are in a fleshly body and make wrong choices every day. But God chastises those that he loves and we are forgiven. We don't sin more so that God can bestow grace more, yet we still have the freedom to choose.

Our freedom of choice has nothing to do with "forfeiting" salvation. It's impossible for us to do so. We did not save ourselves. God saved us.

For our salvation to be null and void, four things would have to happen that are absolutely impossible:

• God would have to "sell" us to the devil. He has purchased us or redeemed us through the blood of Christ. God would have to consciously sell us back.
• God would have to "un-justify" us. He has declared that we are justified through faith and He would have to undo His declaration.
• In Christ, we are new creatures. Not just altered or "cleaned up", but a totally new creation. The Bible says that in Christ, the old creature is "gone". A butterfly cannot be transformed back into a caterpillar. Once Christ has made us a completely new creature, it is impossible for the old to come back.
• The Holy Spirit would have to go back on his promise as a seal that guarantees us our spiritual inheritance. The Holy Spirit would have to break his promise.

"Forfeiting" salvation is impossible. Only God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit own the power and authority of salvation and its permanency.


Mankind is fallible and Christians go through spiritual crises all of the time. Doubts, fears, getting angry at God, questioning God and more can mar our witness, cause us to sin, and cause us to even question our own salvation.


Thank God our flaws and failures and spiritual doubts cannot undo what God has done for us just as our spiritual successes and growth do not contribute to our salvation.


We are either saved or we or not.

The first Baptists would disagree with you, based on their reading of scripture and views of God's nature.

 

[Rebel]

BEAUTIFUL. Nothing else needs to be said lest we remake GOD in OUR image and into a liar.

Do you find it strange that OSAS was not held in the entire history of Christendom until Calvin?

 

[Darrell C]

Question: I wonder how many Christians here in this Baptist forum believes that a Born from Above Christian can lose their salvation?

I personally believe that salvation is given as a free gift by Grace, (unmerited favor) and that a Christian can never lose their salvation.

Joh 10:25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.
Joh 10:26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
Joh 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
Joh 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
Joh 10:29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
Joh 10:30 I and my Father are one.

Please notice in verse 26 it says the reason why some do not believe is because they are not His sheep, it doesn't say they are not my sheep because they don't believe.

Notice also that His sheep "hear His voice."

We become sheep through obedience to the Gospel, and unto the Spirit of God which speaks to all men.


John 12:32

King James Version (KJV)

32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.


1 Corinthians 3:5

King James Version (KJV)

5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?




While every man will have opportunity to be saved, and that through the Ministry of the Comforter. not every man will...hear Him.

Those who are obedient to the Gospel will receive the eternal indwelling of the Holy Spirit, through which regeneration takes place, and that is not something that can be reversed.


God bless.

 

[Darrell C]

Do you find it strange that OSAS was not held in the entire history of Christendom until Calvin?

Not at all true. All First Century texts testify that salvation is eternal.

Calvin did not invent the Doctrine of Eternal Security, God did, and He revealed that through Christ and the Apostles.


God bless.

 

[Darrell C]

If you can lose it, then according Hebrews 6:1-4, they could never be saved again. The text says it is "impossible" to renew them again

Those rebuked by the Writer are not saved, but warned to leave the First Covenant (the Covenant of Law).

There is nothing in the text about losing salvation, it is entirely about progressing to the Doctrine of Christ that had been revealed to them in that day, contrasted with the First Principles of the Doctrine of Christ found in the Law. The Covenant of Law was never meant to be permanent, but temporary. It was never meant to be salvific, but a "school-teacher" Israel was to be the charge of, until that which was better, and complete, should arrive.

Those in view, according to the Writer, and Author, were infantile in their understanding, for when they should have been teachers, they needed someone to walk them through the First Principles again, and he is specific in saying this was because they were lazy in regards to the Word of God.


God bless.

 

[Darrell C]

I believe you can forfeit it. I have yet to see anyone successfully defend how people have freedom to choose before salvation but not after.

Salvation is not a matter of choosing, except that choosing done by God. And the fact is that God has chosen to provide every man and woman with an opportunity to be saved, and has established that opportunity in Christ.

Christ died to atone for sins, and that He might give life to the lifeless. Lifeless...because they were separated from God through the disobedience of Adam. He sent the Comforter to convict the world, not believers, of sin (their own, their condition), righteousness (their lack thereof, and to expound Christ's), and judgment (that God will indeed judge sin, and through this convicting ministry that is made personal to the individual).

Let me ask you this: when you were saved...what were your thoughts on Hell (eternal separation)?

But we know the Comforter ministers to unbelievers:


John 16:7-9

King James Version (KJV)

7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

9 Of sin, because they believe not on me;



God bless.

 

[Darrell C]

What applies to the physical does not apply to the spiritual.

In this case it does.


God bless.

 

[Darrell C]

Certainly you have free will after salvation. That's why people still sin even as Christians. We are in a fleshly body and make wrong choices every day. But God chastises those that he loves and we are forgiven. We don't sin more so that God can bestow grace more, yet we still have the freedom to choose.

Our freedom of choice has nothing to do with "forfeiting" salvation. It's impossible for us to do so. We did not save ourselves. God saved us.

For our salvation to be null and void, four things would have to happen that are absolutely impossible:

• God would have to "sell" us to the devil. He has purchased us or redeemed us through the blood of Christ. God would have to consciously sell us back.
• God would have to "un-justify" us. He has declared that we are justified through faith and He would have to undo His declaration.
• In Christ, we are new creatures. Not just altered or "cleaned up", but a totally new creation. The Bible says that in Christ, the old creature is "gone". A butterfly cannot be transformed back into a caterpillar. Once Christ has made us a completely new creature, it is impossible for the old to come back.
• The Holy Spirit would have to go back on his promise as a seal that guarantees us our spiritual inheritance. The Holy Spirit would have to break his promise.

"Forfeiting" salvation is impossible. Only God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit own the power and authority of salvation and its permanency.


Mankind is fallible and Christians go through spiritual crises all of the time. Doubts, fears, getting angry at God, questioning God and more can mar our witness, cause us to sin, and cause us to even question our own salvation.


Thank God our flaws and failures and spiritual doubts cannot undo what God has done for us just as our spiritual successes and growth do not contribute to our salvation.


We are either saved or we or not.

Well said.

God bless.

 

[Scarlett O.]

The first Baptists would disagree with you, based on their reading of scripture and views of God's nature.

I have also read the scriptures and have - because of the reading/studying of them - come to an understanding of God's nature.

I know nothing of the first Baptists. Having been on the Baptistboard since 2002, I came to quickly know that I know nothing about the multi-flavorings of many Baptists today.