Was Saul saved ?

Honestly, I do not know.

The truth is that many of us are Saul's. Few Christians will admit that publicly. We battle with the same moral compromises that Saul committed. Our obedience is only partial. Because of our disobedience we are subject to the same consequences Saul experienced: anxiety, rage, and even mental illness. Does that mean we are not saved? No. Think of Saul's nemesis, David. Scripture says of David that He is a man after God's own heart (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22). How was David a man after God's own heart when he was guilty of conspiracy in the murder of Uriah the Hittite? Indeed, the scripture says of David's sin in 2 Samuel 11:27, "But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the LORD." So, in what sense was David a man after God's own heart? When confronted over his sin by Nathan the prophet David genuinely repented. This is the key. David, like Saul, was capable of evil acts. The difference is that we read of David genuinely repenting, whereas we don't read that about Saul. While we cannot sit in judgment on Saul, we should take the words of the Apostle Paul to heart in our own lives:

2 Corinthians 13:5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you--unless indeed you fail the test?

 

That is only true if salvation is the work of man. If salvation is all of God then those who are in Christ can never not be in Christ. When Paul wrote, "examine yourself" he was not supposing that a saved person can become unsaved. He was challenging the Corinthians to examine their claim of being believers. You cannot lose something that you never had. That is what John was saying in 1 John 2:19. John wrote, "They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us." These false professors never were possessors [of salvation]. If Saul died as an unsaved man it is not because he lost his salvation. If Saul died as an unsaved man it is because he was never saved to begin with.

 

E W Bullinger -
Verse 19

with me: i.e. with the dead.

Jamaison Faust
Tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons by with me - i:e., in the state of the dead. The expression "with me" does not imply that the condition of Saul and his sons would be the same as that of Samuel, but that they would be, like the prophet, in the receptacle of departed spirits, though each would have his own place.

Gill - Who IMHO says a lot not to say anything. See comment after paste.
and tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me; which if understood in what sense it may, seems to be a lie of the devil, and at best an ambiguous expression, such as he has been wont to give in the Heathen oracles; if he meant this of himself as an evil spirit, it could not be true of Saul and all his sons, that they should be with him in hell, especially of Jonathan who appears throughout the whole of his life to have been a good man; if he would have it understood of him as representing Samuel, and of their being with him in heaven, it must be a great stretch of charity to believe it true of Saul, so wicked a man, and who died in the act of suicide; though the JewsF11, some of them, understand it in this sense, that his sins were pardoned, and he was saved; and if it is taken in the sense of being in the state of the dead, and in the earth, from whence he is said to ascend, and where the body of Samuel was, which seems to be the best sense that is put upon the phrase, "with me"; yet this was not true, if he meant it of all the sons of Saul, as the expression seems to suggest; for there were Ishbosheth, and his two sons by Rizpah, which survived him; nor was it true of Saul and his sons that they were cut off, and that they died the next day; for the battle was not fought till several days after this, see 1 Samuel 28:23; if it should be said, that "tomorrow" signifies some future time, and not strictly the next day, this shows the ambiguity of the expression used, and the insignifi

Comment. Acts 2:27.31 Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.

Where was Christ when dead? Are any of them better than Christ including Samuel?

 

I don't find it very useful using the word 'saved' or consequently 'unsaved' this way - where it denotes simply the final state. I believe Scriptures allow for the word to capture momentous states too.

A sinner with a hardened heart and blinded mind needs to be saved from his bondage to sin in order to even repent and receive the knowledge of God. And if God does deliver him from 'Egypt', he could be said to be 'saved' from Egypt. But it doesn't end there. He must endure in the faith to the end until he enters the promised rest / land. And he could very well return to the mud after being washed, no longer possible to renew him to repentance, having no more Passover sacrifice to cover his sins - such a one will be destroyed by God in the wilderness because of unbelief.

"Whom God saved, He destroyed" is a biblical statement in these cases. They had something which they then lost. But there is good reason to differentiate between these who fall away versus those who persevere to the end. The children of flesh contrasted against the children of Promise. What they never had to begin with was the Promise - and that is never lost once given.

 

I agree with the other posts here that explain how being 'with him' didn't imply being saved. I also acknowledge some people's uncertainty over Saul's state as believer or not. I myself hold him to be lost just as Judas and this I hold with certainty based on 2Sam 7:14-15 - there is a differentiation made between one who has the sure mercies of David and one who doesn't. In the same breath, this is more reason for me to believe against predestined reprobation/condemnation (I hold to single predestination) - for not having the sure mercies of David did not mean No mercy at all, given 1Sam 10:6-11.

 

Actually it's the other way round - what I read in Scriptures concerning God's ways, including the passages about Saul, inform me on how to view the doctrine of predestination.

 

I can come to no other conclusion then that Saul was a child of God and saved.

I base this on (1 Samuel 10:6-9). "And the Spirit of the LORD will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man. And let it be, when these signs are come unto thee, that thou do as occasion serve thee; for God is with thee....And it was so, that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart: and all those signs came to pass that day."

Quantrill

 

"... just as Saul hated and persecuted David, so the heads of the Jews—the chief priests and Pharisees—were envious of and hounded Christ. Just as Saul thirsted for the blood of Jesse’s son, the leaders of Israel (at a later date) thirsted for the blood of God’s Son.

The analogy mentioned above might be drawn out at considerable length..."
A.W. Pink, The Life of David, Volume 1, Chapter 10

Indeed, it may well be the largest type in the scriptures if counting the number of similarities between type and antitype.

1 Now there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David: and David waxed stronger and stronger, but the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker. 2 Sam 3

'House of Saul' equates to Apostate Judaism and it's leaders in the days of Christ and the early Church. 'House of David' equates to Christ/Apostles/early Church.
​

 

Well, maybe (which is fine by me). But maybe not: Was Caiaphas high priest saved? John 11:49-52, ". . . And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. . . ."

 

Concerning Caiaphas, I would say no. At least at this point in time. Was he ever? I don't know. Many Pharisees did turn to Christ.

But concerning Saul, I say yes, for the reason given. Had the same thing been said of Caiaphas as was said of Saul, I would have said yes also.

Quantrill