Once Saved Almost Saved

Jesus said that in the last days many false teachers would arise and attempt to lead his sheep astray.  One such teaching is that once you are saved, there is nothing that you can do to fall from grace.  In other terms, once you are saved by accepting Christ, you are incapable of losing your salvation.  However, this is a nonsensical position to take for anyone knowledgeable of the scriptures.

If the Once Saved Always Saved (OSAS) doctrine were true, then the pastor who murdered his wife to cover his adulteries would never be in danger of condemnation.  Then countless unrepentant priests and nuns guilty of sexually molesting or abusing children would never be headed for the gates of hell.  The apostate church would be guaranteed a place in the kingdom of heaven.  It is counter intuitive that God would go through the excruciating pain of permitting his only begotten Son to endure death on the cross if it meant that sin and obedience are irrelevant to eternal life.  We are saved by grace however we can fall from grace.

The Apostle Paul wrote in the eleventh chapter of Romans that Christians are grafted in branches and he warns about becoming arrogant, thinking we are somehow better than the Jews who were cut off to enable us to be grafted in. The concept he drives home is that it is the root that nourishes the branches and not vice versa.  “If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches.  If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.  You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off so that I can be grafted in.’

Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith.  Do not be arrogant, but tremble.  For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.”  Romans 11:17-21.

Here are six scriptures that counter the fallacious “Once Saved Always Saved” doctrine. First let’s examine, Galatians 5:4, which reads, “You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.”  Paul is writing this message to the church at Galatia, to believers, to saved Christians, who have already committed their lives to the Lord.  To fall from grace means to lose the salvation that was received. 

Secondly, James tells us in James 5:19-20, “My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover a multitude of sins.”  James qualifies his directions to “brothers,” (and sisters) implying brothers in Christ, and then he intimates they can wander from the truth and become sinners.  He goes on to say that when someone turns these Christians who have wandered astray back, they are saving “a sinner,” revealing they have indeed become as the lost, who don’t have salvation.  It is therefore nonsensical to say that a Christian that is once saved always saved (from death) could be saved from death (again). 

 2 Peter 2:20-22 is the third scripture and it says, “If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.  It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.  Of them the proverbs are true: ‘A dog returns to its vomit,’ and ‘A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.’”  How can a Christian be worse off at the end than they were at the beginning if they are once saved always saved?

The fourth scripture on the list is 1 Corinthians 10:12, “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!”  Paul is advising believers against becoming complacent in the presence of the temptations of lust, sexual immorality and drinking and debauchery.  The very same things that tempt most Christians today.  These sins are prevalent in all societies and our fleshly desires beg to be satisfied, therefore, it is crucial to be aware of them and displace them with righteous thoughts and actions.

1 John 1:17 says, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” This fifth passage of scripture, by using “if” conveys the conditional nature of salvation.  If we continue to walk in the light, if we remain faithful and obedient to the Spirit, if we hold to the truth of the gospel, we are covered by the blood of the Lamb and we remain saved.

Finally, the sixth passage is Hebrews 3:12 which states. “See to it, brothers (and sisters), that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.”  Once again this is directed towards believers and reaffirms the concept that Christians who have been saved by grace can fall from grace.

These six passages of scripture speak of willfully, continually sinning against God.  This shouldn’t be conflated with stumbling as a Christian, confessing our sin to God, asking for forgiveness, and doubling down on our commitment to Christ.  Certainly there are those who fall away for a time and discover their folly and then rededicate their lives to Jesus, as I did.  For 20 years I walked contrary to Christ after I first accepted him as my savior, but like the prodigal son, I was welcomed to a full inheritance when I returned home.  However, those who walk away for good relinquish their inheritance in the kingdom of God.

John Wesley once said:

“Calvinists, who deny that salvation can ever be lost, reason on the subject in a marvelous way. They tell us, that no virgin’s lamp can go out, no promising harvest can be choked with thorns, no branch in Christ can ever be cut off from unfruitfulness, no pardon can ever be forfeited, and no name blotted out of God’s book!  They insist that no salt can ever lose its savor, nobody can ever “receive the grace of God in vain’; ‘bury his talents’; ‘neglect such great salvation’; trifle away ‘a day of grace’; ‘look back’ after putting his hand to the gospel plow.  Nobody can ‘grieve the Spirit’ till he is ‘quenched,’ and strives no more, nor ‘deny the Lord that bought them’; nor ‘bring upon themselves swift destruction.’  Nobody, or body of believers, can ever get so lukewarm that Jesus will spew them out of his mouth.  They use reams of paper to argue that if one ever got lost he was never found (John 17:12), that if one falls, he never stood (Romans 11:16-22 and Hebrews 6:4-6); if one was ever ‘cast forth,’ he was never in, and ‘if one ever withered,’ he was never green (John 15:1-6; and that ‘if any man draws back,’ it proves that he never had anything to draw back from (Hebrews10:38-39); that if one ever ‘falls away into spiritual darkness,’ he was never enlightened (Hebrews 6:4-6); that if you again get entangled in the pollutions of the world, it shows that you never escaped (2 Peter 2:20); that if you ‘put salvation away’ you never had it to put away, and if you make shipwreck of faith, there was no ship of faith there!! In short they say: if you get it, you can’t lose it; and if you lose it you never had it.  May God save us from a doctrine, that must be defended by such fallacious reasoning!”

John Wesley