Once Saved Always Saved (OSAS): Can a Person Lose His or Her Salvation?

I think the question above should be divided into two parts. As in, the question assumes too much and makes a type of category mistake. The first question should be, “Can a person walk away from his or her salvation?” The second question should be, “Will God ever take away a person’s salvation?”

Can a person walk away from his or her salvation?

The first question, “Can a person walk away from his or her salvation?” has been a strong point of contention for hundreds of years. I have heard someone tell me once that “if someone is truly” saved, they would never walk away from their salvation.” I really liked that because it answered a lot of questions that I had concerning such. The word “truly” seemed to settle things in my mind. If one did walk away from Christianity, then it seems that they were never “truly” saved.

But the problem is that we see our own family and friends through the years doing exactly this... They had a true, heart and mind moment where they knew that they failed morally (sinned) before God. They started out well, and ran for a while, but something happened, and now they do not live a Christian life, they do not follow Jesus, they no longer go to church, and they never talk about theology or religion at all, unless it is in a very broad, almost pantheistic, sense. Perhaps, if they lived long enough, they might turn back around, but there are even issues with this. Hebrews tells us that coming back from something like this would be like Jesus being crucified all over again, which is impossible:

“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt” (Hebrews 6:4-6).

I think the thing to think about here is the only unforgivable sin. Walking away from Jesus is obviously a sin (how would one conform to the likeness of God’s Son if he or she were not following Jesus? See Romans 8:29), but is it impossible to be forgiven again, and is it simply an unforgivable sin? I do not think so, because there is only one unforgivable sin as one can discover in the underlined link above.

With this aside, I think we should look at the Parable of the Sower. To save time, let’s look at Jesus’ explanation of the parable:

Mark 4:14-20: “The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”

Doesn’t this seem to teach that there are people who have the Word for a short time and then lose it? Consider what is said here: “Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word at once and receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they only last for a short time…” How long is a short time? What exactly did that look like? “Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful…” They have enough time to grow, but not be fruitful? It seems like the word fruit could have a correlation with the understanding of “truly,” above. If there were never fruit, then it would be easy to think of someone as never having been “truly” saved. But again, the problem is, we see this cropping up, more and more. People who have been Christians for so long and they even became Christian band members or even pastors, or professors of theology (with seemingly “much fruit”) who have walked away from a relationship with Jesus.

The point in all of this is to show that it is possible to walk away from your faith. The question is, why is it possible? Because we have libertarian free will (LFW). We had it going in, and we have it going out. Why would God say to His free creatures that “You can come to me, but I won’t let you go, even if you wanted to?” Wouldn’t this mean that we are then not free?! God created us as free creatures because this is the most loving thing to do. If God created robots, or if we are ultimately determined creatures, then how would that be more loving, in comparison to having the ability to create free creatures but not doing it? Obviously, it would not be more loving.

Will God ever take away a person’s salvation?

I think that everyone across the board would agree that the answer to this is a resounding “No!” (Even Supralapsarian Monergists!). Once a person is saved, God would never change His mind and take it away. I think that when one reads the Bible, and find the author writing from the perspective of either of these two questions, which, if we have these in mind, then it will make a lot more sense in considering where the author is coming from. Why is there such a huge disagreement about this topic (OSAS)? Because there is more than one perspective. It seems then that we should be asking of a specific text, “Which perspective is this coming from?” when we are thinking about the issue of OSAS. “Can we lose our salvation?” is the wrong question. The questions are, “Will God ever take away my salvation?” Or, “can I ever walk away from salvation?” The answers are, “No!” or “Yes.”

Why will God never take away our salvation? Because God is love (1 John 4:8). He does not want us to perish! 2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” God does not want to see anyone perish! Why then wouldn’t He do everything He can to see our salvation through? The answer is that He does do everything He can without violating our LFW. He placed us in the best possible world (Acts 17:26-27). He loves us so much that He wants to give us our own free will. This is to what Genesis 1:26 is referring: “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth…” “Let them have dominion over…” He made His beloved creatures rulers. Having dominion requires LFW. God gave us LFW partially because it is more loving than not giving us LFW.

Not only will God never take away a person’s salvation, but neither can anyone else, not even Satan. How could they if God Himself will not? In John 10:27-30, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.”

In Romans 8:38-39, Paul says, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God will never take away our salvation. But He will step aside when we want our will to be done.

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”

― C.S. Lewis, the Great Divorce

Written by Nace Howell through the grace of the Lord Jesus

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