64. Can we lose our salvation?
Yes. We believe, although we have experienced regeneration, it is possible to depart from grace and fall into sin.
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You may have heard the slogan, “once saved, always saved.” It often crops up in circles where salvation is understood entirely in terms of accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior and where the sum total of the response God expects of us is a “decision for Christ.” Just as nothing I did contributed to that salvation, so the logic goes, nothing I do on this side of accepting Christ can take away from that salvation. This notion, however, stems from a shallow understanding of salvation—both in terms of what it is that God, through the Son and Holy Spirit, seeks to save us from (see question 54) and in terms of how Scripture itself speaks about salvation.
There are passages that speak about being saved in the past tense, the best known being Ephesians 2:8. But there are also passages that speak about salvation as an action in progress (cf. 1 Cor. 1:18; Phil. 2:12–13) and even more passages that speak of salvation as something that also still lies in the future. When Paul says that “our salvation is now nearer at hand than when we believed” (Rom. 13:11 DST), he clearly indicates that he is still also looking forward to salvation. Salvation is not something we possess apart from continuing along the trajectory along which God set us when we embraced Jesus as Savior and Lord—the trajectory of growing continually in “the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). We are branches that enjoy this new life only as long as we continue to remain connected to the vine, which is Christ (John 15:1–6). We remain securely in the process of being saved as long as we continue to respond in faithful obedience to God’s favor, allowing God, by God’s Spirit, to carry us along to “perfection” (Heb. 6:1–6).
That failing to attain salvation (a more biblical way of thinking about it than “losing salvation”) is a real danger for believers is demonstrated by the serious warnings about this very thing throughout the New Testament (see, for example, Rom. 8:12–13; Gal. 5:19–21; 6:7–8; Heb. 3:12–14; 4:1; 12:15–17).
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Watch out, brothers and sisters, lest there be in any one of you a wicked, unfaithful heart, turning away from the living God. Rather, keep encouraging one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” in order that none of you become hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. For we have become Christ’s partners—if we hold to the undertaking we began firmly to the end. (Heb. 3:12–14 DST)
Therefore, beloved, since you know what is coming, keep guard over yourselves in order that you are not carried away by the error of the ungodly and thereby fall away from your steadfastness, but keep growing in the favor and knowledge of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 3:17–18 DST)
See also 1 Cor. 9:27; 10:11–12; 2 Cor. 11:3; Rom. 11:19–22; Gal. 5:4; 1 Thess. 3:8; 1 Tim. 1:18–20; 4:1–2; 5:15; 2 Tim. 3:1–5; 4:3–4; Heb. 2:1–4; 2 Peter 2:1–3, 20–21; Rev. 2:4–5; 3:11; CoF IX
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This is an excerpt from Christian Faith and Doctrine: An Annotated Catechism for the Global Methodist Church. Seedbed is pleased to partner with The Global Methodist Church to offer this companion resource to A Catechism of Christian Faith and Doctrine for the Global Methodist Church.
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