Once Saved, Always Saved (OSAS) is a Theological Myth - Part Three

 

 Once Saved, Always Saved is a Theological Myth – Part Three

 In my last couple of articles, I have spent a lot of time laying out the doctrine of Once Saved, Always Saved (OSAS), how it aligns with the despised doctrine of the Nicolaitans of the first century church and what the arguments and Scriptures are that are used in defence of this doctrine. At long last, I am able to get to how the Scriptures actually refute this doctrine. In fact, the Scriptures absolutely destroy the notion of this doctrine.

 I will re-iterate again that there will be those who support OSAS that will argue against all that I have written so far, stating that those people who persist in many of the evils that are mentioned in the description of the Nicolaitan belief system were never actually followers of Christ, because real followers of Christ would not act in those ways. There is some truth to this assertion. There are those who will say the words of confession about Jesus but who will not be sincere about it, but there are also those who will be sincere about their confession but will see this doctrine as permission to continue to live as they did before. This is not an either/or situation where it is one or the other, but it is a both/and situation where both scenarios can be true in differing cases. Paul wrote to the Romans and to the Colossians, to the churches, because he had been hearing of these things happening among them. He knew them and he knew their hearts, so he was concerned about them and wanted them to change their ways. John also addresses this issue in a less direct manner in his first epistle. And if you think that was a first century problem; I can assure you that I have heard of the same types of things happening in today’s churches too.

 But in order to build an understanding that OSAS is a false teaching, perhaps I need to start with the foundation that, yes, we can, in fact, “lose” our salvation. I use quotes there as there are definitely people who make a verbal confession for reasons other than to cling to God, making the confession insincere, as mentioned above. The only way that outsiders can determine whether or not someone has made an honest commitment to following Christ is by the fruit that they bear, that being the things that they do and the ways that they act as a believer. For these people, they cannot fall away from salvation, because they had never received it in the first place; God knows our hearts and our motivations, we cannot fool Him. To these people He will say “Depart from Me, for I never knew you.”

 That being stated, also believe that there are those who made a real commitment to follow Jesus, but for whatever reason they have been unable to carry through with that commitment. We see people fail to fulfill their commitments all the time; we should not be surprised when the same happens with a commitment that would require that people change potentially almost everything about their lives. Some people will slowly slip away from God, but others will choose to turn their backs on Him. But let’s start with Scripture indicating that we can turn away from Christ. I’ll warn you, this article will get long.

 Let’s start in Luke with Jesus’ parable of the sower. If we look in chapter 8, verse 13, we see that Jesus tells us that there will be those whose hearts will be like the rocky soil in the parable; “who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away.” The word temptation in this case indicates a time of trial. It does not need to mean that you are tempted to sin and you fail to withstand, though that could be the cause of one’s falling away. But the main point that I want to bring to your attention here is that Jesus is talking about someone who has heard the Good News and accepted it, and then they fell away, which is to say that they turned their back on Christ; or forfeited, lost their salvation.

 Let’s then move to the Gospel of John in the fifteenth chapter, where we again hear Jesus Himself, this time teaching about the vine and the branches. Jesus tells us that we, the branches, need to abide in Him, the vine, if we are to remain alive. In verse 6 He warns us that, “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.” For those who actually know their Bible a little bit and will argue that Jesus is talking to the Jews here and not to those who follow Him, we can look to Paul’s letter to the Roman church where he reiterates the same message in chapter 11:17-24, where he is talking to the church. We as Gentile believers are the wild olive shoot that is grafted into the root, the vine. The branches that were broken off in order that we could be grafted in are the Jews who rejected Jesus as their Messiah. But we are warned, “Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either.” (v. 20b-21) We are further warned to “continue in His kindness”. If God was not afraid to cut off branches from the original tree, He will also not hesitate to cut of branches that have been grafted in. Again, resulting in the loss of salvation due to the rejection of the vine.

We also need to look at Paul’s letters to the churches that also talk of apostasy and falling away. Paul warns us about the end times in the second chapter of his second letter to the Thessalonian church, telling us that there will first come “the apostasy”. There are some deluded folks who look at this as an argument for a pre-tribulation rapture; it is not, and a simple word study proves it. The confusion arises because some translations say “falling away” (which in my mind is still clear that this is not a taking up as the rapture would be), which the pre-tribulation rapture supporters claim is a word picture of the rapture. But the original word, is apostasia, G646, from which we get the word apostasy. Apostasy is defined by the World Book Dictionary as “a complete forsaking of one’s religion, faith…”; in other words, one who actually belonged to a belief system, but then completely rejects that faith system is an apostate. So Paul is telling us that before The End, there will be those who have walked in the faith who will completely forsake it, turning away from it and from God. This is a losing of their salvation, whether you want to believe it or not, since salvation is based on the belief that Jesus is God and died for us, and those who deny the Son also deny the Father (1 John 2).

 Looking further in Paul’s letters, we see him also warn Timothy that some will “fall away from the faith”, or apostacize (1 Timothy 4:1), and he warns the “brethren” in the Hebrew church in chapter 3:12 that they need to “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.”, and again in chapter six he warns that those who had “once been enlightened” and were “partakers of the Holy Spirit”, but who “then have fallen away”, cannot be renewed again into repentance. One would not have to be “renewed again into repentance” if one had not already been there and had not turned away from that repentance.

 On another note, but also from Paul, he warns the Galatian church that if they reject the grace and mercy of God that is offered through Jesus’ sacrifice, and they instead turn to acts of the Law of the Jews in order to “earn” their salvation, that they would be “severed from Christ”. So turning away from the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles would result in being cut off from Christ.

 Then we can look quickly at Peter’s letters as well. In 2 Peter 2:20-21, Peter is very clear about what happens if the followers of Christ do not separate themselves from the things of the world; “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. ²¹ For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.” This is a warning not to turn away, forsake, fall away from, apostacize from the gift of salvation, which they had previously known. So we should be able to easily see that, yes, even those who had made an honest commitment to follow Jesus can actually lose their salvation.

Now that the foundation is set that confirms that, yes, a believer can lose their salvation, we need to look at how one loses their salvation. In order to do this properly, we need to look at what the church is told to do as followers of Christ, and we’ll see that the failure to do these things are what leads to losing one’s salvation.

 We are called numerous times in the Scriptures to be separated from the world. God does not want us to look like the world, but to be salt and light, that they may see that we are different and be attracted to God by our differentness. Just above, in 2 Peter 2:20-21, we see the command to be separated, but 2 Corinthians 6 also talks about how we are to present ourselves to the world and when that is supposed to happen. “Behold, now is “the acceptable time,” behold, now is “the day of salvation” (v.2), “giving no cause for offense in anything” (v.3), “but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God” (v.4). Why? “For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. ¹⁷ “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean; And I will welcome you. (vs. 16b-17). If God will welcome us if we separate ourselves from the world, then does it not make sense that He will not welcome us if we do not separate ourselves from the world? And in light of all that was mentioned in chapter six, Paul exhorts us, “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (7:1). Continuing to live in sin based on the belief that our salvation is assured is not “perfecting holiness”.

 Here again I need to mention Romans 8 and Colossians 3, which I went into to some length in the previous article, so I will not delve into them here again, but recall that we are called to “mortify” or overcome the flesh nature. This means that there is an expectation to change from how we lived prior to what was supposed to be our regeneration. We should look different from those who deny God.

 We even see in the Old Testament, the doctrine that a righteous man who turns away from his righteousness will die as a result. In Ezekiel 33:12-20, we see the prophet delivering a word to the Israelites about how they are living and what the end will be for them. He delivers the following message from God; “‘The righteousness of a righteous man will not deliver him in the day of his transgression”, and “whereas a righteous man will not be able to live by his righteousness on the day when he commits sin.” (v.12) And please pay attention to this next part; “When I say to the righteous he will surely live, and he so trusts in his righteousness that he commits iniquity, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered; but in that same iniquity of his which he has committed he will die.” (v.13) And if that still is not clear enough for you, in verse 18 Ezekiel again warns the people that, “When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, then he shall die in it.” We know that God is unchanging. So even though we live under a new covenant since the death of Jesus, can we really believe that just because the manner of our salvation has changed, that the preciousness of that salvation has changed too? I would dare not to take that risk. While occasional sin does not separate us from the love of God and His salvation, we are also told that, “if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ²⁷ but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries (Hebrews 10:26-27).

 So does this mean that we have to work to maintain our salvation? In a manner, yes, but our efforts and our works alone cannot secure it. We cannot earn our salvation by any means of our own effort, but our salvation should be evident in the way that we live our lives; otherwise known as our works. I believe that I have previously mentioned an analogy that it is our works that will determine our Heavenly rewards. Salvation gets us in the pearly gates, but if our works are non-existent, we may find ourselves in the Heavenly equivalent of a cardboard box along the perimeter wall of the city. I would rather work towards having a mansion. A friend of mine once commented to me that he would be happy with a tent in the city of Heaven. My response was that I want to work towards having a mansion that backs onto God’s throne room so that I can say ‘Good morning’ to him off my back patio without the need to raise my voice. That should be the goal of every follower of Christ.

“But, but…works don’t earn us salvation, so we don’t need to concern ourselves with works!”

 Really? So then why are works mentioned so often in the New Testament? In Philippians 2:12-13, Paul is again talking to us, telling us to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³ for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” So we are to work to please God, both in the matter of the work as well as the manner of the work. And not only are we called to work out our faith, but to do so with “fear and trembling”. If there is no importance to our works, then what is there to fear and tremble about? There must be an important value to our works; perhaps in order to secure our rewards and to remain in and reflect our relationship with God?

 Then we see that James speaks very specifically about works, even going so far as to ask, “What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?” (2:14) “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself (v.17).” If faith without works is dead, what is the nature of faith with works that are contrary to God’s will? It must be beyond dead, and potentially brings about spiritual death! So what is the definition of works then? Simply, works are the things that we do, every day, intentionally and otherwise, good and bad. So if one is not concerned about potentially losing their salvation based on what they do due to belief in the doctrine of OSAS, what value is there in doing good works?

 The value is in obeying the Word of God in order to please Him. We see how Jesus talks about two specific churches in regards to their works when we read John’s Revelation, both in the third chapter. The churches of Sardis and Laodicea are both warned that He is not impressed with their works. The church in Sardis was warned that Jesus did not find their “deeds completed in the sight of My God”, and they are warned that if they do not wake up, they will not be ready when He returns, the same as what happens to the foolish virgins of Matthew 25, where they were locked out of the celebration of the Bridegroom because they were not ready for His coming; these who were watching for the coming of the Bridegroom were excluded from His celebration. Think about that. Then the church of Laodicea was told by Jesus that ¹⁵ ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. ¹⁶ So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.” Jesus will reject the church because of the nature of their deeds. When Jesus rejects someone, what could be the result except exclusion from eternity with Him!

 So what is the price that one pays if one has lost their salvation, or better stated, has forsaken his salvation? Well, looking again to some of the passages that we have already looked at, we can see what they can expect. In Romans 11:22 we see that those branches that had been grafted onto the tree but which were later broken off due to unbelief, “will be cut off”. The act of cutting the branch off of the tree will result in the branch dying, and as we see in the passage in John 15, any branches that are cut off are in danger of being burned in the fire. Being burned in the fire is not just a matter of cleaning up the debris of the illustration; this is a direct alliteration to the burning of hell fire for those who reject Jesus. And we know that Revelation tells us that those who reject Jesus, whose name is not found in the Book of Life, will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:15). The same end is promised in Hebrews 6:8, where the ground that brings forth only thorns and thistles even though it drinks the same rain as the ground that bears good fruit is “worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned”. The rain is the mercy and goodness of God, but if no good fruit is borne of it by good works, only the thorns and thistles of disobedience, then this ground is subject to the flames.

 Then we look once more to 2 Peter 2:20-22. We are warned that, “if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.” (v.20) And what is the state of those who have never ‘known the way of righteousness’ (v.21)? We know that they will be thrown into the lake of fire as we saw above in Revelation 20. So what can be worse than that? The knowledge that their fate could have been avoided had they just remained in Christ Jesus! It’s similar to receiving a hard sentence for a crime that you have committed, getting an offer of leniency and even living under that leniency for a time, only to reject the offer later and decide that you would rather serve your time, only this sentence will never end and it consists of torture beyond comprehension. That is what awaits those who reject Christ after having received Him.

 To put things even more bluntly, the names of those who reject God even after having received Jesus, will be blotted out of the Book of Life. You don’t believe me, do you. It has been argued, though not by the use of Scripture, but merely by emotional claims, that God’s love would not allow it, that God will not write your name in the Book of Life, then erase it, then write it in again, then erase it again, according to your works or sins. This is correct in the matter of your sins; these will not separate us from God’s love, but our rejection of Him by choice or disobedience will separate us from God.

 Let’s look in the Old Testament. In Ex. 32:31-33, Moses and God are discussing the rejection of God by the Israelites, and Moses is pleading for the people, even going so far as to request that if God will not forgive their sin, that He would, “please blot me out from Your book which You have written!” To which God responds to Moses, telling him that everyone will bear the weight of their own sin by saying, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.” What Book is this? It must be the Book of Life. You know, the one in which if your name is not found you will not enter Heaven!

 We see David using the same language when he is talking to God about the end of his adversaries in Psalm 69:28, “May they be blotted out of the book of life.” This is not an example of God stating that He would blot out the names, but the simple matter that David is asking for it confirms that this is, in fact, a possibility for God to blot out the names of those who reject Him, and their names could not be blotted out unless they had been written in the book in the first place.

 Then finally, we also see this same type of warning used in the book of the words delivered by Jeremiah to the people of Israel. In Jeremiah 7:8-10,13 & 15 he warns, “Behold, you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail. ⁹ Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰ then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—that you may do all these abominations? 13 And now, because you have done all these things,” declares the Lord… 15 I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, all the offspring of Ephraim.” Again, as I mentioned above, just because the manner of salvation has changed, does not mean that the preciousness of salvation has changed, and neither has God’s holiness. He still expects us to attain towards holiness as I have written about previously.

I have very recently heard it said by a man who has a growing ministry on Youtube that anyone who does not agree with the OSAS doctrine does not know God, has no relationship with God and has no understanding of God’s love. That type of talk is harmful to the body of Christ. First of all, I have a close and intimate relationship with God and I whole-heartedly reject this doctrine. Plus, we have to recognize that all believers are on a journey of discovery with God, which means that sometimes our understanding of doctrine will need to change as God brings it to our attention. I have experienced this myself. I pray that this man repents of his judgments of others and that God will soon open his eyes to the error of his ways. Then I also pray that this man will use his platform to repent of his teachings on this topic and correct the beliefs of those who follow him. I pray also that at least some of those people will search for themselves to test this man’s teachings, and maybe a few may find their way to these articles, and I hope and pray that the words that I have written will open their eyes to the dangers of this doctrine and change their minds towards it.

The once saved, always saved doctrine is a cop-out for those people who want to retain the security of their eternal salvation but who are not willing to put in the work to attain to sanctification and holiness. This doctrine allows a person to expect to enter paradise without actually being repentant of their sin nature, and it is an undermining of the work that Jesus calls us to, that is allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our lives. The Spirit will not dwell or work in someone who allows himself to be corrupted by the things of this world. Our body is a temple, the Spirit will dwell in that temple, but He will not dwell in a temple that is continually polluted with the things of this world. There is no place for holiness and worldliness to dwell together.

If there is no penalty for living as we please, then what value is there in submitting to the leading of the Holy Spirit? If the goal is eternal life, and that is achieved by the mere recitation of some words, then why does one need to change anything about their life? OSAS creates an easy faith that literally anyone can achieve, but requires nothing in return. There is no need for one to pick up their cross and follow Christ (Matt. 16:24). The cross is supposed to draw us to holiness, not leave us in our filth.

 So I hope that you can now see that there is no Scriptural basis for the doctrine of once saved, always saved. One cannot say some words at some time and have assurance of eternal life regardless of what one may do for the rest of their life. There is a responsibility that comes with the commitment. It is not a responsibility to earn what has been freely given to us, but to live up to the expectations of the One who offers and provides the gift of salvation to all of us. But it must first be received, then cherished and protected by our very acts and deeds. Failure to grasp the preciousness of the gift can lead to the forfeiture of that gift. I wish people would see how the doctrine of once saved, always saved can lead people down the road to destruction! We have to realize that Jesus calls us to a higher standard, not a lower one, as is highlighted in His words about anger and murder, lust and adultery that we find in Matthew 5. He calls us to a higher plane of responsibility while the OSAS doctrine allows us to remain in a lower plane. I plead with anybody who has read this far and who has clung to the heresy of OSAS, do not wallow in your lowly state of sin, but allow the Spirit to refine you above it in order to strive for holiness.

 God will never leave us, but we can definitely leave Him. No power or enemy can take us away from Him, but we can remove ourselves from Him. He will never lose us by His negligence, but we can reject Him. We can have assurance of salvation, but our assurance of salvation is predicated on our continued walk with Him. He has a path that He wants us to walk, and He will walk with us on that path. But if we stray from that path, He will not join us. He calls us to join Him, to come back to Him, to stay with Him. As we stray from Him He will call us to come back to His side, but He will never force us to. This is how we lose our salvation; we walk away from Him. This is how once saved, always saved is shown to be just a myth.

 As always, please feel free to add your comments below.