Lie #1: You can Lose Your Salvation

The New Testament is full of evidence that we cannot lose our salvation. Jesus said that no one can snatch us out of His hand (John 10:28–29). John tells us that we can know we have eternal life for sure (1 John 5:13). We don’t have to wonder. Paul tells us that we’ve been sealed with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13–14) and that our calling will never be revoked (Romans 11:29). God will never leave us and never forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). We are protected by His power (1 Peter 1:5). God is able to save us completely, because He always lives to intercede for us for any sins imaginable (Hebrews 7:25). This is why Jesus can so confidently say that of everyone the Father has given Him, He will lose no one (John 6:39)!

It’s not our promise to God that secures us. It’s not our dedication, our commitment, or our promise-keeping that maintains our salvation. The book of Hebrews radically reveals the polar opposite. It’s actually God’s promise to Himself that secures our salvation (Hebrews 6:13–20). The author of Hebrews speaks of the promise secured between “two unchangeable things” that anchor our souls. What are these two unchangeable things? God and God.

In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil. (Hebrews 6:17–19)

It is impossible for God (and God!) to lie. So when God promises God, you can count on it. And that’s the whole point. Our salvation is anchored to a promise that God made to Himself: “since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself ” (Hebrews 6:13b).

God Won’t Deny Himself or You!

Some of our most common and persistent questions relate to the loss of salvation: But what if I commit suicide? But what if I get a divorce? But what if I commit the same sin over and over again?

These four words pester us: But what if I . . .? However, God already saw our concerns coming. He dealt with them entirely through the new covenant by anchoring us to a promise that He made to Himself. We don’t maintain or sustain any part of God’s promise to Himself. As believers who are forever in Christ, the “But what if I . . .?” questions don’t have to plague us. We are not even in the equation!

Instead of asking, “But what if I . . .?” we need to be asking, “But what if God . . .?” And the answer to that question is a resounding yes: God did the very thing He needed to do to secure us forever. He promised Himself that He would never leave us:

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. (2 Timothy 2:13)

God placed His Spirit in us. He cannot disown Himself. So, He will not disown us! This was all part of God’s perfect plan to secure us forever in Jesus. And it’s this security in Jesus that inspires and motivates us. The grace of God, not the fear of God, leads us to depend on Him and live uprightly (Titus 2:11–12).

Reflector: How does it feel to be secure in God’s grace? Does it make you want to go out and sin more? Why or why not?