Can we lose salvation? can you lose your salvation, this post has the right answer for you.
Too many Christians are still troubled today by the idea of “losing salvation”. This expression, although absent from the Bible, derives its legitimacy from some of its passages. This article aims to:
- To introduce to the question of salvation without removing verses which seem a priori to contradict our thesis, namely that a believer can in no case lose his salvation;
- To highlight the foundation of our hope:
faith, of which a correct understanding dispels all anxiety, faith as “firm assurance (or certainty) of what we hope” (Heb 11: 1).
As a preliminary, it should be noted that the problem mentioned does not really arise for new converts, all for the joy of their “honeymoon” with the Lord. It is only of interest to believers who have already matured in the faith, who are subject to the trials, temptations and questions inherent in Christian life over time.
Faith saves
The Bible is categorical on this point: God has the desire and the power to save without reserve all those who sincerely seek him:
Turn to me and you will be saved, all of you who are in the ends of the earth (Isa 45:22).
Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Jo 3: 5).
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? (Rom 10:13).
(Jesus) can perfectly save those who draw near to God through him (Heb 7:25).
Jesus (Yavhé saves) incarnates and realizes in his own person (by his name) all the meaning of the biblical promises of salvation. The name of Jesus (Yechoua) also appears in the background in all the passages where salvation is mentioned in the Old Testament.
To believe is to accept to be personally united in heart to Jesus, by daring to “confess with your mouth” (Rom 10:10). Openly confessed faith is enough to guarantee us salvation and eternal life:
Whoever believes in him will not be ashamed (Rm10: 11).
He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I have written these things to you, so that you may know that you have eternal life, you who believe on the name of the Son of God (1 Jn 5: 12-13).
The word “salvation” does not designate a static reality, but the very movement of believing existence, from the initial point of conversion: passage from spiritual death to eternal life, from the slavery of sin to death. freedom of the Spirit, healing process, continual restoration of the soul through Word and prayer; completion of personal and community destiny in the physical resurrection and heavenly Jerusalem. Thus, complete salvation is presented in dialectical form:
– on the one hand, we are already saved, “seated in heavenly places” (Eph 2: 6);
– on the other hand, we are still waiting for the full manifestation of this reality already acquired: “it is in hope that we are saved” (Rom 8:24). “It is not yet manifested what we will be” (1 Jn 3: 2).
Faith alone suffices to obtain the salvation of which God is entirely the author. In Romans 10: 1, Paul writes: “My prayer to God is that they be saved”. Why are his Jewish parents not yet saved? Because in “seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to the righteousness of God.”
The obstacle to the acquisition of salvation arises when the religious man claims to make his own contribution to the saving action of God, to fulfill the divine law by his own strength, instead of admitting his radical failure and, then, s ‘surrender with humility to grace, simply believing that Jesus has accomplished everything for us, up to the cross. This is where Christ paid the full price for our transgressions of the Law, shedding his blood which cleanses us from all sin, provided we believe it. The gospel, the good news, comes together in one solemn declaration: “I will no longer remember their sins and their iniquities. (Heb 10:17) This is the meaning of the new covenant through the blood of Jesus Christ: all who believe in him are delivered from all condemnation. Indeed, God looking at them, no longer in themselves, but through the sacrifice of his Son, can declare them “righteous”. If we truly believe that the blood of Jesus is enough to wipe out the entire debt of all our faults, past, present, and future, we can be sure of our lasting salvation.
The faith that saves is the one that lasts
Faith, being the engine of our commitment to follow Christ, is long-term. This constitutes the best test as to the seriousness of our faith. This is one of the great issues of the Epistle to the Hebrews:
We have become partakers of Christ, provided we hold fast to the end of the assurance we had in the beginning (3:14).
A lack of confidence is a sign of a lack of faith. “Let us not forsake our confidence, to which is attached a great reward” (10:35). In fact, the believer no longer has a choice: either he continues to live by faith after having believed, or else, theoretically , he ceases to be a believer by withdrawing from the faith.
And my righteous will live by faith; but, if he withdraws, my soul does not take pleasure in him (…) we, we are not of those who withdraw to be lost, but of those who have faith to save their soul (10: 38- 39).
Living by faith is the secret. No doubt as to the acquisition of his salvation is allowed to the believer, that is to say to one who, justified by faith, lives by it every day in his personal relationship with the Lord.
The real question therefore remains this: can one, in practice, after having been seriously committed to the faith, one day cease to believe? Bible in hand, we think we can say no . There are many passages where it appears that the characteristic of the “believer” is continuity in the commitment of faith.
Examination of some texts
The Epistle to the Hebrews is not concerned with knowing whether one can “lose the faith” but whether, in the first Judeo-Christian assemblies, some will finally decide to come out of their state of unbelief:
Beware, brethren, that any of you have an evil and unbelieving heart, so that they turn away from the living God (3:12).
The exhortation is addressed to the one who, believing declared in the midst of the brothers, is in reality only a false believer since he retains an “evil and unbelieving heart”: his deep nature has not yet been changed, he has not yet experienced the reality of the new covenant. The reference to the Hebrews’ sin of rebellion in the desert is transparent: family and tribal people embarked on the exodus from slavery to freedom, many had internally remained slaves of Egypt and deeply unbelieving. It is this unbelief that alone has kept them from entering the rest of God. For this rest is only given to those who, abandoning all interior resistance, surrender to grace in God.
But the resistance that persists in God’s camp can only lead to the sanctions of the alliance. The disciplinary exhortations of the Epistle to the Hebrews are therefore intended, not to disturb believers, but to challenge unbelievers. It is these who, subsisting within the Christian assemblies, constitute so many troublemakers.
Their responsibility appears all the heavier because they have already tasted the graces of the Holy Spirit in the assembly, experienced the love springing from true fraternal communion. Having been personally confronted with the love and the truth of the Risen One, these people nevertheless pretend not to understand. Their desire is only to continue enjoying the benefits of the heavenly rain ( Heb 6: 7), of all the advantages of church life… without repentance and without real commitment of heart to Jesus.
Why is it dangerous to remain unbelieving in God’s camp? Because this incredulity can only turn to apostasy , that is to say to the hateful and active rejection, often well hidden behind a beautiful religious facade, of the very person of Jesus Christ. God, seeing the hearts of many recalcitrant on the verge of apostasy, warns them again in his mercy:
It is impossible that those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have partaken of the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, and who have fallen, be yet renewed and brought to repentance since they for their part crucify the Son of God and expose him to ignominy (Heb 6: 4-6).
The Word says well: “Who have had part in the Holy Spirit” and not: “who were sealed with the Holy Spirit”. This is what creates the difference between the authentic believer, definitive property of God (symbolized by the seal), and the believer by name, whose fall is inevitable if he persists in wandering between faith and unbelief. It is essential to note that this fall mentioned in verse 6 is indeed apostasy, which has nothing to do with any moral fall . It cannot even be confused with the temporary weakness of one who, under torture, verbally denies his Lord. His tears of repentance will later be proof of this: let us think of Peter’s denial.
In Hebrews 10: 26-31, the author unmasks the Pharisee hypocrisy of one who, refusing to consider the purification of his sins by the blood of Jesus, nevertheless claims to continue to approach God as such. It comes down to “to sin willfully”: if one rejects the grace that is in Christ, “after having received the knowledge of the truth, there is no more sacrifice for sins.” That is to say that any attempt at moral and religious self-justification is declared in advance null and void before God. For the “rebels” to grace, there remains only “the terrible expectation of judgment and the ardor of a fire which will devour (them)”.
The disdain of the only means of salvation for all mankind, of the only altar valid in the eyes of the Heavenly Father – that of the unique and perfect sacrifice of his Son – is in truth an “insult to the Spirit of grace”, when in “profaning the blood of the covenant” one “tramples on the Son of God”. One may wonder if, today, such an apostasy does not lie in wait for those who, while claiming to be of Jesus Christ, openly advocate interfaith covenants and prayers “for the good and peace of mankind”.
Summary
We can now better understand why the unbiblical phrase “losing faith” is inadequate.
These verses allude to the fact that some members of the churches at some point deliberately choose to stray from the faith (as the only home port or the only ship capable of carrying it through) by trying to drag in this gap, or this shipwreck, of other members of the same assemblies. Have these people, whose attitude could be described as deviant or sectarian, ever possessed the true faith?
Therefore, even assuming that someone could sincerely state “I have lost my faith,” the question of the nature of that faith would still remain. James 1: 3 seems to us to provide the definitive answer:
“The trial of true faith produces perseverance. The absence of perseverance is therefore an unmistakable sign of the absence of true faith, for it consists in abiding in Christ
This is also one of the lessons that can be learned from the parable of the sower. In Jesus’ private explanation of it, it turns out that for those who are sown “along the way (…) the devil comes, and takes away the word from their hearts, lest they believe and be saved ”(Lu 8:12).
We can clearly see that faith is sufficient to save, provided that it is a question of persevering faith, as the following shows: “those who are on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy; but they have no root, they believe for a time, and in the time of temptation they succumb. “(V. 13) In fact, the illusion of having faith can only disappear in the face of the trials of life:” from whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away “(v. 18). Only a semblance of faith can be lost, and never faith itself!
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Saving faith involves real knowledge
Faith is the welcoming of Jesus himself, when he comes to us in his Word. To affirm that faith alone saves us is to recognize in Jesus the only Savior:
Faith comes from what we hear, and what we hear comes from the word of Christ (Rom 10:17);
There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12), Peter said before the Sanhedrin. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, Paul told his jailer (Act 16:31).
Saved without any reservation or implication!
“There is no longer any condemnation for those who are in Christ” (Rom 8: 1). True faith places us definitively in Christ in the sense that it makes us “put on Christ” ( cf. Gal 3:27), of which baptism is the sign. The fairly common biblical image of the white garment of the redeemed illustrates the same spiritual reality. The only thing that can justify exclusion from the presence of God is the deliberate refusal to put on this garment which is the gift of love.
In the parable of the wedding guests (Mt 22: 11-12), we see illustrated the affront represented by this rejection of freely offered love, this refusal to believe and honor the Son, which goes hand in hand with a claim to the right to enjoy all the heavenly favors anyway, by participating in the Lord’s Supper without this wedding garment. It also symbolizes true praise, an expression of the joy that one experiences in knowing that one is definitively united to Christ. Here again, the sin par excellence remains the unbelief of those inside , of those who, already having an ecclesial life, do not want to see in the face that there is a real danger in remaining in a state of spiritual nudity. in the presence of God.
With the parable of the ten virgins, we have another great way to test the strength of our argument. Question: the five foolish virgins, finally rejected, are nevertheless part of the Church? Yes, without a doubt. But we will soon see how they are not members of the body of Christ, of the Church as a bride. The five foolish are from the people of God in the sense that in Israel as in the Christian Churches, everyone can greatly benefit from the graces of the Lord: knowledge of the Bible, richness of a heritage and of a spiritual, cultural and even material heritage, access to certain protections and moral values, etc. But all this cannot make us forget that there is always a moment when each member of the people of God feels invited to take a personal step to enter into a new relationship with the Lord.
In Matthew 25, the folly of the five virgins consists of pure and simple neglect to take this decisive step towards a personal and deep knowledge of God. These five are content to keep all the spiritual heritage in a small lamp that will light them up for a while ! Their madness lies in the absence of reserve, of living communion with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit (oil), which alone can nourish our spiritual life, our life of prayer! All virgins fall asleep when the night is too late … the only difference then lies in the presence or the absence of reserve which symbolizes this personal relationship with God through the Holy Spirit.
The Church, with all her spiritual richness, cannot replace my experience, nor make up for my lack of obedience. The final declaration “I do not know you” (v. 12) only reveals this tragic fact: the foolish virgins, religious by tradition, but lukewarm in heart, because imbued with their quality as members of the people of God, do not have never sought a real personal relationship with him. After having closed the door of their heart to him for too long, they see the moment arriving when, for them, the door of grace is in turn closed.
Perseverance: a condition?
Many biblical passages present the perseverance of faith as the condition for the acquisition of salvation for those who have already believed: thus Luke 21:12: “By your perseverance you will save your souls. Besides the exhortations concerning especially the believers of name who subsist in the Churches, we find many exhortations obviously addressed to the true disciples of Jesus, concerning vigilance, the fight against sin, against false doctrines, etc. . Everything happens as if the danger watching believers every moment was very real.
Indeed, the adversary never uses “blank cartridges” against us! Our first enemy is moreover our “old self” with its egoistic tendencies naturally contrary to those of the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit, so as not to satisfy carnal desires that could lead us into spiritual death, such is the normal lot of any believer. Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with excess eating and drinking, and cares of life (Lk 21:34). If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live (Rom 8:13).
The other danger that threatens us is that of seduction by false prophets, false messiahs, false gospels: Beware of being seduced … (Lk 21: 8). I remind you, brothers, of the Gospel which I announced to you, which you received and by which you were saved, if you retain it in the terms in which I announced it to you; otherwise you would have believed in vain (1 Cor15: 1). Grace, in fact, only works for us if we remain in the faith, attached to the only Gospel of Jesus Christ. Does this mean that, because we will have to live to the end a very real fight against the flesh, the world and the devil, our salvation is not assured? On the contrary: we are certain to succeed in the end because, in this fight, these trials, God is only effective for us if we remain in the faith, attached to the only Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Does this mean that, because we will have to live to the end a very real fight against the flesh, the world and the devil, our salvation is not assured? On the contrary: we are certain to succeed in the end because, in this fight, these trials, God is only effective for us if we remain in the faith, attached to the only Gospel of Jesus Christ. Does this mean that, because we will have to live to the end a very real fight against the flesh, the world and the devil, our salvation is not assured?
On the contrary: we are certain to succeed in the end because, in this fight, these trials, God(Emmanuel) is with us, and may he do us the honor of coming to share our individual and collective history, insofar as we are his militant body here below. The exhortations addressed to the elect are there only to remind them of the daily reality of their incarnation: the life of faith is a real life, with all the risks and the difficulties that this implies.
Yet we are assured of the final victory,beyond all setbacks and temporary defeats: not a single one of God’s children will be lost. For example about false Christs and false prophets, Jesus says significantly: “They will do great wonders and miracles, to the point of deceiving even the elect, if it were possible” (Mt 24:24). But precisely that is not possible, thank God! The exhortations and warnings comprising the conjunctions of subordination “provided that”, “if at least” are there, not to introduce doubt into the minds of the faithful, but to help them to situate themselves in their personal and daily communion with the Lord.
The Bible functions as a mirror of the soul. This serves, first of all, to examine oneself to know whether or not one is “in the faith” (2 Cor13: 5), which is translated into actions (Jc 1: 22-25 ).
This mirror then shows us the things we need to repent, even as Christ is already in us .
The exercise of piety is, in this sense, part of the full and concrete realization of our salvation.Being afraid of losing it, because you have to live by faith every day, is therefore absolutely not normal for a Christian! The bad argument of the possible loss of salvation must be entirely effaced before the authentic biblical preaching of sanctification, of the perseverance assured of believers by faith.
The righteousness of the righteous will not save him in the day of his transgression … the righteous cannot live by his righteousness in the day of his transgression. When I say to the righteous that he will live, if he trusts in his righteousness and commits iniquity, all his righteousness will be forgotten, and he will die because of the iniquity which he has committed. (Ezra 33: 12-13) This passage presents a very valuable scenario for understanding what salvation really consists of.
This consists first of all in escaping the grip, the slavery of sin.Thus falls of itself this very dishonest reasoning, which would consist in “trusting in his justice” by saying to oneself for example: “I believed, I am justified by my faith, therefore I do not risk anything: I am free. to quietly continue to sin!
To imagine such a thing would clearly prove that one has not yet entered salvation. On the contrary, true freedom consists in living without sin: “We know that whoever is born of God does not sin” (1 Jn 5:18); another translation: “do not practice sin”, or “do not sin continually, habitually”; in other words, the fact of sinning is no longer a normal way of life for him, like in the world (which does not prevent him from needing to ask God for forgiveness for the sins that he may still commit ( cf.1 Jn: 8-9).
It is only by faith and entering into the liberation of the Spirit that man can escape the grip of sin as well as that of unclean spirits or demons, to whom sin may have opened doors. Being filled with the Holy Spirit is the total guarantee against any risk of demonic invasion. This does not mean that a Christian cannot, by guilty practices (in particular sexual), open breaches to the action of certain demons in his life. If someone who is already a Christian may, through his fault, be tempted by certain “demonic ties” (for example by going to see a pornographic film or participate in a session of spiritualism, even for “information”), the Spirit saint who dwells in him is mighty to break such bonds. Indeed,
Faith that saves is death to oneself
What a man can lose is his soul, and what he can get is the salvation of his soul… if he accepts to give up his own life to follow Jesus. The life of faith is therefore a life of disciple, who does not shy away from any sacrifice, for the exclusive love of the Master: “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his own life for the love of me and of the Gospel. will save her. »(Mk 8:35) Whoever loses his life in this way for the love of Jesus, thereby obtaining the salvation of his soul, can obviously never lose this salvation again. Consider the example of Peter. He, the presumptuous enthusiast, in order to enter into the true faith, had he not had to experience the complete bankruptcy of the natural man, with his claim of “fidelity to the point of death”? Realizing the horror of his betrayal after his beautiful promises, Peter died to himself to enter later, by the grace of Jesus, into true fidelity, the life of faith and service based no longer on his own strength, but on the grace and power of God. Holy Spirit. It was through this that he entered into his true vocation as a rock, a man of faith par excellence, a pillar of the Church.
God alone guarantees our salvation
The preceding example illustrates well the omnipotence of the grace of God, which comes to save the weak and fallible beings that we all are. If salvation were to depend on our human ability to keep a commitment, ultimately no one could achieve it. B
ut again there is a powerful encouragement in Jesus’ words. No true believer is in danger of being “kicked out,” for the mere fact of coming to Jesus is in itself a sign that the Father has given us to his Son from all eternity.
Having the revelation of the Son and believing in him actually proves that one has already entered eternal life. Of course, human understanding finds itself largely overtaken by the biblical reality of election and predestination.
Let us just remember that if we have believed in Jesus, it is by an effect of the grace of God.
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not kick out anyone who comes to me (Jn 6:37);
My Father’s will is that whoever sees the Son and believes in Him have eternal life (Jn 6:40);
For it is by grace that you are saved, by means of faith. And it doesn’t come from you, it’s the gift of God. It is not by works, so that no one can boast (Eph 2: 8-9);
God chose you from the beginning for salvation, by the sanctification of the Spirit and by faith in the truth (2 Thess 2:13).
We are urged to believe, but only on the basis of divine initiative. Because faith is not in the domain of human capacities, it is really a gift from above: “The work of God is that you believe in him whom he sent. ”(Jn 6:29)
Faith is not a work on our part, but a“ laissez-faire ”, a pure movement of surrender to grace. Such a yes unconditional means surrender, death to oneself. To believe is to desire to always live under the influence of Jesus who saves us from our sins, who heals, restores and straightens all that in us was sick, ruined, twisted.
Now this work, once started with the illumination of our heart and our intelligence, can only be carried out from the eternal point of view. For the Lord always completes what he has undertaken; then we can, we must believe in his own work.
Sanctification “without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb 12:14), and which must be sought because it is the goal of our election ( cf. 2 Thess. 2:13), is certainly a central element in the process. of salvation. But then again, failure would be inevitable if it were to be effected by efforts of human will. Sanctification can only be the work of the Holy Spirit in us, who acts as soon as we have received Jesus into our life. We are only asked to consent and collaborate in this work of the Holy Spirit… by faith exclusively! This is the charter of the believer’s whole life: “The righteous shall live by faith. ”
Likewise, when Paul writes to the Philippians, “work for your own salvation with fear and trembling” (2:12), he is in no way suggesting that some may miss the mark for lack of work; he does not preach salvation by works! It means that our work here on earth must be carried out in a spirit of prayer, with a lively awareness of the presence of the Lord.
Having realized that we are God forever, this is what awakens in us the respectful fear, the amazed fear that a God so great could be so close, to the point of wanting to collaborate with us. The Greek can also be translated: “Put your salvation into action because it is God who works in you to want it and to do it!” Be careful not to forget this verse 13.
Let us first be attentive to the way in which the Holy Spirit wants to lead us in action (beware of activism, even Christian, and its catastrophic results!). These words of Paul are in fact very encouraging: they invite us to turn to God for all our activities. “I am convinced,” said Paul to the Philippians, “that he who began a good work in you will continue its completion until the day of Christ Jesus. “(Ph 1: 6)
If there is still any confusion about our perseverance, Jesus’ words will be enough to dispel it forever:
My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life; and they will never perish, and no one will take them out of my hand. My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all; and no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand (Jn10: 27-29).
A sheep may stray from the flock to go astray for a while; but we believe that the good Shepherd himself will go in search of her, in order to bring her back to the fold ( cf. Mt 18: 12-14).
Losing salvation: no. Insurance, perhaps! …
… If we have sinned! We must be clear: the experience of sin, of possibly repeated falls after conversion, is common to all Christians.
There is a risk of confusing losing the assurance of salvation and losing salvation itself. After grieving the Holy Spirit, one can temporarily no longer experience the wonderful sense of peace that comes with living fellowship with the Lord. But that does not mean the end of this fellowship, nor the rejection of the Lord.
Rather, it is an invitation to confess our sins, in order to find peace and joy. Then we can be sure that “he is faithful and righteous to forgive us them, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1: 9), for “the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all unrighteousness”.
What if we forget to confess our faults? So let us be sure that the Holy Spirit will not leave us alone (Ps 32: 3-5).
There are also, in the Christian life, more or less long periods of spiritual desert, by which God tests us and purifies us in order to make us grow and mature in the faith. We may then have to resist the accuser, who takes the opportunity to overwhelm us, to make us doubt God’s love for us.
Losing salvation: no. The reward, maybe!
While the unbiblical idea of the loss of salvation is to be fought, it is not necessary to dismiss the passages referring to the possible loss of a reward for believers. Paul’s teaching is exemplary in this regard; he comes back to this notion of “work” with an illustration:
If the work built by anyone on the foundation (Jesus Christ) remains, he will receive a reward. If someone’s work is consumed, he will lose his reward; for him he will be saved, but as through fire ” (1 Cor 3: 14-15);
And when I distribute all my goods for the food of the poor, when I even give up my body to be burned, if I do not have charity, it is of no use to me (1 Cor 13: 3).
This warns us against a false idea of ”Christian” action aimed at reward: for God, all that matters is a pure, disinterested motivation, driven only by love. Rather, a mark of authenticity will be the absence of thoughtful calculation, which expresses the natural and spontaneous outpouring of truly spiritual works. Only those works that the Holy Spirit will have truly inspired us since our conversion to Jesus Christ will be rewarded.
While keeping in mind the undeserved nature of the reward, which above all highlights the extraordinary generosity of the Lord (we are, in fact, never more than “useless servants”), we note that it biblically introduces the notion of rank, even hierarchy among believers (all) saved from perdition.
To evoke the special favor that God reserves for certain elect, the Revelation uses the symbol of the crown for the purpose of consolation, of reparation with regard to the outrages, persecutions and losses suffered by Christians from false believers.
Despite all that is publicly visible, true spiritual kingship belongs to those who suffer in the shadows, because they hold the Bible for what it really is: the sole authority in matters of faith. Therefore, true believers will not give in to intimidation.
Without seeking the distinctions for themselves (that would be falling into spiritual pride or too human ambition, cf. Mk 10:37), it is good to remember that in attributing crowns, God is pleased to do justice, even though no one can claim any “merit” before him.
Perfect love casts out fear” (1 Jn 4:18)
As much as the Word of God combats the false assurance and the presumption of those who, foolish virgins or lukewarm Laodiceans, already imagine themselves saved by their quality of active members of the Church, so it forbids to question the final salvation of those who really believe in Jesus.
Those who, sincere Christians, nevertheless strive to do so, think they are rendering service and rekindling the apparently cooled zeal of several brothers.
But do they realize that in this they will only be able to obtain the opposite result of what they hope for? Because objectively, who benefits from the fear, the confusion and the doubt thus aroused and maintained in the minds of the faithful?
Let us think of those who are psychologically fragile, in particular with a depressive tendency. And even with the most robust,
The false doctrine of the possible loss of salvation is the poison that is presented with the Gospel, a poison too often taken for a remedy, a strengthening for believers… and whose effects remain harmful, even at homeopathic doses! No, God will never lose, will never reject any of his children: our adoption in Christ puts us permanently in the shelter.
The false doctrine in question is a subtle trap which could well constitute one of the centerpieces of the enemy’s strategy, in his will to destroy any ferment of revival in the Church.
“Did God really say that you only need to believe in your Son to be saved? “ Many biblical passages they are not there to show that all is not that simple?
To reread with honesty the passages usually cited in reference, on the contrary, one finds there reasons of encouragement for oneself, as well as a powerful motivation to intercede for our still unconverted relationships (although possibly Christian declared, baptized).
Yes, the fire of the Holy Spirit must consume the lies of the accuser, first of all in the hearts of believers!
In meditating on this theme, it appeared to us that the simple doubt as to the final salvation of Christians strongly resembles unbelief, since, far from honoring the salutary promises of the Lord, it severely restricts their scope: “For they do not did not believe God and did not trust in his salvation… ”(Ps 78,22). This doubt is indeed a sin capable of grieving “the Holy Spirit by whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption” (Eph 4:30). Now, if we have believed, we have certainly been sealed.
After hearing the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in him (Christ) you believed and were sealed with the Holy Spirit which had been promised (Eph 1:13).
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Final Words:
None of those who come to Jesus will ever be cast out out of his presence: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not kick out anyone who comes to me.” (Jn 6:37)
The attraction of the Father is the initial cause of our salvation; it could be compared to a planetary orbit, out of which no satellite can go astray, once it has entered. The picture is certainly insufficient, for it is freely and willingly that, having been touched by grace, we choose to come and remain under the life-giving influence of our beloved Savior.
“You would rather separate a Christian from Christ”, such was the proverb which circulated in the Roman Empire, at the beginning of the Church, to express a major impossibility. The pagans of the time understood well that the characteristic of the Christian was to be inseparably linked to Christ.
Whoever is freely justified by his faith in Jesus is in no danger of losing himself: for his salvation rests in the hands of God, and of him alone. He must therefore stop being afraid of life, and of the difficulties it holds for us:
“I am convinced,” said Paul, “that neither death nor life (…) nor things present nor things to come (…) will be able to separate us from the love of God manifested in Jesus Christ our Lord. “(Rom 8: 38-39)
THANKSGIVING PRAYERS FOR SALVATION
Lord Jesus, I want to praise you for having paid the full price of my salvation with your precious blood. Pardon me for having doubted the sufficiency of your sacrifice on the cross to redeem me and fully save me. Sorry to have imagined that it was necessary to add a work on my part: even the fact of having believed in you is not my work, but that of your Father in me, according to your own words. Pardon me for having so much difficulty in conceiving the absolute gratuity of your salvation.
Thank you, Holy Spirit, for convincing me again that I have, by my faith in Jesus alone, definitively entered into salvation. Thanks for sealing me off. Come now continually fill me!
Glory to you, Father, for having chosen me from all eternity, in consideration of the work of your Son, whom I had the privilege of allowing one day to enter my life. Thank you for having given me to Him to belong to you and serve you forever, Holy Trinity, in joy, obedience and love. Amen.
