Can a Christian lose their salvation?

Question

Are we once saved, always saved? Or can you lose your salvation if you’re a Christian but have sin in your life? What if you don't have the assurance that you have a place in heaven, even though in the past you asked Jesus for forgiveness, excepted Him into your life and felt the fire / zeal of being a true Christian. Will God send a Christian to hell, despite past conversion, if when they stand at the judgement bar they are there and then in a backslidden state? Does sin actually mean death after conversion, or just before? How do you not cheapen grace? Which is correct: Calvinism or Arminianism? If we can lose our salvation, does that mean we will live in constant fear of losing our salvation? Isn’t fear of lost salvation contrary to the joy that people are supposed to have as true Christians? Is it now politically incorrect to condemn sin as actually being sin and in turn condemning people who have sin their lives?

Answer 1

I lost it at 15
If there is a god that is responsible for my creation, and I am a sinner it is because he made me faulty.

I am an engineer, if I make a machine that does not work properly, I am the one to blame, not my creation.

Answer 2

No, anyone who has truly repented and given their life to Jesus is saved. There is more than a hint in the Bible of the rewards awaiting those who are Christians, any who are backslidden or not walking well with Jesus will still get into heaven but their reward will be less. Try reading 'the shock of your life' it explains perfectly. Anyone who backslides will I believe be brought back to Christ before death. Anyone who truly leaves the faith was never really a Christian in the first place. Sin is death before conversion. Grace is a free gift of God, to say there is a sin 'too big' for Jesus to have paid for on the cross is to cheapen what he did. We cannot lose our salvation. We are not to condemn those who have sin, if they are a fellow christian the Bible has guidelines on gently restoring them. If they are not yet Christians, we must remember we were once in the same place and not judge.

Answer 3

It depends on the particular religion.

Btw, Frodo above is wrong about the Catholic Church so if you don't like the Catholic Church , pick his answer. That is the old notion and the notion of the ill-informed. I know I was taught an acceptance of other religions and no one said the only way to heaven was through the Catholic Church. It was once addressed as a viewpoint of long ago. I am no longer Catholic but here is what the Catholic Church says today:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rcc_salv.htm
The fate of non-Catholics, as expressed at Vatican II:
The "Dogmatic Constitution on the Church - Lumen Gentium" (1964) is one of many documents to come out of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council (often referred to as "Vatican II"). The Council was held in Rome between 1962 and 1965. Lumen Gentium" contains in its Chapter 1 an essay on "The Mystery of the church." Sections 14 to 16 describe the potential for salvation of:
Followers of the Catholic Church,
Members of other Christian denominations, and
Believers of non-Christian religions.

The language is difficult to follow for a lay person. However, an "Assessment of this Council" was written "as an AID to study by Catholic Students of the Second Vatican Council. They contain material, some written in a journalistic style, for the American reader."

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/10/afa/312002c.asp

The Times says Dulles also noted that the Council said people of other religions who try to do good but are ignorant of the Roman church may in the end attain salvation by God’s grace. The report notes that a Vatican declaration two years ago "stirred anger" among non-Catholics because it was widely interpreted to say that salvation exists only in the Roman church (the latter a misunderstanding).

Answer 4

Salvation from a Fundamentalist point of view:
You are either saved or condemned. Once you accept Jesus as your personal savior you are saved. Jesus, saves, but you have to accept the salvation. And on the other hand, like a ticket to a concert, you may throw it away.

Salvation from a Presbyterian view:
Before you were born, God who is all-knowing, knows whether you will be saved or not. God already knows what you will do with your life. It is the essence of your character that is judged, not your actions. Illustration: A piece of oak wood may be carved into a statue or broken into splinters, but it's essence is still oak.

Salvation from a Roman Catholic view:
"There is no salvation outside the church" The church is defined as one with the Roman church.

Salvation from a Lutheran view:
We are at the same time, both saint and sinner. Condemned and saved. Saved, not by our actions, but by the action of God.
There is nothing, not even by the words we speak in all sincerity, that bring us into heaven. We live in hope because of his promise of salvation. We are re-assured of that promise in baptism, communion and when we hear God's Word.

Answer 5

Yes sin is sin but salvation is there for people who feel genuine remorse for their sins. There is a lot of guilt being foisted on Christians by other so called Christians so don't let them get you down - they only do it to make themselves feel or look more Christian. Some of the biggest hypocrites I have ever met have been Christians (by the way I am one) who use their "apparent" belief as a way of being better than the rest of us.
Chill out, relax, Jesus really does love us all and if you do sin - well he expects it - that's why he died for us all cos he knew we are human and therefore imperfect & probably going to sin. If you really do feel bad about a "sin" that you may have commited He knows that you do and understands - its only the self serving "ministers" who will try to make you feel guily - they are good at it, they have been doing it for years as its in their interest (you know, that little bag that they pass around at the end that the people who feel guilty put more than they can afford in or the "megaChristians" who very visibly but large denomination notes into to prove how good they are).
If you are a good person who feels bad about any bad things that you may do/have done you will be fine & anyone who says that you wont is lying for whatever reason!

Answer 6

I believe that a person does not hold the power to lose the salvation given to him/her by Jesus. In short, I guess you could say once saved always saved. If you don't live the life, however, you will get fewer crowns in heaven to throw at Jesus' feet. Jesus says, "The wages of sin is death, but I come to give you everlasting life!" Politically incorrect or not, a person is only condemned if he/she chooses to be condemned by not accepting Jesus' salvation.

Answer 7

"Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous. -Psalm 69:28" Note that it said "blotted", their names were already in the book of life. GOD will not send a true christian to hell. If he is in a backslidden state then it all depends on what is truly in that persons heart. How do you not cheapen grace? By living your life to the best of your ability for Christ. Grace is a true gift that I dont think we can really understand fully. Also if your in constant fear of loosing your salvation then you MUST know that you are doing something wrong and you know what to do to prevent it. Just be stronger. It aint easy but thats what makes up life. One last thing. If you are correcting another christian because you know that he is doing wrong then its not condeming and it is certainly NOT judging. Read Matthew 18, but really focus on verse 15. We are called to correct each other and keep each other in line.

Answer 8

Not all christians are saved.. but only the true christians who really give all their life to God and really believe that Jesus Christ was crucified and raised for their sins...
Then no Christian can lose his salvation because of some sins he made and that's only if he really was sorry for all his sins and he believed that the holy ghost lived in him and he took the Iternal life... Read these verses :
Ro 5 : 8 "8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."

Php 1:6 "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:"

But all of that doesn't mean that we continue with our sins.. but truely ask God to free you from your sins..

1Jo 1:8 " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

1Jo 2:1 " My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
3 ¶ And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him."

Answer 9

Once saved always saved may be stated also as The Security of The Believer. No man can pluck you out of the hand of God.

Doubt is a very powerful tool of The Devil.

I was very ill once because my thyroid gland was out of kilter. I was doubting that which I knew not to doubt. The thyroid gland is the master gland of the body. When my medication was finally back on line again my doubts were gone again.

My personal family doctor wanted to play thyroid doctor and she changed the dosage monthly; she lowered it. I told her the specialist saw me every three months and gave me a prescription for 100 pills. She being money crazy saw me monthly and tested monthly and changed the dosage monthly and added high blood pressure pills and hinted at diabetes test so she could add more pills all the while knowing I was laid off work with no income coming in. I was going out of my mind. I am now back to the specialist who had been moving his roots around. Now that he is rooted at the Heart Institute I go there. I have since been told by others who have to take thyroid medication that you should only have to go for testing every six months or once a year after medication is set right and not monthly like my money hungry doctor was doing. The medication is right and all is right in my world. I was in a nut house because of this.

P S I am back at the place I have been working for 34 years but in another department with a little over a dollar drop in pay. They will not let me back in my department.

Answer 10

wow, that's DEEP!
I think that you might be taking the religion thing out of context. If you choose to accept the Lord God Jesus Christ into your life, you are effectively wiping the slate clean of previous sins, even down to temptation. You are basically saying that you want to try to live your life righteously, in the eyes of God. God knows that we are all only human and so do make mistakes. Its whether you feel that because you have repented before, that its OK to go back and do the same sin again or if you are genuinely trying to live your life righteously that counts, and that's a personal thing. Members of my local church would call me a 'Back Slider' cos i don't go every Sunday, but there are people there who go every week but still enjoy carnal sins on week days, when they think God's not watching.
Its all about how you choose to live your life.
Life is all about using your conscious mind to decide whats right and wrong for you. If you feel something is wrong and you do it anyway, that's a sin against yourself.
Have i lost the plot? am i still making sense?
Good question though.

Answer 11

No, if you loose your faith in God after being "saved", then probably you never actually commited your heart to Christ. Either way, Christ will judge people by their acts in the end, when the "New Jerulsalem" has come down to Earth. Because in your acts you show your faith. Without faith, you can not be saved, without acts, you can not have faith. If He is in you, then your acts will show this. That's not to say you won't sin and fail, faulter form time to time. But you have to ask what fruits you've beared from the seed of the spirit.

Sin is incorrect, and should be frowned upon. But, done in the loving way that Christ exhibited. Political correctness has no place in any religion, and in Christianity, only god breathed law is truth.