Unless one remains in Me, he is cast out as the branch, and is dried up; and they gather and throw them into a fire, and they are burned.
John 15:6
Origin of OSAS
Many scholars claim the idea of “once saved always saved” (OSAS), which is also known as “eternal security”, originated with Martin Luther (1483-1546); however, it was actually introduced by John Calvin (1509-1564), while Martin Luther actually believed the opposite.
“Through baptism these people threw out unbelief, had their unclean way of life washed away, and entered into a pure life of faith and love. Now they fall away into unbelief” – Martin Luther, Commentary on 2 Peter 2:22
2 Peter 2:20-22 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
The following is from the article called, Answering Arguments for Eternal Security, by Jimmy Akin:
The vast majority of Christians recognize the possibility of losing one’s salvation. This is clearly taught in multiple Bible passages. However, in the 1500s, John Calvin proposed a teaching now known as eternal security. Today this teaching takes two forms.
Calvin himself formulated the first version. It holds that, although there are actions that theoretically would cause a person to lose salvation (e.g., apostasy), in practice God prevents true Christians from committing these. He preserves them and causes them to persevere in grace until the end.
This view is often called the perseverance of the saints. It is the last of the “five points of Calvinism” expressed by the acronym TULIP (Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, Perseverance of the saints).
The second version of eternal security, held by some Baptists and Evangelicals, says there are no actions that would cost a Christian salvation. A Christian could lose his faith, become an atheist, commit murder and adultery, die unrepentant, and still be saved. This view is often called “once saved, always saved.”
The Protestant Reformation broke away from many of the false doctrines of the Catholic Church, but sadly also created many knew false doctrines in the process. From the early Apostolic Church until the fifteenth century, Christian theology taught that your salvation was not guaranteed by any magical formula or sinner’s prayer, but rather by your continued faith in Yeshua Messiah.
Understanding OSAS
The foundation for OSAS is the understanding of how we receive God’s grace. For the most part, Protestant theologians teach that justification occurs after the sinner’s prayer is spoken aloud and our sin is removed from us and imputed onto Yeshua Messiah, while His righteousness is imputed onto us, by His grace. This is called “legal imputation”. In contrast, Catholic theologians teach that we have grace poured into our soul, which they call “infusion of grace”.
The following is from the article called, An Exposition on Infused Grace, by Briana Huddleston:
One of the biggest topics debated among Catholics and Protestants is the question of whether righteousness is infused or imputed. Both sides believe that we receive the grace of God. The dispute is a matter of how we receive God’s grace and exactly what that entails. Before diving into the comparisons, we must first define our terms to avoid confusion.
Typically, when Protestants think of righteousness, they think of it in terms of actions or accumulated works. According to imputation, Christ Himself fulfills the law perfectly in the place of the believer. He or she becomes justified when Christ’s perfect works are imputed to them and, in return, their filthy works are imputed to Him.
[…]
The doctrine of righteousness within Catholicism is [..] based on both the nature of grace and humanity. Actual grace is the push from God to respond positively to entrance into the divine life. Sanctifying grace is the permanent grace we receive that enables us to live out a holy life (CCC, 1997). Both require divine initiative and human response.
The very concept of grace is viewed differently in most Protestant circles. In Protestantism, grace is usually seen as God directly bestowing favor and gifts in such a way that human interaction is only involved in its reception. Catholic theology, on the contrary, understands grace not as a one-sided gift but as an actual motivator in which the individual responds to God (Acts 7:51).To the extent that we live out this grace in the circumstances of our lives, the more it increases (Romans 5:1-2).
[…]
The Catholic view of righteousness is not so stark. In Catholic theology, righteousness is associated with sinful human nature and not exclusive with sinful works. Scripture uses the same Greek word synonymously for justification and righteousness (Romans 10:10 and Romans 4:5). That being said, Catholics view righteousness as an actual cleansing and renewal of the soul. (Trent, Session 6 ch.7)
The belief in OSAS is allowed to perpetuate within the Protestant Church because of three points of false doctrine that lead one to the conclusion that they cannot lose their salvation.
- They teach that our sin (disobedience to the Law) was taken from us and imputed onto Yeshua at the time of His crucifixion, which means that our sin is no longer ours after we say the “sinner’s prayer”.
- That Yeshua Messiah did away with the Law at His crucifixion. Because the Law was nailed to the cross it is no longer binding on believers.
- With no Law, there is no sin, because sin is disobeying the Law. Therefore, believers can live their lives in any way they see fit and still be assured of salvation.
However, whereas, Yeshua Messiah is the Law made flesh and He (the Law) was nailed to the cross, He was also resurrected. Ergo, the Law was also resurrected, because Yeshua and the Law are one-and-the-same. Yeshua (the Law) lives!
Proponents of OSAS take certain passages of scripture out of context in order to support their false doctrine. Let’s take a look at three of them.
1. John 10:27-30 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
Certainly, it is true that no one else can effect our salvation—can snatch us from Yeshua’s hand—however, we can leave his hand through an act of our own free will.
2. Romans 8:38-39 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
To read this passage and understand it to be saying that a believer willfully choosing to sin against YHWH will not lose his salvation is a perversion of scripture. It is cherry picking verses and taking them out of context, dismissing the meaning of Paul’s letter as a whole. It is putting a ridiculous simplicity onto an epistle of great complexity. It is done through a lack of discernment and wisdom!
Paul was saying that nothing acting upon a believer can take away their salvation, he is not saying anything about acts the believer does himself. Let’s take a closer look at this piece of the letter, with the new understanding that Paul is saying that things acting upon us cannot effect our salvation.
Romans 8:31-39 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul asks:
- “Who can be against us?” Which means someone other than us.
- “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” Which means someone other than His elect.
- “Who is to condemn?” Which means, because God justified us, no one else can condemn us.
- “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Which means, no one else can.
- Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, and sword are all things done to us.
Paul is quoting from Psalm 44:
17All this has come upon us,
though we have not forgotten you,
and we have not been false to your covenant.
18 Our heart has not turned back,
nor have our steps departed from your way;
19 yet you have broken us in the place of jackals
and covered us with the shadow of death.
20 If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
21 would not God discover this?
For he knows the secrets of the heart.
22 Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
Paul in not saying that there is nothing we can do to negatively effect our own salvation, he is saying there is nothing anyone else can do to effect it!
3. Jude 24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,
God is able to keep us from stumbling and present us blameless before His glory. This does not mean OSAS. In fact, this doxology follows immediately on the heals of a call to persevere. Why would we need to persevere if we are guaranteed salvation no matter what we do? Why would Jude tell us to keep ourselves in the love of God, if God is going to keep us in His love no matter what we do?
Let’s examine that verse with a few verses before and after it for context.
Jude 17-25 But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen
God can strengthen us so we can persevere against sin, keeping us from stumbling, so we can stand before His white throne to face Him on the Day of Judgment. He does this when we, through faith, ask for His help. But, Jude tells us that we are individually responsible for keeping ourselves in the love of God. And how do we do that? By obeying His commandments.
1 John 5:2-3 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.
We can see that Jude is not preaching OSAS. He is preaching obedience to God’s commandments, so we can be presented blameless before His throne!
Now that you’ve had some practice discerning the true meaning of these verses, you will be better equipped to avoid being fooled by any other scripture that these false prophets bring to you. Use the same method of looking at the context of the passage within the larger work, and in keeping with the overall message of the whole Bible, to better understand the author’s intention.
OSAS vs Obedience & Repentance
Those who teach and believe the false doctrine of “once saved always saved” do not understand what faith is or how it must be alive in order to justify. (Please read our studies What is Faith? and Justification for more on this).
James 2:17 So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.
The very idea that a person must only say a magical prayer and they’ll be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven, despite changing nothing in their lives or despite backsliding into sin, is ludicrous. This is the very definition of counting the Blood of the Lamb a common thing and trampling on Yeshua Messiah!
Hebrews 10:26-29 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
Every time we break the Torah (sin), we are asking Yeshua to go to the cross for us; to continue willfully living in sin is expecting Him to go to the cross! Who could believe that a person who treats Yeshua’s sacrifice in such a disrespectful way, as if it is meaningless, would still receive forgiveness for the sins they have so cavalierly committed? Only a person not knowing the Word of YHWH!
Hebrews 6:4-8 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
Let’s explore more of YHWH’s Word and see what else He says happens when a believer backslides into sin.
John 15:6 Unless one remains in Me, he is cast out as the branch, and is dried up; and they gather and throw them into a fire, and they are burned.
Yeshua said “remains in Me”, which means He is talking about people who are in Him. To be in Him means to be a believer, to be saved. Therefore, Yeshua is warning believers not to fall away because they will lose their justification and burn in the Lake of Fire.
Hebrews 3:12-14 Watch, brothers, lest perhaps shall be in any one of you a heart of evil unbelief in falling away from the living God. But exhort yourselves each day, as long as it is being called today, that not any of you be hardened by the deceit of sin. For we have become sharers of Christ, if truly we hold the beginning of the assurance firm to the end;
The author of Hebrews is addressing the “brothers” or “brethren”, meaning believers in Yeshua. He is warning believers not to “fall away”, you can’t “fall away” from something you never had in the first place. The author is saying that if we fall back into sin (disobedience to Torah), which also means to fall away from the Living God, and lose the faith we had in the beginning, we will not be sharers of Christ. We will lose our Salvation.
Hebrews 10:26-27 For if we are willfully sinning after receiving the full knowledge of the Truth, there remains no more sacrifice concerning sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and zealous fire being about to consume the adversaries.
To receive the full knowledge of the Truth means to believe in Yeshua Messiah and understand the Law and the Prophets. If we willfully sin, from that saved state, we lose our Salvation.
James 5:19-20 If anyone among you goes astray from the Truth, brothers, and anyone turns him back, know that the one turning a sinner from the error of his way will save the soul from death and will hide a multitude of sins.
James is addressing the “brothers” or “brethren”, which means believers in Yeshua Messiah. He says that if anyone who is a believer goes astray from the Truth (this would cause a loss of Salvation), but another believer brings them back to following Yeshua Messiah, the lost will be saved after all.
2 Peter 2:20-22 For if by a full knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they have escaped the defilements of the world, and again being entangled they have been overcome by these, then their last things are worse than the first. For it was better for them not to have fully known the way of righteousness, than fully knowing to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But the word of the true proverb has happened to them: The dog turning to his own vomit; also The washed sow to wallowing in mud.
The “full knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ” means believing in Yeshua Messiah and knowing to obey the full Law of YHWH. If a person in that state, then begins willfully sinning again, they lose their Salvation. Peter is saying it would be better to believe in Yeshua Messiah and be ignorant of the need to obey the Torah. We are judged on what we know, therefore people who genuinely don’t know better, who have been led astray by the Church leadership, will be written in the Scroll of Life; however, they will still stand before YHWH and account for their works. In comparison, the people who have received the knowledge of the Law and the Prophets and know they need to obey the Torah, but then backslide into a life of sin, they will be blotted out of the Scroll of Life.
Revelation 3:1-6 And to the angel of the church in Sardis, write: These things says the One having the seven spirits of God, and the seven stars: I know your works, that you have the name that you live, and are dead. Be watching, and establish the things left, which are about to die. For I have not found your works being fulfilled before God. Then remember how you received and heard, and keep, and repent. If, then, you do not watch, I will come upon you like a thief, and you will not at all know what hour I come upon you. You also have a few names in Sardis which did not defile their robes, and they shall walk with Me in white because they are worthy. The one overcoming, this one shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not at all blot his name out of the Book of Life; and I will acknowledge his name before My Father, and before His angels. The one who has an ear, hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
First, we need to acknowledge that this church, according to our study The Seven Churches, corresponds to the denominations of the Protestant Reformation, so that is very interesting! Yeshua says that He knows the works of this assembly and that even though they have the reputation of being alive, they are dead. Works means obedience, and obedience is what makes our faith alive. Most of the people in this assembly have the reputation of obeying Yeshua, but they do not truly live in obedience to the Law of YHWH, and therefore, their faith is dead. Yeshua warns them to repent of their disobedience and begin living in obedience to Torah; if they do this, on the Day of Judgment, He will tell YHWH that He knows them. Remember from the Gospel of Matthew:
Matthew 7:22-23 Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in Your Name, and in Your Name cast out demons, and in Your Name do many works of power? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from Me, those working lawlessness!
Yeshua warned that He would tell the lawless people that He never knew them, which means He will not acknowledge them before YHWH.
Colossians 1:21-23 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
You will be presented before YHWH at the white throne judgment, if you continue in faith, not shifting from the hope of the gospel. The if shows that the opposite is also true: if you do not continue in faith, you will not receive salvation. Those who do not have salvation do not face the white throne judgment of their works, but rather are thrown into the Lake of Fire.
What we have learned from YHWH’s Word is that our salvation is not guaranteed because we once prayed the “sinner’s prayer”. We must continue to repent of our sins and do our best to live in complete obedience to the Torah. If a believer strays from obedience (makes mistakes), but returns to YHWH with a heart of sincere repentance, YHWH will welcome them back with open arms. However, if a believer turns completely away from YHWH, rejecting Yeshua’s sacrifice, and returns to their previous life of sin, there is no longer room for repentance and no sacrifice for their sins.
Justification is not a one-and-done system. It is a lifelong commitment. The Blood of our Messiah deserves nothing less.