June 25, 2026 Debate: “Can Truly Born Again Believers Lose Their Salvation?” Jared K. Henry vs Jeremiah Nortier (Part 1)

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 25th day of June 2026.

And I am so pumped up, I'm so excited that we are having the third debate on this program between these two same brothers in Christ. And it will be a different theme than they have debated before, but it's a third opportunity to see these two men who have really blessed me by the graciousness with which they have demonstrated toward one another in spite of their serious differences.

We have today joining us Nazarene pastor, Jared K. Henry, who is pastor of Mackey Church of the Nazarene in Oakland City, Indiana, and president of the Holiness Partnership. He is going to be debating Jeremiah Nortier, pastor of Twelve Five Church, a Reformed Baptist congregation in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and host of the Apologetic Dog podcast.

And this time around, their two-day debate, which starts today and concludes tomorrow, will be on the theme, Can Truly Born-Again Believers Lose Their Salvation? And first of all, let me welcome back to the program, Pastor Jared K. Henry.

Thank you so much. It's good to be back with you. I've been looking forward to this, being again with Brother Jeremiah and getting to debate these things. I'm learning a lot how to debate, maybe, but exploring some of these subjects as well.

I think it's good for us to challenge ourselves biblically and with brothers as iron sharpens iron.

Amen. And for those of you who want to explore the websites of Pastor Jared K. Henry, you can go to mackeynaz .org, that's M-A-C-K-E-Y-N-A-Z dot org. And you can also go to the Holiness Partnership website, theholinesspartnership .com, and feel free to explore those websites.

And we have also joining us the aforementioned Pastor Jeremiah Nortier. It's a delight to have you back on the program as well.

Chris, thanks for having me back on. It's always a blast to be able to come on here with you. And it's been about a year since me and Jared went to task, and so I'm really looking forward to getting to debate with you again, Jared.

You are a gentleman, and like you said, I just want to sharpen one another, and so I'm really pumped.

And just so we can be fair here, the websites of Jeremiah Nortier that you can explore more about him and his ministry, first of all, Twelve Five Churches website is the word twelve, the number five, church .com.

And then also, the Apologetic Dog website is theapologeticdog .com. And God willing, we'll be repeating that information for both of our debaters later on in the program. Well, this is a summary of the breakdown of our debate today.

The thesis is, truly born-again believers can lose their salvation, and Jared K. Henry affirms that thesis, and Jeremiah Nortier denies it. Each man will be given ten minutes for opening remarks, starting with Jared K. Henry.

And then following those ten-minute opening remarks, they will each have eight-minute rebuttals, starting with Jared K. Henry. After that, there will be twelve-minute cross-examination periods, the first of which has Jeremiah Nortier cross-examining Jared K. Henry, the second of which has Jared K. Henry cross-examining Jeremiah Nortier.

And then today's part one of this two-day debate will conclude with eight-minute rebuttal statements, beginning with Jared K. Henry and concluding with Jeremiah Nortier. And now I'm going to open the floor to Jared K. Henry, who has his ten-minute opening remark to defend the thesis, truly born-again believers can lose their salvation.

Pastor Henry.

What It Means to Be Truly Born Again and to Lose Salvation

All right. Well, I guess I'll start out on the defensive, right? I'm defending the statement, truly born-again believers can lose their salvation. So I think we'll have to establish a few things that this is truly born-again.

In other words, we're not talking about someone who's confused about their salvation or someone who just attends church. This is someone who has experienced the new birth. Saving grace has been applied in their life, and they've been born again.

I think that's important to note. Also, I think lose, what does it mean to lose? I want to just clarify that I don't believe lose in this context means something like you would lose your car keys. Salvation is not something that you inadvertently misplace.

I went to bed one evening, I woke up the next day, and I lost my salvation. Where did it go? I was asleep, and it disappeared on me. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about an intentional, willful rejection of relationship righteousness with God versus not, in other words, not accidental.

All right. So that's important. Also, I think some of the topics that we'll probably, Brother Jeremiah and I will probably kind of emphasize will be what exactly do we mean when we talk about God's sovereignty and what human responsibility lies in juxtaposition, maybe, of his sovereignty.

In other words, free will, those kind of things we'll have to talk about more. I think salvation, when we talk about being born again, there is certainly a legal component to that. In other words, salvation demands that we be forgiven of our transgressions, that we have sinned against a holy God, that those sinful actions need to be forgiven.

The biblical word for that is justification, which is also a legal term. So there's a legal requirement for us to deal with the problem of sin in our lives, and God does that in salvation by addressing the legality of the legal issue.

There is a price to pay, which is death for sin, and we need to be forgiven of that. Jesus provides for that in his death and resurrection. Praise God for resurrection power at work. But the question then is, what is the end for that?

Is it just a legal component to salvation, or is there more? I believe that the legal component is necessary to enter into relationship, that we are invited to be children of God and that there is a relational component to that.

A relationship, if it's an authentic relationship, requires two individuals, if you will. It requires someone that loves and cares for, and someone that will reciprocate that as well. And so I think that's an important thing as we move forward about this, that Jesus details how do we love God.

We love him by obeying him. So there's a call to obedience from Jesus and throughout Scripture. If you love me, you'll obey me. What is the love of God? That we obey his commandments and they're not burdensome to us.

So there's this call that we as human have some kind of responsibility in terms of our relationship with God that he calls us to. And so the goal of salvation is redemption and it's restoration of relationship with the God who provided for our salvation.

So I think that that plays out biblically when Scripture, a number of times, and I'm going to focus on the New Testament here, but also in the Old Testament deals with this kind of reality, warns us about continuing to sin.

Because sin would dictate that, well, if our love for the Lord is expressed in our obedience and our desire to serve and honor him, then that's going to be problematic. But the warning is for us not to fall away.

There's warnings of you need to endure to the end, run the race with perseverance, those kinds of things. And these are real warnings for real believers. And in fact, these warnings are not really even focused at unbelievers, those who have not been born again.

These warnings are for those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good and they've experienced salvation. And so the real warnings, the fact that salvation is not a static place, but an ongoing work in our life because of that relational component, is important.

Jesus speaks about the vine and the branches and the need for us to remain in him. We have to grapple with what does it mean for us to remain in Christ? And because he warns us, if you don't, you'll be removed.

Those branches will be cut off and thrown into the fire. So saving faith is not a kind of one and done, but faith is something that is persistent and ongoing in our life. It's something that exercises on a regular basis.

And ultimately, that faith is that upon our death, we will be with Christ forever. That's his promises. But that his invitation is not just that we will have relationship with him in heaven one day, but actually that we can be in fellowship with God today and now.

So for example, Colossians chapter one, verse 22 and 23, he gives the warning and includes if indeed you continue in the faith. These are people who have exercised faith and he's saying you need to continue in that faith.

Hebrews chapter three, 12 through 14, he says, take care. And he deals with this idea of them having an evil, unbelieving heart that could lead you to fall away. That's a problem. Don't fall away. I could go on and on.

I won't for the sake of time. But scripture links salvation with our responsibility. Jesus provided for our salvation in full, but he requires us to respond to his grace, to persevere and empowers us to do that.

So I believe that apostasy is a real danger. It's not a figurative danger. It's not a danger just in writing, but it's a real danger. And a person who ultimately reject Christ demonstrates that they have forfeited salvation, rejected the relationship with the Lord and what Jesus has done for them on the cross and they want to persist in their sin.

So this is a willful, conscious, volitional decision that they make. I think there's biblical examples of individuals who fell away. I'll reference a couple here. Emmaus and Alexander, First Timothy, Chapter 1 and Second Timothy, Chapter 2, Paul says they made a shipwreck of their faith.

That indicates they had faith, but that faith was wrecked. It was destroyed. And they no longer put their trust and faith in Christ's work on our behalf. And ultimately, they were delivered to Satan. So they, at some point, had been redeemed from darkness and now they were delivered back to Satan.

There's also a pastoral, I'm a pastor, first and foremost, but I have a pastoral concern about this idea that truly born-again believers cannot lose their salvation. And I have just noted that there are some folks who are led down a path by that doctrine to antinomianism, or maybe even a false assurance that, hey, I prayed, I was baptized, I did these certain things, I did everything that the Bible tells me to do.

But they have negated the component of relationship with the Lord. And so God's sovereignty dictates, I think, a human response. We have some kind of responsibility, and grace enables us to persevere, as we're called to in Scripture, to persevere, to run the race all the way to the end, so that we might experience the fullness of salvation's work in us.

So I believe in God's grace. I believe it's powerful. I believe God's grace is sufficient for full salvation. And I believe that Scripture consistently presents salvation as a relationship that must be continued, and we must continually respond.

We are not objective onlookers in this. We are involved in working out our own salvation, not because we provide the means for that salvation, but because God demands we respond to his Spirit, convicting, working in our life, not just once, but in an ongoing way in our life.

So that's kind of the summary of, I think, what my argument will be. And I'll leave it to Brother Jeremiah to respond.

Great. Well, Jeremiah Nortier, you now have your 10 minutes to deny the thesis that truly born-again believers can lose their salvation. And you have 10 minutes beginning now.

The New Covenant, Christ’s Intercession, and the Perseverance of the Saints

Truly born-again believers cannot lose their salvation because God is faithful and He cannot fail in His promises. The book of Hebrews, I believe, outlines this beautifully. One of my favorite passages comes out of Hebrews 12 that says, Let us, those who are born-again saints, run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, who is the founder and the perfecter of our faith.

Now, that one verse alone shows us that our faith does not begin with us and it doesn't terminate and end with us, but it is something that Jesus Christ has actively done in the past, even before the foundation of the world, and He continues today in His heavenly reign.

Notice that it's our faith. Yes, He ran the race before us and He finished well, perfectly submitting to the Father's will, but He suffered and died on our behalf and continues to intercede on our behalf was the argument that Hebrews is making.

And so our faith in Scripture is described as a gift. It is something that God grants. And in the new covenant promise, we are told, God, He says, I will take out that heart of And I will give you, work in you a new heart, one that trusts in the Savior, and He gives us His Spirit that compels us to obey all of His statutes.

And so this is a promise, and I would argue this is an unconditional promise that bears fruit in our lives. And so, yes, Jared did talk about, yes, we're going to talk about God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.

We both affirm those realities, but how we harmonize those and see those will be different. I want to argue, since our faith doesn't start with us and it starts with God, then we can look to Jesus as a perfect Savior that cannot fail to save and intercede for those that look to Him in faith.

That is the argument of Hebrews chapter 7 that says, Consequently, Jesus is able to save perfectly, meaning completely and to the uttermost. There's nothing left over or left wanting or His blood was not spilled.

For those who draw near in faith to God, since Jesus, and here's a key, always lives to make intercession for them. Think about Jared's position that if someone can lose their salvation, Jesus stops interceding for them.

And in all humility, Jared is looking wrongly. He's looking too much at himself. Yes, we have responsibility. We are called to obey, but we can't ultimately fall away because of the work of the good shepherd and our intercessor who cannot fail, which is a promise made in Scripture.

And Hebrews says that God cannot lie. His promises cannot be broken. So this is a certain promise based on God's unconditional word, and He cannot fail because the new covenant is a better covenant in every way than the historic covenants found in the Old Testament.

And this is the covenant of grace. The new covenant has no cursings because Jesus Christ bore the curse for us. In the new covenant, there are only blessings. Hebrews 10 goes on to make this case that Jesus Christ, for those who have been sanctified are looking to Him in faith.

His sacrifice, His offering of His body was once for all. It goes on to say, for by a single offering, He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Well, if you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, if you're born again, and if you've experienced progressive sanctification, oh, well, He's going to make sure it's completed.

That's why Scripture says, He who began a good work in you, it is based on Christ faithfulness to make sure we see the totality of our inheritance, which we will receive at glory until it is completed.

And so I want you to ask yourself, for all those listening, is Christ able to do this? Well, the writer of Hebrews says, yes, for he who has promised is faithful. Now, obviously me and Jared agree that we are called to faithfulness, but every time you sin, you are being faithless.

And I want to encourage people, don't look to your own faithfulness, your own obedience, your own working participation. Look to Jesus, who is the author and protector of our faith, because He has promised to sustain us to the end, and He has promised to prevent us ultimately from stumbling away.

Are we going to stumble in this life? Yes, but not away. And so these are promises that God has given. And Hebrews says, God cannot lie. Another promise in the new covenant for God's people, He says, I will write my laws in their minds and I will write them on their hearts.

There's a transformation that takes place. He says, I will be their God and they shall be my people, for they shall know me in faith. And here's the key. I will remember their sins no more. This is an unconditional statement that God will do.

Jared's going to have to say in some fashion, but if you actually fall away, then all those sins that God forgot about, they can actually be laid charge to your account on that final thing. I would argue the opposite.

If you are trusting in Jesus by faith alone, looking to Christ alone, by God's grace alone, then there is therefore now no condemnation that will ever be held to your account. But if you can lose your salvation, then your sin will be held against you potentially one day.

And that means that Christ failed as a mediator. That means that God's promises have failed and ultimately God has lied. What Hebrews says is impossible. I believe it is impossible for those who have truly been born again to forsake Christ.

Why? Because God made this promise. I will never leave you or forsake you. That's why Hebrews tells us that the great shepherd of the sheep who equips us with everything good that we may do his will. If that is true, then there's nothing that we lack to be able to continue to run the race to look to Christ.

And he goes on to say, working in us. Working in us how? Like taking out that stony dead heart and giving us a new living heart. And listen, of justifying faith that perseveres unto the end. That and that alone is why we can run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus because He is the founder and perfecter of our faith.

So, this does raise a question that Jared already rightly, preemptively brought up is how do God's promises and warnings work together in Scripture? Well, I also believe in the sovereignty of God. He has ordained, determined the ends, but He has also ordained the means to bring about His end purposes.

And so, the promises and warnings of God in Scripture are means of preserving those who are born again with a true heart full of assurance of faith. And those warning passages also God uses to expose those of an evil heart of unbelief that, listen, Hebrew says always goes.

So, I want to briefly talk about Hebrews chapter six that issues a very intense warning to the assembled gathering together. This warning is about conceivable danger. And just briefly, it says, basically, if you have fallen away, then it is impossible to be restored again to repentance.

And listen, for those who have been born again, the thought of severing fellowship with Christ and re-crucifying the Son of God, making God a liar, right? And make God a liar because the whole argument of Hebrews is that Christ died once for all.

When we hear this warning, this compels us not to shrink back and to fall away, but to cling to Jesus who is the author and perfecter of our faith. It causes us to lean more into Christ, not fall away.

That's the argument in verse seven, that land that has drunk rain that often falls on it produces a useful crop and receives a blessing from God. When you look at this useful crop, the writer is saying it reveals that this land had good soil.

This is the one who obeys the strong warnings, and it reveals that they are born again. And this is the one who does run the race with endurance to the very end to receive their imperishable blessings.

And verse eight argues the contrast. But if another particular land bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and cursed. What do the thorns and thistles reveal about the land? That it is corrupt soil.

This is the one who rejects the warnings in the scripture and reveals that they had an evil, unbelieving heart that always goes astray. I would argue the new covenant promises that those who are justified by faith have peace, true shalom with God.

And I want you to think about this. If peace can be lost and enmity with God can re-erupt all over again, is that really peace? Or is this the true shalom that the Hebrew scriptures talk about, where there will be no more suffering, no more wars, hurts, or pains, where we will see resurrected bodies fit for eternity?

I would argue that is what he's talking about and how the scriptures say that you can know if you're believing in Jesus Christ, you can know that you have eternal life. I want to argue that if you think you can have eternal life, then lose it.

That is not eternal life, but that is a temporal life. And so, in conclusion, truly born-again believers cannot lose their salvation because God's promises are true and cannot be broken. And his warnings are a means of preserving those who are born again all the way to glory one day.

Thank you, Jeremiah Nortier. And we are now entering into our first commercial break. Don't go away.

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Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order. Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, this is day number one of a two-day debate here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio between Nazarene Pastor Jared K. Henry and Reformed Baptist Pastor Jeremiah Nortier.

The thesis is, truly born-again believers can lose their salvation, and Jared K. Henry is affirming that thesis. Jeremiah Nortier is denying that thesis. We have reached the point where each of our debaters is to give an eight-minute rebuttal, and we will start with Jared K. Henry.

You may begin now. All right.

My internet—the storm siren was going off here a minute ago. I hear some wind out there, and it just got really dark, so that's okay. We've got the light of Jesus, right? So I'm going to jump in on this rebuttal.

I appreciate Jeremiah's thoughts. This was—all what he said was pretty standard. We would expect some of what he shared. Again, it's going to come down to, what does it mean, for example, for Jesus to fail in terms of our salvation?

The implication from Jeremiah is that if someone doesn't finish the race, if someone rejects the grace of God somewhere along the way, that somehow that's a failure on the part of Christ. It's not a failure on the part of Jesus.

It's a rebellion on the part of humanity. I think that's something important. And you can't complete the provision for our salvation with our response to that salvation if this is authentically a relationship.

Now, I don't want to presuppose, maybe, but I'm going to do it anyway. I think that what Brother Jeremiah is advocating for is similar to this new trend of people who claim to be dating AI, all right?

It's wonderful to date AI because it can't disagree with you. It won't go against you. It won't rebel. And that's the kind of relationship that Jeremiah is advocating for with what we're talking about here.

He is taking the warnings of Scripture about falling away, about having your name in Revelation chapter 3 blotted out of the Lamb's Book of Life. He's taking all of these kinds of warnings from Scripture and dismissing them as if humanity is AI.

We have no responsibility. We have no participation in our own salvation. The warnings are for us. Jesus isn't warning himself like, hey, I better get this work done. He has made full provision for the salvation of anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved, all right?

But he's saying, I've done all the provision. I've paid the price for sin. I have made provisions for your adoption into the family of God. I will recreate you through regeneration. He's saying, I'm willing to do all of those things, but I'm not going to force this upon you.

And this has got to be authentic relationship. And if it's going to be authentic relationship, then there must be a response, if you will, from humanity. And that response is not a one-off response. That is an ongoing response to the grace of God at work through the Holy Spirit ministering to us.

And so, yes, if I'm grieving by the Spirit about something that I've said or done, yes, I want to honor Christ. But those who reject the conviction of the Holy Spirit, those who reject what God is wanting to continue to do in their life are certainly in danger of apostasy, of having their names, as Revelation said, blotted out of the Lamb's book of life.

That's a serious warning and a potential that could happen. And that's why John the Revelator, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is saying, you need to be careful. Don't allow your lampstand to be removed.

Don't allow your name to be blotted out, because Jesus has done all of the work to see you born again. Make sure you remain in Christ. So the warning passages are not hypothetical. You can't pass them off as just saying, well, this is just some kind of a reminder for believers to stay on the path.

Well, why would you remind believers to stay on the path? Why would you remind believers to stay in Christ? Why would that be necessary if the warning that you could fall away, that you could reject the grace of God, that you could be a dog returning to its vomit—why would all those warnings be there?

Words and warnings are not true. A warning is only a warning if it's letting you know a very real authentic danger. So that's important. These warnings are God's means of reminding us you have responsibility, all right?

Not that you can save yourself, but your responsibility is remain in Christ, remain in relationship, continue to pursue Jesus in every area of your life. It's like a father telling his child, don't run in the street or you'll die.

That doesn't mean the danger is fake. It's real danger. And so he's telling him that for a reason. And that warning keeps the child from danger. The child can run in the street. The child can be harmed by playing in the street.

And likewise, Scripture warns us about apostasy. It's a real warning because falling away is a real possibility. It's a real danger. And that relationship is not separate from the legal component, that we need forgiveness that Jesus provides so that we can maintain right fellowship, healthy relationship with Christ.