Can a Christian Lose Their Salvation?

Salvation by Grace Alone and James 2

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It's Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host of Striving for Eternity, Andrew Rappaport.

We are live, Apologetics Live. That, from what I understand, is a, what you just saw or heard, was a commercial that, I guess, won't be played at the Super Bowl. Yeah, that is what my understanding, that was a commercial that, about pro-life commercial talking about choice, the faces of choice.

And I think their website, I'll double check, I think is facesofchoice .com. Yep, facesofchoice .org. So, facesofchoice .org. You can check that out. I'll put that in comments for you. So, that is something you guys could check out.

Very interesting. They won't play that. Guess they don't like that message of choice when it's not the choice they want. Just thinking. So, tonight, we're going to do, before we go to open Q &A, I should introduce myself.

I don't know if I did. Sorry. I'm Andrew Rappaport, your host of Apologetics Live. Don't know if Matt Slick's going to be coming in tonight or not. We're not sure. He wasn't sure if he could. So, but that doesn't mean I will not give him a hard time.

I have something, I'm in the process of moving. And I found something very interesting. And I'm going to just, I'll bring it up now since I started with it. I found this, if you guys can see that. And if you look on top, it says Matt Slick.

I think Matt was going for this target up here in the top right. But you can see, for those who are watching the video on YouTube, you can see that he kind of missed whatever target he was going for. And I found this in my house as we're packing up and moving.

And I'm like, why in the world did I keep this? And then I found out why. Because I found out, I saw this one. This is the one where I was shooting. Now, keep in mind, Matt goes and shoots often. And you can see, well, there's one or two, three.

Three, maybe four, if you want to count this one. Four out of like, you know, a dozen shots that hit a target, just a target. Then we have this one here, my shot. And you can see the center target that I was going for is kind of, you know, not completely gone, but half gone.

Just saying Matt shoots every day. And when I shot that, I hadn't shot a rifle for, oh, probably about 25 years, maybe 30. So I figured I'd give Matt a hard time whether he's here or not. So, but I am, I'm your host, Andrew Rapport at Apologetics Live.

This is one of the podcasts you can hear on the Christian Podcast Community. If you're interested in podcasts, we have 20 plus podcasts out there for your listening. You could check out my podcast, The Rapp Report.

I have a daily, a weekly. We have this one. We have the Theology Throwdown. So I do about five podcasts. Yikes, that's too much. This is a Ministry of Striving for Eternity, which is the ministry I work for.

Tonight's topic, what we are going to do with is the topic, Can You Lose Your Salvation? That is the topic that we'll have. And if you would like to come in and either challenge me, disagree with me, maybe even agree with me, whatever.

If you want to, you're more than welcome to come on in. You just have to go to ApologeticsLive .com, ApologeticsLive .com. And at Apologetics Live, what you do is if you go there, there's some instructions to participate.

And you'll be able to, there is some instructions like if how to, for folks who are watching on Facebook, there's instructions how to get your name to show up. You'll see that we will put some comments in for people to see like that one.

And if you're, if you set it up with, if you set up your Facebook, we can see your name. Just that's kind of nicer. So the so the tonight's topic that we'll deal with is the topic of Can You Lose Your Salvation?

And until people come in and join that, we're going to be on the show. Then we will. I'll just keep working through that topic of whether you can lose your salvation. I will try to be keeping up with the comments in chat so that I can see what you guys are all saying.

But the issue of salvation is one where we see this debated quite a bit. And you see the issue of whether you can lose your salvation debated often. Now, there's a key passage that many people go to. And if I'm looking this way, I know it's horrible for camera, but that is where my my Logos is.

So maybe I could drag the window. Let me try that. I will try floating the window. See if that works. There we go. Hey, now I can kind of look this way while I read a scripture. That's at least a little better.

I won't be completely at eye level with the camera. But this is a topic of Can Someone Lose Their Salvation? And there's a key verse that people will go to. And that's in James chapter two. Maybe you're familiar with it.

Maybe not. But what I what we could do is read this. And I'm going to see if I can just put this on screen. That would be nice. So let's see. All right. I know this doesn't make for good radio, but it would be nice if this works.

There we go. All right. So now you can read along with me. So we see here. And this is good because now I can highlight and those of you who are watching can see. So this is the key verse that there's, well, two key verses people will go to here.

One is verse 17. So also faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead. People look at that. But more often what you end up seeing is that people like to go a little bit further down. Verse 18, they're going to say, you have faith and I have works.

Show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works. But that's not the key that most people go. If you go further down, verse 22, you see that I have faith was active along with works and faith was completed by his works.

So you're getting the sense here in this passage that there's a connection between faith and works, but it is verse 24 we want to look at. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith.

Then the key here, the real key, the one that they hone in on is verse 26. For as the body apart from the spirit is dead. So also faith apart from works is dead. Hmm. Some folks are saying that it sounds off.

So I don't know. You guys let me know if that's for everybody. But all right. Some are saying it sounds good to them. So maybe it's just Melissa. All right. We will keep going. Now what I wanted you to do, the reason I read this kind of just out of context or not, well, sort of in context, but just reading it in the key in the verses that they want to look at the argument that people make here is that if you have faith.

Without having works with the faith, then you are not saved. So this becomes a key one for this reason. If salvation is by grace alone, because of the work that Christ did on the cross, then you're not working to earn it.

So your works can't lose it. Okay. That's going to be one argument that people make. Now, there's a couple of different ways we can go with this. You're going to have those who are Roman Catholic. They're going to argue that your faith and they're going to love a passage like this, the way they interpret it.

They're going to say that this is talking about the fact that saving faith requires works. Now, if you're saved by your works, then you can lose your salvation by your works. So that becomes a key question to ask.

Are you saved by your works? So is James chapter two specifically really verses 25 and 26 or 24 to 26. Is that teaching that we need works for salvation? Well, the one verse that people don't want to read when they try to use this passage to teach works salvation is verse 14, because that's the one that gives the context and that's the one that demolishes the argument that somehow we need works for salvation according to this passage.

Okay. So let's read verse 14. And what I want to do is read this whole thing in its context now and see what it's actually saying. And all we have to do is read this. We don't need some church to tell us what this means because a simple reading of it makes it very clear.

So James chapter two, verse 14. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? So right off the bat, I hope you know something. This is not talking about a person who actually has faith.

It's someone who says he has faith. Ah, that's the key right there. He doesn't actually have faith. He only says that he has faith. Notice the difference. So you're not talking about a person who has faith.

You're talking about a person who says, professes, claims that he has a faith that he doesn't actually have. And that is what this is talking about. This is talking about a person who makes a profession of faith without genuinely having faith.

So what do we know about salvation? Well, we know, and this is what this passage is actually saying, that somebody who says that they have a saving faith, that Jesus Christ changed them from the inside out, they will have works following that faith.

That's the natural progression of saving faith. That's what James is talking about. So you have a person who says he's got faith. He says he's got faith, but there's no works. The works that should proceed faith are not there.

He asked the question, can that faith save him? What faith? The faith that is profession only. The faith that is not based in what God has said. So it's not in scripture. It's the faith that says, oh, well, I can say that I'm saved and just want to be saved, but there's no actual evidence of it.

You see, if someone has saving faith, a genuine faith, which is what James is talking about. If you look through the book of James, James is laying out a dozen plus tests that you can know what genuine faith looks like.

And as he goes through these, one of those is this one is works. If someone is genuinely saved, they will have the works of salvation. And so this passage is not teaching that you have to have works with salvation because we can go to Romans and find that that's not true everywhere in the clear readings.

This is talking about sanctification. So let me stop and explain these terms because not everyone may be familiar with them. We could talk about regeneration. Regeneration is what people think about when they're talking about this faith here.

Regeneration is that time that someone goes from being an enemy of God to a child of God, when God changes them from one state to another, from being destined to hell, to being adopted into his family, to having eternal life, from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.

That's one moment in time. And that happens for those of us who know Christ in the past. But the moment that happens, there's another thing that's also referred to as faith, also referred to as salvation, which is called sanctification.

That is the process spoken of here in James chapter two. That is the process where somebody is doing the works that we would expect to see with a saved person. That is the process of being made more and more in the image of Christ.

And until the moment we die, and when we die, we're glorified. That's also referred to as salvation. So salvation has a past, a present, and a future tense to it. Salvation speaks about that time that we were regenerated, that time, that process that we're being sanctified, and then it's finalized in our glorification.

That is all faith. And that is all salvation. So the question you have to ask is which faith or which salvation are we discussing? Well, in this, we're clearly talking about sanctification. Why? Well, first off, my brothers, he's speaking to fellow believers.

That's one key. But the real key is the question he's looking to answer. Verses 14 to 26 is all answering one question. What is that question? If a person says he has faith but does not have works, can that faith save him?

That's the question. Can a faith that doesn't have works with it, in other words, someone makes the profession, but there's no evidence, does that faith save him? No. That's just a proclamation. And it does nothing for the person.

So when we look at this, we have to realize that when people try to argue, first off, that you have works, that if you're saved by works, then the issue is you can lose your salvation because of those same works.

So that is the first and easier argument to counter, because scripture is quite clear that you're not saved by works. In fact, and if there's anyone who would like to come in and challenge me on these things, this is a live show where we try to answer your questions.

So if you want to join in and challenge or ask questions on this, please go to apologeticslive .com and that's the way to join and offer whatever challenges you may have. But as we look at this, the thing is, is that we have a saving faith in scripture is taught to be by faith alone in what Christ did alone.

Now, every single man-made religion has works component to it. Every one, because that's what humans do. They add their own effort to things. They want to claim their own ability. And so what you end up seeing there is you end up seeing that all you have to do objectively is look at any world religion that adds human effort in any capacity, and you now know it's a false religion.

All right, it's just that simple. And so Bill is in here asking, where's traditional Catholic at? He's sitting in the backstage and he's going to keep sitting there. So sorry, Bill. Traditional Catholic or traditional Catholic actually isn't allowed on the show anymore till he repents from the lies he tells.

So I just figured I'd let Bill know that. So back to the issue that we're seeing, that what you see is that if God gets 100 of the glory in our salvation, that's a divine religion. A man-made religion is going to add human effort.

That's why people will turn to this passage and they're going to look at this and say, oh, see, see, this is teaching a work salvation. A problem with that argumentation is the fact that when you argue that way, you have to realize that this is something that is man-made if you have human effort.

You have a false religion right off the bat. So traditional Catholic just left the group or the backstage. So I guess he realized we're not going to let him air his lies. So if any other Catholics would like to come in and, you know, try to make an attempt to deny what scripture says, that's fine.

Let's deal with the other passage because there are those who say that we're saved by faith, but we can lose our salvation by works. And so before I get to that, though, we'll answer a question that was asked on Twitter here by JC Siver.

What are considered works? Well, that's easy, JC. What would be considered works would be things like the fruit of the Spirit, love. Okay. These would be the works that we would expect to see. We'd expect to see what you see there in Galatians chapter 5.

And it is as we see, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Those are some things that we would see as those works. All right.

So you should be seeing that we're made more in the image of Christ. In other words, those works would be moving away from pride, away from selfishness and moving toward Christ likeness. Okay. Now, as people try to argue that you can be saved through faith, yet maintain your salvation.

Now, let's be fair, because that's the way they're going to say it. There's people who say that people that say that you can lose your salvation always say that it's a works-based system. That's not exactly true.

There are those who argue that they got saved by grace, but they have to maintain it by works. Now, we have passages in Romans chapter 8 seem very clear. As we look at that, it seems that it's clear that you cannot lose your salvation because what can separate you from the love of Christ?

And he gives a whole litany of things, and the answer is nothing. Nothing can separate you from the love of Christ. Now, if nothing can separate you from the love of Christ, but your works can. God says he will never let us go.

And so the argument that is made here, and we want to make sure that when people make arguments, we're fair with their arguments. Because if you attack a straw man, then you're really not attacking their real argument.

If you have to use a straw man argument, that means that your argument is so weak, you can't defend it. You should be able to defend the strongest argument if you have the truth. So, I want to make sure I have their arguments correct.

So, when Romans 8 says, therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who earn Christ. If we can earn our salvation by grace, but maintain it by works, then our works would be causing us condemnation when we fall, right?

And so, then because of our works, that we're not maintaining that salvation, then we would now be under condemnation again. So, then they would say, well, that's because we're not in Christ. And so, what we have is to see that he ends up saying, what can separate us from the love of Christ?

Nothing. So, people will say, well, you see, you're not separating. God's not separating you from him. You're separating yourself. Now, think about that. If God is saying that he will save us, that he will keep us, but we think we could lose that, if we think about that, it kind of makes us sound like we're stronger than God, doesn't it?

Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly what that claim does. Because for us to be able to lose the salvation that God promises will never be lost, then we would have to be stronger than God to overcome what he says he's going to hold on to.

Now, the thinking of this is that we are saved by grace, but we do something for a long enough time, maybe it's something severe, and in that process, we're lost. Now, some of the passages they're going to go to is, let me bring up Hebrews 6, and I'll put this up on screen so we could see that.

All right. So, as we look at this, therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrines of Christ and go on to maturity. And so, he's talking about elementary things at this point, and I just want, for context's sake, that we see that.

Not laying, again, a foundation of repentance. So, what is he saying here? Whatever he's addressing here in Hebrews 6, because this is, I think, one of the ones that most people will go to as their strongest argument, and to say that we can lose our salvation.

Because this passage, at a cursory reading, can seem that way. Let's, right, because some people will read it that way. Let's see what it says, and let's work through this. Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity.

So, the writer of Hebrews wants us to go from elementary doctrines to maturity, to more serious doctrines, to more complex doctrines. Not the simple, but the deeper in understanding. Laying, again, a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith toward God, and the instruction about washings.

So, what is he dealing with? He's dealing with the issue of these, of the, remember, he's writing to Hebrews. So, it's the ceremonial washings that they do. The laying on hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

And this we all do if God permits. Now, here's where we get into the part. For it is impossible in the case of those who have been enlightened, who have tasted of 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 crucified once again, the son of God, to their own harm, and holding him up for contempt.

Now, by the way, that last part I should mention for those who are Catholic and watching. What do they argue in transubstantiation? That Christ is dying over, and over, and over again. What that verse just says, he doesn't do, right?

So, there you just have transubstantiation blown out of the water by scripture. And I'm, I just, you have to read it. Now, what the real key here is, what does it mean when it says those who were, had been enlightened, those who tasted of the heavenly gift, and shared in the Holy Spirit.

That's the key. Now, that seems to be speaking of those who are saved. And that is an easy way to read that. Now, a couple things. Hebrews is a complex book. It's one of the, a difficult book to interpret.

And therefore, whenever you have a conflict with a book like Hebrews or Revelation, you always want to look at the rest of scripture to see what it clearly teaches. A principle of hermeneutics is that you interpret the difficult passages by the simple passages.

This is a difficult. So, we would look at the simple passages, and all the other passages don't say you can lose your salvation. However, what you do see here is anybody that is in this category, whoever this is speaking of, who tasted of the Holy Spirit, whoever that is, it is impossible.

Do you see that word? Impossible. They cannot gain it again. So, if this is a state where people who try to argue this passage is showing that you can lose your salvation, then that means you can never get saved again, ever.

It's impossible. I point that out for this reason. So many people want to use this passage to argue that we could lose our salvation. And that's not what this is teaching. Because the issue that you have at stake here, first off, it's dealing with saying that it's impossible.

See, the idea that you can get saved, lose your salvation, gain your salvation, lose your salvation, can't happen. So, who are these people? Well, it's the very same people spoken of in the parable of soils.

You have a believer, you have a non-believer, and you have two hypocrites, two people that taste of salvation. This is your church attender that doesn't believe in Christ. This is the same person that we saw in James 2 who makes a profession of faith, but doesn't have it.

And we would look at their works and say, nope, doesn't have it. So, what you end up seeing is that this here would be arguing that if you, if it's speaking of losing your salvation, then you can never get saved again.

Now, there are some people who argue that. For those who argue that you can get saved, lose it, and get saved, and lose it, and every other week they're getting saved again. Well, this is talking about those who attend church, who sit in church, they've participated with everything, and yet they walk away.

We would know this as apostasy. We have that author, oh, why do I draw a blank on his name? I Kissed Dating. Goodbye, Joshua... All right, someone in chat will give me his name because I forgot it. But I want to say Evans, I know it's not him.

But anyway, when you have someone like that who walks away from the faith, he tasted it, he grew up in church, was in good churches, but guess what? He tasted of it, he had the blessings of it. Harris, thank you.

Thank you for that, Harris. And so, Joshua Harris. So, what you end up seeing with that is this is a guy who is what Hebrews 6 is talking about. He's denying Christ. And so, this is a person who's gone.

But guess what? They were never a believer in the first place. And so, as we look at this, I just want you to see that these are the arguments that are made. Before I jump into why you can't lose your salvation, what I'm trying to do is give the arguments that they would make.

And the argument would be also that some would say, well, you maintain it. What about all the passages that speak about, you know, overcoming, you know, that those who overcome, those who persevere, things like this, saying that if you somehow stop persevering, you'll lose your salvation.

Well, this is an issue of God having to give language where we can't comprehend. When we have this issue, what I want to do, and this is what you must do with this doctrine, you need to take a step back and understand what regeneration actually is, okay?

So, there's two attributes of God that are going to come into place here for our understanding of these things. One is going to be that God is eternal. Now, that means that God is outside of time. He never had a beginning.

He never had an end. He just always was. So, as we look at that, we realize that God is eternal means God's eternal. And we can't wrap our mind around this, but everything's an eternal now to him. So, if you think about it, God sees everything that happened in history, everything happening today, and everything that will happen, and it's all the same eternal now to him.

So, there's nothing that he doesn't know because of time. We will often talk about salvation in context of time, being saved before that God elected us before the foundation of time. What does that mean?

That you have nothing to do with salvation because God knew it. God did it before he created time, but yet he's outside of that time. The other attribute is omniscience. That is that God is all-knowing.

And what that means is that God didn't learn anything. He just knows everything. You and I cannot comprehend that, okay? But these two attributes of God are very important when we talk about this doctrine of salvation.

Why? Okay, this is why. What we end up seeing with this doctrine is that if God knows everything, doesn't observe it, knows it, when was the punishment of sin paid for? Well, the answer is at the cross.

Now, if it was paid at the cross, and we see that in Colossians. So, if it was paid at the cross, then every sin that you and I ever did is future to the cross. It's future to the payment. Think about that.

Everything, every sin you've committed in the past, the ones that are still future to you, they're all after the cross. 2 ,000 years, unless you're really, really, really old, every sin you ever committed, the first sin you ever committed was also after the cross, when it was paid for.

God, being an eternal being, decreed who he would save, not based on time and not based on observation. He did it because of his own desire to do so. And because he's an eternal being, that salvation was done back then.

Even though it was paid, every sin in Old Testament was future. The cross was future to that, but the cross was passed to us. So, what you end up seeing there, and this is why you have to put this in this perspective, is that if every sin was at the cross, what sin did you commit that God did not know about at the cross when he paid for it?

None. He knows all of them. He's omniscient. You see, so the fact that you look at the attributes of God, and this is what you must do. When you study theology, you must go to the attributes of God. That, oh, this is really funny.

Okay, we'll be distracted. I'm going to put John in here in a bit, but Catholic traditionalist says, striving for eternity, notice everyone that Rappaport is censoring me from challenging his unbiblical false OSAS Protestant belief, and that stands for once saved, always saved, because that's because he knows I'd easily refute him by using scripture.

Well, this is the problem. Traditional Catholic can't use scripture. He's not allowed, because if he does, then he's interpreting, and he would say that we don't have that right. Only the magisterium do, and unless he's the magisterium, sorry, you can't use scripture.

You have to give us what the magisterium tells you. Why is he not allowed in here? For a very simple reason. He comes in, used to come in, I should say, week after week and ask people the same question, and then every week say, no one can answer my question.

Everyone answers his question week after week after week. He ignores it. He also doesn't stay on topic, but the real reason why he got banned, and, you know, it's real simple why he got banned. He lied.

He hasn't repented of that. That's why. Now, if he wants to repent, well, maybe we could deal with that, but the reality is, it's my show, not his. I can censor you if you're going to be a jerk, and you are, so we don't choose to have you on.

Yes, I know, I'll bring John in. I know John will probably want to laugh at, you know, traditional Catholic, but he's, you know, doesn't offer the best arguments and just says the same thing over and over and over.

So, if I remember correctly, his name is Robert. So, you got to love guys that can't give their real names, by the way. They got to hide behind pseudonyms and then say everyone's, you know, censoring them, oh, poor little me.

So, John, what questions or challenges or comments do you have tonight?

Well, you pretty much already touched upon it, I believe, but, I mean, I've always wondered about the whole thing about those who become apostate. So, in order for one to become apostate, you have to first become a believer.

So, would that essentially be something where it would fall under the category of this person was saved and then he lost his salvation, or would that be another category as far as, that did somebody, I mean, I don't know.

This is something I've always kind of wondered about.

So, try to reword your question, maybe. Okay.

So, okay, let's go through timeline. Somebody becomes saved, right? And then sometime throughout the future, they become apostate. So, would that mean that they were, would that mean that they lost their salvation, or would that just mean that God already knew all along that this person wasn't saved?

It's a tough one. Okay, so, no, it's actually not a tough one. The issue is that this goes back to the attributes of God, like I was saying, right? There is no time frame for God. Right. He's omniscient.

He knows who he's going to save, and he knew it before we were born. That's what it means in Ephesians when it says, you know, Ephesians, so many people cringe at this passage because they just don't like it when it says that God elected before the foundation of time, right?

Right. What does that mean? It means you had nothing to do with it. Right. So, it's not that it surprised him, right? And this is, when it comes to losing your salvation, this is why I say this is such a big thing to focus on, is the attributes of God.

If you're focusing on the attributes of God, you realize that your theology must be consistent with his attributes, right? Because your theology is a study of him. So, all of the proper doctrines are going to come out of the proper attributes.

You know, you can't have a conflict. If you have someone that can get saved and lose it, okay, when God saved them at the cross, there must have been something he didn't know, right? Right. When he declares there's no more condemnation, you know, someone's saying, speaking about just like Judas.

And Judas is a great example. People might think Judas was someone who lost his salvation, except for one thing. Jesus was never saved. Well, he wasn't saved, and Jesus predicted what he was going to do.

He calls him the son of perdition. So, that didn't surprise Jesus. I mean, nothing we do surprises Jesus, you know? So, I don't think that it's like God didn't know. God knows what sins we're going to commit tomorrow.

He's already aware of it. So, how could he declare someone saved, say that there's no condemnation, say that he won't, he's not going to let them go, but somehow we can leave him. That would be saying that he didn't know what we were going to do.

Right. So, Bill's asking how to join. So, Bill, the easy way to join, there's a ticker going down there at the bottom that explains it, but all you have to do is go to ApologeticsLive .com, ApologeticsLive .com.

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