4 Common Misconceptions About Eternal Security
Why you can’t lose your salvation
As I sat at a sidewalk café with a parishioner and her husband one sunny afternoon, I could see the woman was nervous. Her husband held her hand and encouraged her to talk to me. “You need to ask your questions,” he told her. “I don’t know the answers, but he might. It’s eating you up!”
The bright, kind young woman had been attending our church for about a year and was invested in teaching her young children about Jesus. I couldn’t imagine what was troubling her.
Finally, she mustered up her courage, looked me in the eye, and said, “Pastor Dan, I’m just so afraid I’m going to die with unconfessed sin and go to hell.”
The tale that tumbled out revealed constant anxiety and fear about losing her salvation, a doctrine taught to her as a child. So, I introduced her to the Bible’s teaching on eternal security and watched her fear melt away as we dealt, one by one, with her misconceptions.
Every Christian needs to know the assuring truth that once we place our faith in Jesus’ work to save us, we can never lose our salvation. The doctrine of eternal security brings us to the very heart of the gospel. Perhaps you have been concerned about your salvation or that of a loved one. Here are four common misconceptions about eternal security.
Misconception #1:
I can sin enough to lose my salvation.
Eternal security is God’s guarantee that His gift of salvation, once received by faith in the work of Christ, cannot be lost or removed. Ephesians 2 calls salvation “the gift of God, not of works” (vv. 8–9). We don’t earn this gift or influence it from its inception to its fulfillment. God is the one who makes our gift eternally secure—not us.
Consequently, no sin can ever cause us to lose God’s gift. In fact, Romans 8 makes this point exceedingly clear: “Whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified” (v. 30). In God’s eyes, everyone He has saved has been justified (declared righteous) and glorified.
Our security is a fact made certain by God’s character and work in His purpose to save us. And nothing will ever separate us from His love and acceptance through Jesus (vv. 38–39).
Of course, this fact doesn’t mean we’ll never sin after we have been saved. We certainly will (chap. 7). But the point of the apostle Paul’s teaching about salvation being a gift is that it is not removed based on our good or bad behavior. In the same way that we received the gift by God’s grace, we keep it by God’s grace.
We can never become good enough to be acceptable to God in the first place, and we can never sin more than Jesus’ blood is capable of cleansing. Salvation is God’s gift to us, which He ensures by Himself. Like a skydiver who jumps from an airplane, some things move only in one direction. God’s work to save those who come to Christ is one of those things.
Misconception #2:
Because I’m eternally secure, I can sin all I want.
Some people claim the doctrine of eternal security means all saved people can happily sin their way into heaven and that those who teach eternal security are encouraging Christians to live as sinfully as they want.
But that position is erroneous and not what the Bible teaches. Paul strongly refuted this notion in Romans 6:1–2: “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” (v. 1). His answer: “Certainly not!” (v. 2). The certainty of God’s grace isn’t a license to sin; it’s a motivation not to sin.
We fight sin not to ensure our salvation but, rather, to love and thank God for it and to grow in Christ. The purpose of our salvation transcends getting us into heaven. It’s also about living now in communion with God, doing His will, and glorifying Him in the world Jesus died to redeem. Walking with God and knowing we are eternally accepted by Him helps us live in preparation and anticipation of that perfect relationship with Him that we’ll enjoy forever.
Misconception #3:
I can reject my salvation.
Recently, there seems to be a flood of well-known laymen and pastors who are “deconstructing” their faith. This process used to be called apostasy, or the rejection of a previous confession of faith.
Perhaps you know someone who walked away from belief in Christ. What are we to make of this phenomenon? Those who dispute eternal security point to such examples as evidence that believers can indeed lose their salvation if they intentionally reject it. But is that true?
In John 10:28, Jesus said the sheep (people) the Father gave Him are in His hand; and He will certainly give them eternal life: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” Jesus Himself called eternal life a certainty for those who belong to Him. Not even the sheep themselves can derail the inevitable conclusion of the life Jesus grants.
Consequently, only two logical explanations exist concerning people who profess faith and later repudiate it: (1) Their professions were not genuine and consequently failed to result in eternal life; or (2) these people remain in Jesus’ hand, though far from His heart, living in a state of sinful rebellion.
In either case, our task is to pray earnestly that God will draw such people into a deeper relationship with Christ, whether for salvation or maturation, trusting God’s determination on their eternal destinies. Meanwhile, we must remember that no one’s story is finished until he or she leaves this life. God may still graciously draw even the most rebellious soul back to Himself.
Misconception #4:
Scripture indicates I can lose my salvation.
Many teachers of conditional security point to New Testament passages that seem to indicate Christians can lose their salvation. Though dealing with this premise in exegetical detail is not possible here, it is important to address the charge that we who believe in eternal security do not take these passages seriously. We do!
Throughout Scripture (1 Cor. 15:1–2; Heb. 2:1–4; 5:11—6:8), God dramatically exhorts Christians to remain faithful to Him in both belief and lifestyle. Though some of these passages may seem to indicate backslidden Christians can lose their faith, that is far from a clear exegetical conclusion.
If we let Scriptures that are clear inform our understanding of unclear passages (an important principle of Bible study), then no passages lead to a conclusion that we can lose our salvation. Rather, Scripture teaches about our complete inability to save ourselves or even remain faithful to God without His work in us.
When we place our faith in Jesus, an entire network of events goes into motion. First, Jesus’ death is applied to our sin account, paying our debt and justifying us before God. Jesus becomes our Mediator and Intercessor, and His righteousness is applied to us.
Second, the Bible says we become indwelt by the Holy Spirit, “having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever” (1 Pet. 1:23). We were “dead in trespasses and sins,” and Christ “made [us] alive” (Eph. 2:1), giving us spiritual life.
Third, the Holy Spirit baptizes us into the body of Christ, uniting us with Jesus and all other believers as one body. In addition to all these things, the Spirit seals us “for the day of redemption” (4:30).
If it were possible for us to lose our salvation, then God either misapplied Jesus’ payment for us or that payment was insufficient, making us “unjustifiable.” Similarly, Jesus would stop advocating for us and remove His righteousness from us. The Holy Spirit also would leave us, since we no longer would be a suitable habitation for Him.
And, of course, we would revert to being spiritually dead. The universal body of Christ would lose limbs, and Scripture would be extremely wrong to say we have been sealed until the day of redemption when we were only sealed until the day we lost our salvation.
These scenarios are antithetical to God’s character and purposes in saving us. Thank God neither our salvation nor our eternal security depends on us. We receive both through His matchless work and grace.
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Hello! I would like to ask one, perhaps two questions, though… I completely understand all that was stated above, and I agree. Yet, I wonder if you might answer the following: Hebrews 10 speaks of those who have tasted, been illuminated, participated of, etc… And, the root words for insulting the Spirit of the Lord and basically trampling the blood by which one was purchased speak of a willful, arrogant turning away… basically “apostatizing”. The Word also speaks of many “falling away” -again, apostatizing from the faith. It seems to me you can’t willfully reject, or fall away from something that you’ve never really had, soooo why so much warning against it if it’s not even possible in the 1st place? I can understand that one doesn’t just “lose” one’s salvation as one might lose something that falls out of our pocket, but I feel that there is sufficient scripture that shows that we can actually neglect, drift, become deceived and unresponsive to God’s calling. God doesn’t violate one’s free will, correct? Honestly, I truly don’t know how someone that has truly had a genuine encounter with the Lord can come to the point of actually willfully turning away, but it’s what I seem to understand from that portion in Hebrews 10. THANK YOU so much for taking the time to respond. GRACIAS!