*Download article in PDF Format	*Watch YouTube video

Should believers proclaim that they are once saved, always saved (OSAS) or state that they are already saved? Can a believer lose his or her salvation? This article will examine the once saved, always saved doctrinal belief.

ONCE SAVED, ALWAYS SAVED IS NOT IN SCRIPTURE

The phrase, ‘Once saved, always saved,’ is not found anywhere in Scripture. To the contrary, there are numerous plainspoken Tanakh (Old Testament) and B’rit Hadashah (New Testament) verses that attest to the fact that righteous living persons can lose their salvation if they turn from living righteously to living sinfully.

EZEKIEL 18:24 (NKJV):
But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness, which he has done, shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin, which he has committed, because of them he shall die.

HEBREWS 10:26-29 (NKJV):
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?

2 PETER 2:20-22 (NKJV):
For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Yeshua Messiah (Jesus Christ), they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”

WE WILL OFFICIALLY BE SAVED AT THE LAST TRUMPET

No one is ‘saved’ yet. We are all still living in corrupted flesh and blood sin-stained bodies, capable of sin, and all are subject to death and the grave (Isaiah 1:18). Anyone who dies before Yeshua (Jesus) returns is not going straight to heaven (John 3:13); they are going to the grave to await the resurrection. As faithful believers in Yeshua (Jesus), obeying His commandments and worshiping Him in spirit and truth, we can have the assurance that we will be saved (in the future), if we endure in righteousness till the end, but to say we are already saved is inaccurate, presumptuous, and is borderline arrogant.

1 CORINTHIANS 15:51-54 (NKJV) [WITH INTERPRETATION]:
Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep [DIE], but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

1 THESSALONIANS 4:15-17 (NKJV) [WITH INTERPRETATION]:
For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep [DEAD]. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Messiah (Christ) will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

After we believing saints are transformed into spirit beings, then we can officially proclaim that we are saved. We will be made into immortal incorruptible beings (1 Corinthians 15:53-54). Hypothetically, can a saved person who has been transformed into an immortal, incorruptible spirit being lose his or her salvation?

2 PETER 2:4 (NKJV):
God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment.

Scripture proclaims that we will be made incorruptible. Presumably, no one would want to lose his or her salvation. However, if it were possible to rebel against God after being transformed into an incorruptible, immortal spirit being, then the fate of such a person would be the same as Satan and the angels who rebelled against God in heaven, who were assumably ‘saved.’

THE DANGERS OF ONCE SAVED, ALWAYS SAVED PHILOSOPHY

Christians who believe and proclaim to be once saved, always saved, can use their belief to destroy their righteousness within themselves. When Christians believe they became OSAS on a certain date, and there is no possibility of their salvation being lost, they risk opening the door to sin and unrighteousness. Once saved, always saved is used by many as a false sense of security, a license to sin freely, with no consequences and no chance of possibly losing salvation.

THE PREMISE THAT WE ARE ALREADY SAVED IS FALSE

MATTHEW 10:22 (NKJV):
“But he who endures to the end will be saved.”

MATTHEW 24:13; MARK 13:13 (NKJV):
“But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”

ACTS 16:31 (NKJV):
“Believe on the Lord Yeshua Messiah (Jesus Christ) and you will be saved.”

HEBREWS 10:39 (NKJV):
But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

HEBREWS 10:39 (TLV):
But we are not among the timid ones on the path to destruction, but among the faithful ones on the path to the preservation of the soul.

He or she who endures [IN RIGHTEOUSNESS] to the end shall be [FUTURE TENSE] saved. Some believers’ end is the end of their life, others will endure until they are raptured, and others will endure until the end of the age and the return of Messiah (Christ). A person can draw back to living unrighteously and lose salvation. Those who are to be saved are those who live righteously by faith and are ON THE PATH to being saved.

EPHESIANS 4:30 (NKJV):
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

As Messiah (Christ) believers, God does ‘seal’ us through His Spirit, by having His Spirit indwell in us, but warns us not to grieve the Spirit within us, through willfully sinning, as we can unseal the Holy Spirit from dwelling within us by rejecting God and willfully sinning. We are NOT yet redeemed or ‘saved’ when we accept Yeshua (Jesus); His Spirit seals us for the day of redemption, which is in the future, when we are transformed from flesh and blood beings into spirit beings.

Ephesians 4:30 does not say, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you are once saved and always saved.”

LUKE 19:9 (NKJV):
And Yeshua (Jesus) said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house…”

1 JOHN 3:9 (NKJV):
Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.

“Today salvation” and being “born of God” does not mean once saved always saved. These are promises of assured future salvation.

1 CORINTHIANS 6:9-10 (NKJV):
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the reign of Elohim (kingdom of God)? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous (greedy of gain), nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the reign of Elohim (kingdom of God).

GALATIANS 5:19-21 (NKJV):
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, drug sorcery, hatred, quarrels, jealousies, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the reign of Elohim (kingdom of God).

EPHESIANS 5:5-6 (NKJV):
For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Messiah (Christ) and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

REVELATION 21:7-8 (NKJV):
He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. The cowardly, untrustworthy, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, drug sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

Do not be deceived with the empty promise of ‘once saved, always saved’ guaranteed salvation. A believer can turn back to sin and lose his or her salvation (Hebrews 10:26). Righteousness is not imputed onto a believer through the blood of Yeshua (Jesus), so that a believer can live lawlessly, sinning freely. Living righteously is what God calls us as believers to do and it is a prerequisite for any man or woman who wishes to inherit the kingdom of God (Leviticus 11:44-45, 20:7; 2 Peter 3:11; 1 John 2:3-6). True worshipers, those who worship God in spirit and truth, can live with the assurance today that they will be saved (Luke 19:9; John 4:23-24), but actual salvation will not occur until we are transformed into incorruptible spirit beings at the last trumpet (1 Corinthians 15:51-54).