Ask The Chaplain  

You cannot get saved by doing good works, and you cannot undo your salvation if you sin. Your salvation and everlasting life are gifts from God. God never takes back His gift of salvation. The Bible is very clear about this. It says: “for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable” (Rom. 11:29). In the translation of the New Testament known as The Message, that verse is translated very powerfully: “God’s gifts and God’s call are under full warranty—never canceled, never rescinded.”

Many people teach that if you sin, you lose your salvation and then you have to get saved all over again, but that is not true. God wants you to be absolutely sure that you cannot lose your salvation, so the Bible emphasizes its permanence in many ways.

• As you have seen, salvation is called a “gift” over and over, and the Bible specifically says the gifts of God are irrevocable.
  
  
• A term for salvation is “born again” or “new birth” (1 Pet. 1:3 and 23). We all know that birth is permanent. Once I am born, I am a child of my mother and father forever. Even if I am a horrible kid and my parents really don’t like me, the birth is permanent. God wants Christians to know that He loves us and that we are His children no matter how we behave, so He uses the term “birth” to describe what happens to us when we are saved. Birth is a one-time occurrence that cannot be undone.
  
  
• Another term for your salvation is “adoption.” At first you may wonder why God would say you are “adopted” when saying you are “born” into His family seems so much more wonderful. The answer to that question lies in the Roman law and culture at the time the New Testament was written. According to Roman law, adoption into a Roman family was permanent, but a naturally born child could be disowned. So, in writing to the Roman people (as in the books of Romans, Ephesians, and Galatians), God used the word “adoption” so they would be sure to understand that their salvation was permanent. [For further study read Adopted by God.]
  
  
• When you are saved, God gives you holy spirit, His gift, on the inside. Because it is spirit, you can’t feel that it is within you, but it is God’s permanent seal in you that you are His child. Ephesians is very clear about getting saved by believing and then being sealed with holy spirit:

  
  Ephesians 1:13 and 14
  (13) And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised holy spirit,
  (14a) [which] ...is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance….

Read those verses again. They are so rich. The Bible says you are sealed with holy spirit, God’s gift. Therefore, you are sealed. God’s salvation does not “leak out” if you sin. You were sealed when you believed, and that seal is a “guarantee” of eternal life, your “inheritance” with the Lord.

• Because your salvation is permanent and you cannot lose it, God says you are His child! “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! ...Dear friends, now we are children of God...” (1 John 3:1 and 2a). Surely it cannot be that one day you are a child of God and the next day you aren’t. God chose to communicate to us in the words we use in our everyday speech, and we all know that children are a permanent addition to a family. No one has children in his family one day and then does not have them in the family the next day. The same is true for God’s family as for our human families. God calls you His child to make the point that you are permanently in His family. That is also why unbelievers are never called “children” of God—they are not part of the family.

Children have their father’s “seed” in them, and Christians are born of “imperishable seed” (1 Pet. 1:23). The Bible is very clear: If you are saved, you are born into God’s family, you are permanently adopted, you are sealed with holy spirit and God calls you a child of God.

Why should I stop sinning if I cannot lose my salvation?

That’s a good question, and there is a good answer. First, anyone who lives a sinful life becomes a slave “to sin” (Rom. 6:16). People who live lives of sin are often guilt-ridden, depressed, unhappy people. Sin takes its toll on people, and Christians should want to escape the tyranny of sin.

Second, you are united to Christ, identified with him in the most intimate way possible. That is, you were crucified with him, you died with him, you were buried with him, raised with him from the dead, ascended with him and seated with him at the right hand of God (Rom. 6:1-10; Eph. 2:6). Being thus joined with Christ, why would you want to continue to be joined to sin in your day-to-day life?

Third, it is right and proper to thank the one who has given you a gift. God and His Son have given you the greatest gift of all—everlasting life. The greatest gift you can give back is your life in service to them.

Fourth, there are many people who do not know God and who desperately need salvation. They could die any day and miss eternal life. What a terrible loss that would be! One of the things that turn people off to God and the Church is hypocrisy. If you are a Christian and don't live like one, you make it more difficult for the non-believer to come to Christ.

Fifth, how you live and serve in this life will determine how God will reward you in your future life in God’s kingdom. Christ is going to come back to earth and set up a kingdom (“...the meek...will inherit the earth”), and not every person in that kingdom will have the same rewards. Many verses attest to this truth