Why I Reject The Doctrine Of “Once Saved, Always Saved”
By Rev. Jack Howell
The doctrine of “Once Saved, Always Saved” is growing in popularity and acceptance, and I believe this to be in fulfillment of 1Timothy 4:1 which tells us: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.”
Due to the nature of the doctrine's beginning and the implications of the doctrine itself, I believe this doctrine to be a “doctrine of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1). Now, bear in mind that I used to believe and teach this doctrine myself for many years before I began to examine the doctrine in the light of God's Word for myself in the spirit of Acts 17:11 and 1Thess. 5:21 and discovered that the doctrine is not as cut and dried as I was taught that it was. During my personal in-depth study of this doctrine, which lasted a good 6 months, all the scripture proof-texts that were used to support the doctrine began to take on a new meaning as I discovered that they don't really support OSAS at all. In fact, I discovered to my dismay that they actually teach CONDITIONAL ETERNAL SECURITY or were taken out of context, and misapplied to make them appear to teach OSAS. This was not a hurried study, but a meticulous study in which I took my time to make sure of what I was seeing in the inspired, written Word of God. I had actually embarked on this study to prove OSAS to and for myself. Finding out for myself that the Bible does not teach the doctrine of unconditional eternal security, as OSAS is also known was a bitter pill for me to swallow, and I was not happy about my findings, but I knew I had to accept what the Holy Ghost revealed to me through my study of the Word on the subject. I felt betrayed and lied to by those who had taught me this doctrine as Bible truth. I also found myself repenting and asking God for His forgiveness for teaching this doctrinal error. After finding out that the Bible does not teach unconditional eternal security, I decided to do a little research into the origins of the doctrine, and was shocked to learn that it originated with a sect of first century A.D. Gnosticism, and not with Jesus or any of His Apostles! Further investigation revealed that the doctrine, in its present form had its beginnings with Augustine, who borrowed the framework for the doctrine from his pagan Manichaean past. Manichaeanism was a heretical sect that combined elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism into one religion. The founder of this religion was a man named “Mani” and the form of Christianity he borrowed from was Gnosticism. So, I saw that the doctrine of unconditional eternal security not only was nowhere taught in the Bible, but had its origins in the heretical sect of Gnosticism, and that the doctrine in its present form derived from paganism! That's three strikes against the doctrine, and it was time to reject it for the error that it is, and that is what I did years ago, and have not looked back.
Once Saved, Always Saved Unscriptural
Not only is this doctrine of unconditional eternal security of dubious origin, but as I mentioned earlier, it is not taught in the Bible in spite of what its adherents claim. In order to teach this error, its adherents have to jump through a lot of hoops, and ignore, or explain away all the scriptures that warn against falling away. They have to do a song and dance to force their view of unconditional eternal security into the Bible, and this, in my opinion is hardly an honest approach to the subject, or to the Bible as God's inspired, written Word. The Apostle Paul tells us to rightly divide the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). The Greek word translated as “rightly dividing” is orthotomeo and means, to set straight; handle right. It means not only to give the true meaning, but also the correct application to the various times and classes of people, and I don't believe the OSAS crowd, as sincere as they may be, are doing this where this doctrine is concerned. For example, one of the key claims of the adherents of unconditional eternal security is that if a person fell away, they were never saved in the first place, and they base this claim on one lone scripture, and that is 1 John 2:19 which in the KJV reads:
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.”
They read their claim that someone who fell away was never really saved in the first place, into this scripture, which is eisogesis, rather than exegesis, which means to draw out the meaning of the scripture. This verse actually does not support this claim, for it really shows that these apostates were not in sympathy with the church at the time of their withdrawal. It does not say or assert that they were never genuine Christians. This verse is asserting that those who leave the assembly of believers were not believers or in sympathy with believers at the moment of their departure. This does not prove that they had never been genuine believers.
Other scriptures that adherents of unconditional eternal security point to as proof-texts actually refute their claim and prove conditional eternal security as the true Biblical teaching, for the Greek text shows continuing action, i.e., continue to have faith, continue to believe, remain in Him, continue to abide in Him, etc., and this fact is often obscured by our English translations of the scriptures. For example, John 15:1-11 where Jesus exhorts believers to abide in Him. This denotes continuing action. In fact, Jesus points this out Himself at verse 6 where He states that any who do not abide in Him will be cast forth and burned in the fire. The word “abide” is translated from the Greek word meno, which means to continue, dwell, abide, remain, endure, stand, tarry. Thus Jesus was saying that those who do not remain, endure, stand, abide, continue in Him will be cast forth into the fire and burned, and shows that there are those who are not going to remain, endure, stand, abide, or continue in Him, but will fall away, and we have just such an example of this happening at John 6:66. At John 3:36, Jesus gives a condition for receiving everlasting life, and that condition is to continue believing, for the Greek text literally reads:
“The one BELIEVING into the Son is having life everlasting.”
Notice that “believing” is continuous action, and not a one time thing as many teach, and as we have seen from John 6:66, many in Jesus' own day stopped believing in Him and fell away by walking no more with Him from that moment on. They departed company with Him and had nothing more to do with Him because they were no longer believing in Him. 1 Corinthian 7:24 is another good example of abiding – remaining, for the Apostle Paul exhorts:
“Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God.”
Here again, the Greek word translated as “abide” is meno, so Paul is exhorting us to remain, endure, stand, dwell, continue in God, and as we have seen from John 15:6, those who no longer do so will be cast into the fire and burned. The truth of the matter is that the Bible always uses the present tense of “believing” as a condition of salvation. If one no longer believes, then at some point, namely the final stage of apostasy, he forfeits his/her salvation. We are told that we must continue, remain, endure, stand in Him to remain saved. To deny this is to deny the Word of God. Below is a list of scriptures that one can look up at their leisure to see that the Bible teaches conditional eternal security.
Abide - defined as To remain, continue, stay, or to be steadfast : Jn. 15:1-11; Rom. 11:23; 1 Cor. 7:24; 1 Jn. 2:6; 2:10; 2:24, 27, 28; 3:6; 3:14; 3:24; 2 Jn. 1:9.
Continue - defined as Abide, remain, stay, or be steadfast: Jn. 8:31; 15:9; Acts. 13:43; 14:22; Rom. 2:7; 6:1; Gal. 2:5; 3:10; Col. 1:23; 1 Tim. 2:15; 4:16; 2 Tim. 3:14; 1 Jn. 2:24.
Endure - defined as Remain, continue, or be steadfast. Matt. 10:22; 24:13; Jn. 6:27; 2 Tim. 2:3; Heb. 12:7; James 5:11.
As one can see, the doctrine of Once Saved, Always Saved, also known as Unconditional Eternal Security has no real support in the inspired, written Word of God, and ought to be rejected.
A License To Sin
Adherents of OSAS don't like to hear the truth that this doctrine is actually a license to sin, and when this fact is pointed out, we are accused of not understanding OSAS, or misrepresenting it. This is an attempt to escape the reality that this doctrine gives its adherents a license to sin without fear of losing their salvation. It is often taught that future sins have already been forgiven, and if this is the case, one can feel free to sin to his heart's content without worrying about his eternal salvation. In support of this, the unconditional eternal security website Gospel Outreach.net, in their article entitled “How Secure Is Salvation?” makes this statement after quoting Ephesians 1:7 and 1 John 1:7:
“These verses state that the blood of the Lord Jesus cleanses us from all sins. Now how many sins are "all"? Does "all" include past sins? Does "all" include present sins? Does "all" include future sins? Yes to all three questions! "All" would include the whole amount of sins and exclude none. "All" sins include past, present, and future sins.”
Does “all sin” really refer to future sins having already been forgiven before they have been committed, as claimed by the unconditional eternal security adherents? At worst, this is an exercise in eisogesis, and at best, it is a very bad attempt at exegesis, for this verse says nothing of the sort. John is talking about all sin that had been committed up to the time it was confessed. The meaning is clear, that in regard to any and every sin of which we may be conscious, there is efficacy in that blood to remove it, and to make us wholly pure. There is no stain made by sin so deep that the blood of Christ cannot take it entirely away from the soul. This is what John was saying! He was NOT saying that future sins have already been forgiven. If it is true that even future sins have already been forgiven, as claimed, then unconditional eternal security is indeed a license to sin, whether its adherents realize it or not.
Perseverance of The Saints
This is the concept that once a person is saved, he/she is forever saved and they can do nothing to change that because free will has been overridden by God, so even if the person chooses to no longer believe, no longer abide, no longer continue, etc., he/she is still saved although their fellowship with God has been broken. This concept is based on Ephesians 4:30 which states:
“And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
Adherents of OSAS surmise that because one is “sealed unto the day of redemption,” a person genuinely saved cannot fall away. However, this is false, for one remains “sealed unto the day of redemption” as long as they continue to abide, remain, continue in Christ. This “seal” is conditional as scriptures previously given have shown. Adherents of OSAS also incorrectly maintain that this seal cannot be broken, but there is nothing in the scriptures that says this. What we do find in the scriptures is that man has the free will to stop believing in and serving God, and that he has the free will to apostatize from the faith if he chooses to do so. This seal is no guarantee that a person is going to remain saved. Rather, it is merely a stamp of authority showing that God promises to keep that one saved if he/she continues to meet the conditions of salvation, which as we have already seen include continuing to believe, continuing to abide in Christ, remaining in Christ, endure, stand, etc.
With the above in mind, it is seen that the doctrine of Unconditional Eternal Security, commonly known as “Once Saved, Always Saved” does not line up with the inspired, written Word of God, and as a result, I rejected it for the error that it clearly is.
Rev. Jack Howell
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God to salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." (Romans 1:16)
Proper Principles of Bible Study
