Can I Lose My Salvation?
Our Bible study group is reading through Romans chapter 11 right now. While praying for wisdom and discernment over this chapter last week, I had the following thoughts about the controversial subject of whether or not a person can lose his salvation. I’m not 100% sure this interpretation is accurate and from the Lord, but it makes good sense to me, so I’m just throwing it out there for discussion.
Before we begin, let me state I believe the Bible teaches that it is not possible for someone, once saved, to lose his salvation. Aside from the scriptural evidence, some of which we will discuss here, I think it trivializes Jesus’ sacrifice if somehow we ourselves have the power to undo it. In other words, Jesus did not tell the truth on the cross – it is NOT finished?! The Bible clearly teaches that it’s Jesus alone who saves us, and not Jesus plus something else. And further, if I thought for a moment that I might lose my salvation, once I was in a right relationship with the Lord and KNEW I was saved as of that moment, I would pray for the Lord to take my life on the spot. I wouldn’t want to risk losing the most precious of all gifts. How cruel that would be! And, it is not in God’s character to be cruel.
Nonetheless, I can see, after reading through verses like those below (without taking into account the whole of scripture), how someone could be unsure about it.
I hope this explanation will bring peace to those of you who “… confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead,” because if you do, the very moment that you do, “… you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” (Rom 10:9-10)
John also tells us in 1 John 5:13, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
By the way, eternity means forever without end. So once you have “eternal life,” how can it somehow become UN-eternal?
So, let’s have a look at Romans chapter 11, verses 16b through 24, and see if this explanation holds up to scrutiny …
Romans 11
16 … and if the root is holy, the branches are too.
17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree,
18 do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.
19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”
20 Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear;
21 for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either.
22 Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.
23 And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
24 For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?
The Olive Tree
The first part of the image here is that there is a cultivated olive tree with branches growing off of it. The analogy is that the tree itself represents Jesus as the source of life and all sustenance, and the Jewish people, those that can actually trace their heritage back to Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, are represented by the branches that are growing naturally off it. The branches have life because they are connected to the source of life that nurtures and sustains them.
Believers Grafted In
However, unbelief (lack of faith) on the part of some of the branches, will be the basis for those branches to be broken off from the cultivated olive tree by it’s caretaker (God the Father). Similarly, belief (faith) on the part of branches from a wild olive tree that were not originally part of the cultivated olive tree (the Gentiles/non-Jews) will be the basis for those branches to be grafted in by the caretaker.
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10)
But…
But what if you don’t “continue in His kindness?” It says in verse 22 that, “you also will be cut off.” And verse 23 says that the branches that were broken off for their unbelief, “if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in…” How can this be?
Generational Continuation
Let us think of this tree in terms of another analogy we are all familiar with: the Family Tree. Put in this perspective, new branches (the children) grow out from the parents’ branch(es), and as the children grow up and marry, new branches (THEIR children) grow out from THEIR branch(es).
So in the example above, let’s presume that the parents are saved, secure in their eternal salvation once and for all. However, one of their children, a “continuation” of their parental branches, does not ever come to a saving faith in Jesus. That child’s branch, therefore, is broken off.
My conclusion is that this “generational” continuation in belief or in unbelief is what the scripture is referring to.
In other words, a “parent” branch, once saved, is always saved. The reference to “continuing” in belief or in unbelief refers to the next generation of “child” branches and the individual decisions each branch makes.
That is why one can be broken off, and later grafted back in. A Jewish believer can have an unbelieving child, the continuation of his genetic line, which “branch” would be broken off. But then, that unbelieving child could have a believing child, the continuation of HIS genetic line, which “branch” would be grafted back in. And similarly with the branches from the wild olive tree (Gentiles).
Now, this doesn’t address works, but the short answer to that is: works are the evidence of salvation (after the fact), not the cause, otherwise Jesus’ death on the cross would not in-and-of-itself have been enough to save us. But that’s a topic for another time.
