Can you lose your salvation?

No. Once you believe the gospel, you are saved forever. Louis Scott puts it this way in “once saved always saved isn’t a doctrine, it’s a person”: it isn’t some theological position you have to defend. It’s a person, Jesus Christ. Your security is as strong as He is.

“They shall never perish”

“And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:28-29).

Three promises in one verse: eternal life, never perish, and no one can take you out of His hand. Louis points out something in the Greek. “Shall never perish” is ou mē apolōntai, two negatives together, ou (G3756) and mē (G3361), in front of a verb about the future. It is the strongest way to say “no” in Greek. It doesn’t only say you won’t perish. It shuts out even the possibility of perishing. Even the very thought of perishing is completely negated.

The same double negative shows up here: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5).

Sealed, born, and kept

• You were sealed when you believed: “in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13), “sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30).

• You were born into God’s family: “as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born... of God” (John 1:12-13). You can’t be unborn.

• Jesus won’t lose you: “this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing” (John 6:39).

• Nothing can separate you: “neither death, nor life... nor things present, nor things to come... shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). “Things to come” includes your future sins.

“Not every one that saith, Lord, Lord”

People use Matthew 7:21 to say believing isn’t enough. Louis answers with Jesus’ own words. Matthew 7:21 says the one who enters is “he that doeth the will of my Father.” And Jesus said exactly what that will is: “this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life” (John 6:40). The people turned away in Matthew 7 were the ones boasting about their own works. A commenter put it well: “All false teachers quote Matthew 7:21-23 and seem wholly unaware that the people Jesus condemns in those verses are people that trust in their own many marvelous works.”

Who’s teaching this

The “Lord, Lord” argument Louis Scott answers comes from a real video. Emilio Gonzalez, who runs the YouTube channel Grow in Faith Grow in Christ (about 300,000 subscribers), made one called “why having faith will send people to hell.” In it he says, “faith is going to take a lot of people straight to hell” and “God is not just looking at the words, he’s looking at the works.” He compares faith to someone who wants to be healthy but never eats right.

The channel Fuego Savvy answered him with Jesus’ own words. When people asked Jesus, “What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?” He said, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:28-29). And “to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5). Louis Scott calls the health comparison a false equivalence: eating right and trusting God aren’t the same kind of decision.

Look at what that teaching did to people. Fuego read the comments on Emilio’s video. One young man wrote that he was scared. Another wrote, “this video made me cry because it shows me just how I’m not even close to coming to Heaven.” That’s the fruit of a works gospel. Jesus said of the lawyers, “ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne” (Luke 11:46).

In a second video on Emilio, Fuego points to the same thing in Matthew: “For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.” (Matthew 23:4). Then he reads Jesus’ words to Martha: “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” (John 11:25-26). Jesus ends it with a question to all of us: do you believe it? “And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” (Acts 16:31).

“He that shall endure unto the end”

MarcTheMessenger, another YouTube teacher, says it straight in a clip Fuego Savvy played: once saved always saved “lets you know there’s no judgment for your sins... you can live however you want,” and since Jesus said “he who endures to the end shall be saved,” “as of the day I’m making this video, no one is saved.”

Read Matthew 24:13 where it sits. Jesus is describing the tribulation, and two verses later He says, “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” (Matthew 24:22). That’s about surviving those days. It isn’t the way a person receives eternal life. That comes by believing, and John wrote so “that ye may know that ye have eternal life” (1 John 5:13), now, not at the end.

Eternal security doesn’t mean sin has no consequences. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” (Galatians 6:7). Paul told the Corinthians that because of their sin, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.” (1 Corinthians 11:30). But look why: “But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” (1 Corinthians 11:32). God disciplines His children. He doesn’t disown them.

Fuego put it in a picture. If I hand you $500 as a gift, then tell you to wash my car and clean my house and smile while you do it, that’s not a gift. That’s a job. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

“Sell all that thou hast”

Bryce Crawford, another YouTube teacher, says in a clip Fuego Savvy played that the people who ask about once saved always saved “are those that are struggling to fully submit to God,” and points to the rich young ruler in Luke 18, who was “halfway in and halfway out.”

Read the story through. The ruler claimed, “And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.” (Luke 18:21). So Jesus raised the bar past where anyone can reach: “Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.” (Luke 18:22). The disciples got the point right away: “And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved?” And Jesus answered, “And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” (Luke 18:26-27). The story shows that no one can earn eternal life. It doesn’t teach a works test for the saved. The law is “our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24).

Fuego compares it to the serpent’s first words, “Yea, hath God said?” (Genesis 3:1). Making a believer wonder whether he really has eternal life is the same move. God already answered: “that ye may know that ye have eternal life” (1 John 5:13).

“Isn’t that a license to sin?”

Louis says people who call grace a license to sin don’t understand the gospel. Paul calls it “the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16). A believer isn’t looking for permission to sin. He’s just done trying to build his own righteousness: “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ” (Philippians 3:9). You can have your righteousness or Christ’s, but you can’t have both.

When you fall, the question isn’t whether you’re still saved. It’s how quickly you come back. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). Jesus “is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Hebrews 2:11).

One commenter wrote that a video teaching you could lose your salvation sent her into depression for almost two years as a new Christian, until she prayed about her fear and God led her out of that lie.

Say it like this

“Once saved, always saved isn’t a doctrine, it’s a person. Jesus said, ‘they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.’ In the Greek that’s a double negative, the strongest ‘never’ there is. You were sealed by the Spirit when you believed and born into God’s family. You can’t be unborn. If you could lose it by sinning, it wouldn’t be eternal life.”

Keep reading: I still fail. Am I even saved? · If you still struggle with sin, are you even saved? · How do I actually get saved?