This post is going to address tough questions you have to answer if eternal security is false. There are many who do not believe in “once saved, always saved”. It means that, if a repentant sinner told the Lord that he believes what Jesus did on Calvary to save their soul, this person is saved no matter what.
What if this person sins in the future? They are still saved no matter what.
What if this person lived very wickedly? They are still saved no matter what.
One cannot tell a person who receives Christ for his or her salvation that they lost their salvation, if this person has not been to church in a long time, or became a full-fledged evil liberal, or committed despicable sins like becoming atheists or homosexuals. The person is saved no matter what. That seems unbelievable to people!
If one really denies the doctrine of eternal security, and think that a person was not genuinely saved to begin with because they are a wicked sinner or because good fruits are not seen, please ask yourself these tough questions.
Q1: What amount of fruit?
Let’s start with Matthew 7. This passage has been abused by Ray Comfort and many others who keep demanding from others that fruit must be seen out of a Christian’s life. They keep claiming that if a person shows no good fruit in their life, one must not be a saved believer.
Matthew 7:18-20 “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”
Ray Comfort will use this verse to make you doubt your salvation. Based on this verse, he will say that one would have to judge the fruits of an individual, where one can see if the person is saved or lost. If these people demand that fruits must be seen, or that one cannot keep committing wicked sins, the first question these people have to answer is this: What amount of fruit?
Does seeing a significant amount of fruit within the life of an individual show that this person is a saved Christian? For example, if a pastor who tells people about the Bible, does good deeds for many, and elevates the name of Jesus Christ — is this person a saved Christian? If the answer is yes, then one is not judging this pastor by his faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, one is judging him by his fruits which are the works done in his life. One is judging by what this pastor did, rather than by what Jesus Christ did for him. And the question is, up to what amount of such fruit is sufficient? Who would be able to judge that a certain amount of fruit is the right amount to qualify for salvation?
There are Christians who went to church and loved Jesus Christ, but do not come to church anymore. So are these individuals lost or saved? If a person went to church nearly all his life and loved Jesus Christ and served God much better than anyone did, but all of a sudden had a falling out, went to liberal universities, and became brainwashed and became an atheist — is this person saved or lost? If one were to judge these two examples as lost people, then up to what amount of fruit is necessary for a person to be saved? Is this judgment based on a person’s own deductive level, or truly based on scripture? Which scripture states this perfect level or amount of fruit that is required to be saved?
The answer is there is none! This judgment is based on one’s own bias and preconception. This judgment is not based on scripture. Based on scripture, individuals who claim to have had dreams or visions, or have done miracles for the Lord, and many works for His name, if we are judging by these fruits, the Bible says that these are lost people.
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
Notice God considers these people lost. Ray Comfort and many others will stress on doing the will of the Father and take doing good works very seriously and bear good fruit, otherwise one is going to hell. But the reality is that these people went to hell because of what they trusted in! They never said they trusted in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. They trusted in their works (casting out devils etc) for salvation!
Why did the Bible say, “by their fruits ye shall know them?” Because the fruits come out by the Holy Spirit! If it comes out by the Holy Spirit, one is not relying on one’s works! The Holy Spirit is the one producing the fruit, because one depended on Jesus Christ when faith was put in Him for salvation, and the Holy Spirit produced the fruit! And guess what? This goes on till the day of Jesus Christ!
Ephesians 2:8-10 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
The Holy Spirit works in an individual and produces fruit. A baby Christian can produce little fruit for the Lord, and a big Christian can produce big fruit for the Lord. If a certain “Christian” with a certain amount of fruit considers themselves saved, that is pride right there. This person would judge based on what they considered sufficient for salvation, acceptable up to the same level of fruit as themselves. Who are you to determine this?
No one is saved by works! We should have fruit, but not by our own effort, only by Christ Jesus producing the fruit and work. When God Almighty created you, He created two natures, the nature of the flesh and Holy spirit.
The false doctrine is believing in an eradication of the flesh, or the flesh being dominated by the spirit. This is false doctrine because the flesh can grow more than the spirit. The fleshly nature is not eliminated when a person is saved, and still fully capable of doing wrong things.
If one feeds the flesh more, it grows more, and likewise for the spiritual nature. We all have a spiritual nature within us and when we sin, Ephesians 4:30 says to “grieve not the Holy Spirit”. This conscience brings guilt and a desire to do what is right or the Lord will chastise you to produce fruit. This happens in saved believers’ lives! An honest person will admit that they will still rebel no matter how much Jesus Christ spanks them or the Holy Spirit working in their life, letting the flesh grow bigger than the spirit nature.
By looking at the outer man only with judgment of fruit and works, one’s Bible knowledge is shallow and looking only at the change that the person did by their flesh! That is dangerous! By looking at the works of one’s flesh makes us question if one is relying on one’s works for salvation, by what one’s flesh did, rather than how the Holy Spirit was working in one’s life.
Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
This verse tells us that we were created in Christ Jesus, and God put this in us and created us to do good works. This happens only if one does not rely on works to begin with. By mingling faith and works together, Ray Comfort tells people to quit this and that sin and make sure to read the Bible before they got saved. He does not get that person to immediately tell Christ to trust in what Christ did on the cross for salvation first, and not by works. The order is clear in Ephesians 2:8-10, to be saved by grace first, then to do good works! What Ray Comfort is teaching here is heresy, it is troubling and plainly wrong.
When people get saved and receive Christ for salvation, we can then tell them to quit doing this and that sin, and start doing good work. We tell people this only after they get saved! It is not to try out their salvation, or to make them think that they were never saved to begin with and need to do more good works in order to get saved.
Here is another scripture that people use as proof text to get people to doubt their salvation. Notice that the Lord’s verses used to assure us of salvation are now being used by the wicked ones to make people doubt their salvation!
Philippians 2:12-13 “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
The verses says “work out your salvation”, not “work in order to get saved”. Why? This is because salvation is already in the person! How can one work out salvation if it were never inside the person to begin with? Salvation has to go in the person so that the person can work it out! We are not saved by works, only by grace through faith. But in order to do the works, one must get saved first! Catholics works do not count! In order to do works for the Lord, one must get saved first by faith, without a single work, so that one can do the works out and one can be His workmanship.
Obeying the Lord and following the will of the Father is to first trust in Jesus Christ for salvation! Not relying on works or obedience first. Do you know what disobedience and not following the will of God is? It is spitting on the promise of God and earning salvation man’s way by showing outwardly how good works look like in one’s life.
Philippians 2:13 tells us that it is “God which worketh in you”, because once salvation is in a person, they can work it out! This wording matches what Ephesians 2:10 says, about being created “in Christ Jesus”.
Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
This is a wonderful promise that the bad and good in life all work together for good. All things, even the sins done. God can work anything for good! One violates God’s promise and diminishes God as weak and shallow when denying that God can work sin for good. Even when a Christian continues living in sin, the Lord can work it for good by teaching one a lesson, and these sinful struggles would help somebody else. God uses the evil and sin of even lost people for His glory. He used the sins of the Babylonian nation to punish the children of Israel.
No matter what God does, He does it for good. God working in you is for good, He cannot stop working in you, He will work in you all the way to the rapture! That proves once saved, always saved!
Philippians 1:6 “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:”
God begins the good work in you! That means that one cannot lose salvation, even when one sins and messes up. God is not going to quit working in our lives, we are His children and He has to chastise us. He has to, otherwise He is not doing His job!
Hebrews 12:5, 9-11 “And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.“
This verse shows that one can die, one can live wicked till the day they die, because God can just end the person’s life like that. The fruit does come out because of God’s chastening, and not because of one’s own effort! Who are we to judge how much fruit a person has produced? We have no idea what this person would have gone through in their lifetime, or how the Lord had worked in them, by meeting them for just a few minutes!
The question of “what amount of fruit?” is easily debunked by scripture! The Lord is going to give the person fruit, but the problem is that critics are inspecting which amount of fruit, and these critics are going to find themselves in trouble! Just like in Matthew 7, where these people rely on their works for salvation. God calls them “workers of iniquity”!
Q2: What happens to a Christian’s bad works?
The second question to ask is: What happens to a Christian’s bad works? Critics always look at the good works without questioning the bad. A Christian could have a significant level of bad works and at the Judgment Seat of Christ, this Christian gets nothing. This Christian hardly has good works to show, and all the bad works amount to nothing. Every saved Christian will have both good and bad works in their lives.
1 Corinthians 3:13-15 “Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”
God is going to try every Christian’s work one day, and even if the bad works are burned, the fire does not touch the man, and the Christian is saved out of the fire! The heresy of lordship salvation judges people’s salvation by their works, actions and behaviours, and this is what Ray Comfort and John MacArthur teach. They are looking at the wrong thing for salvation!
The right judgment of salvation is this: What is your testimony? What is the time and place of your salvation? Did you tell God that you have repented as a sinner, and all that you can do is to trust what Jesus did on the Cross to save you?
Judging Christians by how much they love Jesus, read the Bible or come to church, is not the right judgment of salvation. At the Judgment Seat of Christ, God is not judging Christian salvation, but merely their service. If a person did poorly, God does not damn them!
Ecclesiastes 12:14 “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”
God has to judge all works, including all bad works. This includes saved Christians and the lost, all works will be judged. A saved Christian with significant bad works is judged and get nothing at the end, his works do not survive and they suffer loss.
Q3: Do wicked Christians exist?
The third question to ask is: Do wicked Christians exist?
1 Corinthians 5:1, 4-5 “It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.” “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
The sin of taking the father’s wife (incest) is mentioned here, a disgusting sin. See how this evil person is delivered unto Satan for destruction of the flesh but his spirit is still saved! There is no contradiction here when compared to 1 Corinthians 3:13-15.
The critics overlook a basic doctrine of having two natures at the point of salvation. Flesh versus spirit. The critics are always judging the flesh! This verse here tells us that one’s flesh could be as evil as Satan, but the spirit can still be saved.
Do you think one’s flesh could be pure and holy? No matter how perfect one lives as a Christian, our flesh is still sin, and God has to transform our flesh at the rapture. Only at this point, can we say that our body is free from sin.
To say that one is free from sin at the point of salvation, and one should be living a holy life, but it is acceptable to sin just a little bit here and there, is saying that God’s power is weak and limited! We must rightly divide the flesh and the spirit nature.
Calvinists who teach lordship salvation are hypocrites! I challenge John MacArthur, Ray Comfort, Paul Washer and Francis Chan to declare that Ravi Zacharias is lost and burning in hell. They will not say that. Why? They will say that Ravi Zacharias has defended the Christian faith so much and has done so much work for the cause of Christ.
Are you aware of what Ravi Zacharias did? His lifestyle was more wicked than Christians who hardly came to church and do not love Jesus nor read the Bible anymore. His lifestyle was manipulation through religious means that even lost sinners do not do, like praying before doing a sexual action. Would these critics consider Ravi Zacharias saved, but consider others who smoke, dance and fornicate as lost and not genuinely saved? These critics are simply picking and choosing what to judge! That attitude is pharisaical and wicked as hell!
John Calvin himself burned somebody alive at the stake! He is a murderer! But critics will say that John Calvin is saved because of the five points of calvinism and lordship salvation. Charles Spurgeon had a cigar problem! But critics will say that Christians who smoke marijuana are not saved. So much for being Christian Calvinist heroes!
The big problem here is that these Calvinist critics have a judgmental attitude about which sins show one is lost, and which good works show one is saved.
2 Corinthians 12:19 “Again, think ye that we excuse ourselves unto you? we speak before God in Christ: but we do all things, dearly beloved, for your edifying.”
Paul recognised these people that he is addressing as “dearly beloved”, as saved Christians. Comparing this with Ephesians 1, and one is secured all the way to the rapture!
2 Corinthians 12:20-21 “For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.”
These strong words that Paul used pointed to dark sexual sins committed by saved Christians who have not repented of these wicked sins! Paul still considers them “dearly beloved”. God does not consider one’s salvation with a checkmark list of sins to get rid of. Even after a person thought they repented enough, the Lord would continue to reveal even more sins to repent of.
Calvinists like Jeff Durbin and James White would justify drinking alcohol, rap music, and worldly dressing, and say that they could commit these sins while judging another person to be lost based on their other sins. These are the hypocrites who preach on lordship salvation! Hypocrites like Paul Washer make one doubt their salvation, after hosting a rap concert while telling people to forsake the world and take up the cross.
People who are responsible for the word of God and people’s souls can sincerely love Jesus, but these sincere people can still seriously damage people’s lives! Satan can use sincere people!
Lordship salvation is looking at man’s work, not God’s work. Judge man by the Word of God, not by the lives of man and how pious they appear to be! Denying “once saved, always saved”, is always looking at one’s work. Why not look at the work of Jesus Christ? He loved you enough to die for you, because He knows that you cannot do it by yourself!
Q4: What are we to do with verses that say grace has zero works?
The fourth question to ask is: What are we to do with verses that say grace has zero works?
Romans 11:6 “And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.”
Stop disgracing “grace”, we will be disgracing “works” too!
Romans 4:4-5 “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”
God says that if one does work, God calls it debt, it is not being saved by grace. And if one does not work, but simply believe, it is counted for righteousness!
How can one critique these verses against eternal security?
Q5: How makes you (Christians) different from cults?
The fifth question to ask is: How do we differentiate Cults or Christians?
One might think that the real enemy out there are those trying to force the vaccines on people, or the globalists and liberals. Throughout history, Satan has used religions! The number 1 enemy of Jesus Christ Himself at that time was not the secular government, that was not His focus. The number 1 enemy was His own people’s religion!
Satan knows that we cannot go against the rest of the devil’s enemies, if God’s people are not fixed first.
1 Peter 4:17 “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?”
God says judgment must begin at the house of God first, not the lost world out there!
Q6: What about verses in the Bible that talk about works?
The sixth and last question to ask is: What about verses in the Bible that talk about works? The answer: The doctrine of dispensationalism explains every verse.
Watch our video on “Amazing dispensational truth from Genesis to Revelation”. Not all verses apply to Christians, they apply to different verses in different time periods. Just looking at our Bible, there is the Old Testament versus New testament. Another example, if someone takes God’s name in vain, they should be stoned to death. Does this happen today?
God told Noah to build an ark to rescue himself and his family. Is this a verse for us today? Clearly not!
The Bible says that we are not supposed to have mixed garments in the book of Leviticus. I’m sure we are all guilty of this!
The Bible says that men are not to cut their hair in the Levitical law, but in the New Testament for Christians, it is a shame for men to have long hair, hence we all cut it short right now. Is this a contradiction? It is a different time period! The Jews are supposed to be a peculiar people because the surrounding pagan world were having haircuts. But in the New Testament, God despises universal appearances and wanted men to be differentiated from women, hence the different hair rules.
What about animal sacrifices? We do not do this today! But clearly it was done in the Old Testament.
There is no doubt that there were different time periods and verses for different groups of people.
Any verses that one finds proving works for salvation, ask if this verse could apply to a Jew or to a different time period?
Acts 2:36, 38 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
Peter tells the people to repent and be baptised in order to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; three verses before verse 38 tells us that this is specifically for the house of Israel.
James 2:20-24 “But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”
This verse is commonly used by critics to disprove OSAS (once saved, always saved).
James 1:1 “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.”
James 5:3 “…Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.”
James 1:1 and 5:3 tells us it is for the Jews scattered abroad and in the last days!
What about what Jesus told the young man to do in Matthew 19? Should we also do this today?
Matthew 19:16-22 “And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.”
All this was before Jesus died on the Cross! The Jew had to do good works.
The Jew is not the same as the Christian church (Gentile), and that is why the Jews got mad at Paul! Paul taught different doctrine, it was non-Jewish, because God switched His program from Jew to Gentile.
Verses from Romans to Philemon are where Paul is addressing a Christian. Combine everything in this article with another video “Once Saved Always Saved” for all the verses to debunk critics.