Once Saved Always Saved?
One of the most insidious and demonic heresies emanating from the Protestant Revolution was the novel man made doctrine of Absolute Assurance of Salvation, also know as Once Saved Always Saved. The suggestion proposed here is that once an individual “accepts Jesus” into their heart as their personal Lord and Savior, then they are guaranteed a spot in Heaven, no matter what. So even if they persist in a life of unrepentant grievous sin, they are still assured of their spot in Heaven. Even if they should fall away completely from the Christian Faith, some will make the argument, “At least they are saved.” Others realize the absurdity of this statement and thus conclude, “They were never truly saved to begin with.” This then starts the cycle, for many, of constantly trying to say “the sinner’s prayer” again and again, and accepting Jesus back into their heart again and again, to ensure that they are in fact truly saved. And yet they mock Catholics for going to Confession to be absolved of their mortal sins. It is also argued that a truly saved person will not persist in a life of unrepentant sin, which again only leaves many wondering if they were truly saved to begin with if they keep struggling with sin.
For the lukewarm, the Once Saved Always Saved doctrine provides a smug presumption that they will go to Heaven anyways, even if they continue in a life of sin. For the scrupulous, the doctrine provides an anxiety-ridden life of constantly wondering if they accepted Christ the correct way the first time. In either circumstance, the doctrine itself was created from the pit of Hell. It is not biblical; it is not historical. And people need to be warned immediately that for one single mortal sin, if they die in that unfortunate state without having been absolved by Christ through His Sacrament with an ordained Priest, then that person faces the prospect of eternity in Hell. God takes virtue and vice very seriously. We are called to be holy, and He gives us the graces needed to combat our sins and to do good works which are pleasing to Him. We are called to have faith in Christ, to repent of our sins, and to carry our crosses daily as we strive to imitate Him and be conformed to Him. When we intentionally commit one single mortal sin, we are deprived of the life of sanctifying grace within our souls. Without that sanctifying grace, we are as good as corpses. If you know people who believe and promote this demonic doctrine, show them what Sacred Scripture has to say and warn them to repent and come home to the Catholic Church.
Adherents have a handful of passages they cling to in order to substantiate their claim, and it goes without saying that they assume Private Interpretation from the get-go. You will be hard pressed to find these novel, twisted, and distorted interpretations anywhere in Sacred Tradition, the Popes, the Councils, the Fathers, the Doctors, or any approved Catechism or Creed in Christian history. It simply did not exist prior to the Protestant Revolution, which ought to tell you something. That should be the first giant red flag. If no one taught it for over 1,500 years of Christian history, then that is your first clue it is not a doctrine revealed by Jesus and the Apostles. You can try privately interpreting your cherry picked Bible verses all you want, but your private interpretation and your pick-and-choose approach to Sacred Scripture will not save you on Judgment Day or get you a Get-Out-Of-Jail card. The sacred doctrines taught by Jesus and the Apostles are not a cafeteria whereby you can decide which ones you like and which ones you do not like. You must believe everything that Jesus and the Apostles taught, whether revealed via Sacred Scripture or Sacred Tradition. And preserved and upheld by the legitimate successors to Peter and the Apostles, meaning the Popes and Bishops. If you are banking on Luther or Calvin, or some sermon you heard from a Non Denominational pastor, or some YouTube video where some street evangelist really preached good and quoted some Bible verses, then just know none of that will save you when you die and have to give an accounting to Jesus face to face. Get right with God now; today can be the day of your salvation. God can truly absolve you of all your sins, but He will do it through the means He established for His Church, meaning the Sacrament of Confession.
Let’s look at a couple passages they try to use to justify their private interpretations. John 10:28-29 says, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.” No one denies that Jesus gives His sheep eternal life. But this passage does not address how one knows with absolute assurance that they are truly of His sheepfold or not. Christians can have a moral certitude that they are safely within His sheepfold, and thus on the narrow road to eternal life, when they are in a state of grace and united to Him sacramentally. No one can take this salvation away from us, but of course we can choose to opt out of it ourselves through mortal sin. We can examine our conscience to ensure we are in a state of grace. But this passage, at face value, simply does not teach that once someone accepts Jesus as their Savior, then they are guaranteed Heaven even if they fall away or commit a grievous sin. Remember, He is not just our Savior. He is also our Lord and King, and we need to obey Him at every step.
John 5:24 teaches, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” Again, no one disputes this. If we believe in Him, we have eternal life, and we pass from death to life. This is the marvelous work of sanctifying grace in the soul. Of course, believing in God also assumes that we are living a life consistent with that belief. If we claim to believe in Him, and yet persist in sin, then do we really believe? Or is it just lip service and nothing more? Believing in God does not just mean a mental recognition of His existence. The life of faith is interwoven with the life of holiness. And so we may believe in God, but if we fall into serious sin, then we show by our actions that we have lost our belief in Him. We have to keep our faith in God persistant, especially under trial, so that it endures to the end. This passage says nothing about “once saved, always saved.” It merely says if we believe, we have eternal life. What if we stop believing? Look at what Our Lord says just a few verses later in this same passage. John 5:29 says, “Come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”
Almost every page of Scripture contains warnings against falling away in the faith. It is so clear that we can just let the Bible speak for itself.
2 Peter 3:17 “You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, beware lest you be carried away with the error of lawless men.” St. Peter is addressing Christians, believers. This warning makes no sense at all under the logic of OSAS. How can they be carried away by error if they are eternally secure?
Hebrews 6:4-6 “For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt.” How can a Christian be a partaker of the Holy Spirit and then fall away if OSAS is true? How can someone who is eternally secure fall into apostasy?
John 15:4-6 “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.” Doesn’t Jesus know that once a person abides in Him, such a person can never stop abiding in Him? Doesn’t He know about OSAS?
1 Timothy 4:1 “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.” It is impossible to depart from the faith if one is eternally secure. This statement of St. Paul's literally makes no sense under the OSAS theory.
Romans 11:20-23 “They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off. And even the others, if they do not persist in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.” This passage is a double whammy, because it shows the OSAS did not exist in the Old Covenant, nor does it now exist in the New Covenant. St. Paul would never write, “otherwise you too will be cut off,” if he believed in eternal security. And this passage nowhere assumes or hints as the cop out of, “They were never saved to begin with.”
2 Peter 2:20-22 “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “The dog turns back to his own vomit”, and “the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire.” Again, passages such as this make absolutely no sense at all under the OSAS worldview. It would be impossible for a believer to be entangled in the world again or to turn back from the Commandments.
Matthew 24:13 “But he who endures to the end will be saved.” Our Lord plainly teaching that salvation hinges as well on our endurance in the faith to the end. What if one does not endure to the end? Then they are not saved. These types of passages are not descriptive in nature, as OSAS apologists want to claim. They are conditional clauses. If we do one thing, then this happens. If we do not, then the opposite happens.
Galatians 5:18-21 “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Again, doesn’t St. Paul know that it is impossible for believers to not inherit God’s kingdom? Why give them a warning? Why base it oh their deeds if their faith already secured Heaven for them? People who write this way do not believe in OSAS. Adherents of eternal security will argue that St. Paul is giving a warning in case any of his readers aren’t Christians, but that is not true at face value. One would have to force that idea into the text. St. Paul addresses these individuals as fellow believers. In Galatians 1:3-7, he writes, “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.” He greets them as having the same Father he does (so they are Christians) and says Jesus rescued them from their sins. He then says in the next sentence that they have deserted Almighty God. So clearly we see that this letter does not fit the paradigm of one who holds to the anti biblical OSAS teaching.
I finish by simply citing 2 Timothy 2:12, and asking every person reading this to read it honestly and ask the Holy Spirit to remove any blinders you may have on due to a bias because a pastor taught you something different. “If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us.” Clear as day, crystal clear. No explanation needed. A child reading Scripture could understand it.
It goes without saying that no early Church Father held to OSAS, at all. No one had even dreamt such an idea until John Calvin came on the scene 16 centuries after Jesus. This is an unbiblical and demonic doctrine. It is deceptive. We plead with you, repent and convert to the Christian Religion founded by Christ, known as the Catholic Church. Have your sins absolved in Confession, and have true peace knowing they are truly absolved. And know that this great Sacrament is always available to you, whenever it is needed. Convert to Catholicism, and let go of this insidious man made teaching that has deluded and blinded so many people.
