Name: Winnie
Question: My pastor says we only have to be saved once and after your saved there is no way you will be condemned to hell. What is your take on that?
Answer: Winnie, thank you for the question.
You are not going to find, “once saved always saved” in the scriptures. Think for a moment, if you come to know Christ and even become baptized, then go out and steal you have committed a new sin. That sin without repentance is a mark on your record. I think you understand that. Without repentance that mark will not go away. Christians are not perfect, we all make mistakes, but we can ask for forgiveness and cease from that specific sin.
There are literally a multitude of verses telling us the exact opposite of “once saved always saved“.
Turn your Bible to,
2 Peter 2:20-21
20 “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.”21 “For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.”
That is a pretty powerful verse. Let us read a couple more,
Ezekiel 18:24
24 “But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.”Ezekiel 33:13
13 “When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it.”
I hope these scriptures help you out Winnie.
Thank You.
Additional Reading:
- Hebrews 6:4-6
- Hebrews 10:26-29