Once Saved

At the beginning of last year, one of the students with whom I was working asked one of those tough questions: once you become a Christian, can you lose your salvation? Unfortunately, when we tackled that question the next week, she wasn't there and she never came again. It really got me thinking, though, that there has to be a good answer to that question. It also reminded me of a sermon I had heard a few years earlier and sent me looking through the scriptures for some sort of an answer. What follows will be my journey as I attempted to satisfy my curiosity.

I started with the parable of the two houses. One built on a rock, the other built on sand. As one might predict, the story ends with the sand shifting in a storm and the house on it collapses. When Jesus told that story he was saying that those who listen to him and do what he says are like the man who built his house on the rock (Matt 7).

The interpretation I've always accepted here is that with Jesus as our foundation, we'll be saved, but otherwise, we'll be caught in the storm and washed away. That's backed up by Paul, who says that having a foundation that is Christ is sufficient to save us, if only by the skin of our teeth (1 Cor 3). But Paul makes an observation that adds to this interpretation. He talks about the materials with which one builds the house.

Often we hear the message that all we need is Christ for us to be saved. That is true. I'm not going to debate that. But, Paul says pretty clearly that being saved shouldn't be where we stop. That got me thinking: how ridiculous would it look for someone to build a foundation and stop there? That person would be an idiot! Maybe not as bad as the guy who builds his house on the sand, but still stupid. I mean, sure, you don't end up being swept into the sea, but you'll be wet, cold and miserable the whole time. Build yourself a house.

But what are the materials with which we are to build? Gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay and straw are out of the question. All we're told, though, is that our reward will come if what we've built survives the test of fire. That's hardly helpful. So, I set out looking for an answer. My attention was caught by another of the major characters in the New Testament: Peter.

Peter tells us that to participate in the divine nature, we should take the foundation that is our faith in Jesus Christ and add goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. He says that these things will keep us from being nearsighted and blind, will keep us from being ineffective and unproductive in our knowledge of God, and will cause us to never stumble and enter the Kingdom of God (II Peter 1). That sounds pretty straightforward.

As I looked through that list, it became clear to me that those things that Peter suggests are the very things that make our lives better. If we have been faithful with that list, we'll be able to seek shelter during life's storms. Those things on their own might keep us dry for a while, but without Christ as the foundation, none of them stand up to the storm. I think that Peter has described the materials Paul suggested when he told us to build the houses about which Jesus told his parable.

Finally, it makes sense, then, to read James as he talks about the relationship between faith and works. The quality of a building's foundation is proved by the standing of the building. Without the house, as I've said before, the foundation is close to useless. While going through a storm, someone sitting on an unused foundation is likely to leave it, looking for shelter. Likewise, without works, faith is dead (James 2).

So, I came to the conclusion that the question isn't "Once saved, always saved?" but rather, "Once saved, what do you do?" because if you work to surround yourself with the list of materials given by Peter, there will be no reason to leave the foundation that Christ has built and you will have made your "calling and election sure."