Two things, one to the idea of "Eternal Salvation, or the ability to lose it" and second to the OP.
I believe salvation is an eternal thing, and as such once you have it you can not lose it. Let's look at some biblical proof of this.
In John 6:37 Jesus says, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out." And in John 6:39, “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of ALL He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day." If you look at the context, you’ll see he is talking about us. Then, look at what He says in chapter 10, starting at v. 27: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone 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 my Father's hand."
Jesus says, "I give them eternal life". Give, it is a present term meaning now (or in relation to the context when you receive Christ). We use the term Give in a present tense, you do not say "I give you such and such" when thinking about something you do in the future, you would say "I will give" or "soon I will give" or some added term that means in the future, clearly this was spoken in the present form. What about the word "Eternal"? Eternal describes something that lasts forever, forever is a terminology that our mind is hardly capable of understanding -- yet we were created to last forever. Eternal, means never ending, Eternal is a measurement of time that has no mathematical equation, thus can not ever end.
In passage above, I wanted to point out one thing, Jesus said, "and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand." I am someone, therefore even I myself can not snatch me out of the Father's hand. I like to think of it like this, Jesus has his hands wrapped around me and then over top of Jesus hands his the Fathers hands, in their omnipotent power no one is able to pull me out from Them. Jesus has always spoke of an eternal salvation of a now nature. If it's eternal and I can have it now, then it must be concluded that once I take it is eternally mine.
John 5:24, "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life." It says the one who trusts in Christ has everlasting life. Not "will have" or “may have if he endures." He has salvation in the present tense. And how long is everlasting life? Forever, not temporary, according to Heb. 10:14 “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified."
Also, notice that John 5:24 says "has passed from death into life." The perfect tense for the verb indicates that John sees this as a completed action. It is, in other words, an accomplished fact. Paul says in Col. 1:13: “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." This transfer from one state to the other is a major theme in the New Testament.
Think about the act of Salvation, it is a transformation. John 3 says we are born again spiritually, It is impossible to reverse our human birth and become unborn. You may become estranged from your mother and father, but you can never genetically cease to be their child. So it would also be impossible to reverse our spiritual birth and become unborn. Another word for this new birth is ‘regeneration’ in Titus 3:5. When that word is used in a wider sense in Matt. 19:28 it is for the millennium. The millennium will involve the total transformation of the earth to the Eden-like state it had originally. Can our spiritual transformation in the new birth be reversed any more than this millennial transformation?
when we are saved we become a new creation, according to 2 Cor. 5:17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." This is the new state of being resulting from the action of the new birth. Where the new birth emphasizes the radical transformation we undergo, the new creation emphasizes the radical new person we become. How is it possible to become an old creation once again? Can we be uncreated? Now if we had any doubt as to the extent of this creation, Paul dispels it by specifying that the old things have passed away. All things have become new. If I go out and buy a new car and decide I don’t like it, I can give it back and continue using the old one. But if I have rebuilt the old car, sanded off the old paint and repainted it, torn out the upholstery and had it reupholstered, replaced the old engine, tires and electrical system and taken the old parts to the dump—how can I possibly untransform it and make it back into the old car? God’s work in this new creation is more than restoration, it is actual creation: we have been created a “new man� in God’s image (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10).
God gives salvation to us as a gift. That is said very plainly in Rom. 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." If He gives us salvation in the first place, does it make sense for Him to take it back--for any reason? Now notice what Paul says in Rom. 11:29: "For the GIFTS and the calling of God are irrevocable." What cannot be revoked is secure to us, no matter what we do or how we change.
Think of the logic behind God’s salvation. If we are unable to work for our salvation (Rom. 4:5; Eph. 2:8-10; Titus 3:5), why should we have to work to keep it? If we needed to be saved by grace, does it make sense that the keeping of our salvation would depend on something other than grace? Salvation was secured for us by Christ’s death on the cross. There He paid the price for our sin. Was it only for SOME of our sins; was it only for the sins I committed before salvation? That would be ridiculous, absurd--especially when the Bible never says a word to that effect.
God will not give up His glory (Isaiah 48:11). If the keeping of our salvation depended on us, then we would share in the glory for our salvation, and that is not possible. If salvation is the Lord’s work, then we cannot share in that work. The condition for entering into salvation may be ours--believing in Christ--but the saving is His. And eternal life is a decree--our name cannot be blotted out of the book of life!
So what about sin? Can a Christian sin and still be saved? I think one important thing we forget is that God stands outside of time, therefore when He speaks of our sin he is talking about ALL of them; past, present and future. He sees them as all happening at once. When you understand that it makes versus such as these that much more easier to comprehend; Romans 5:10 says, "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." , There is no ‘except’ clause here--no "unless you sin too much or lose your faith." Why would He reject a person for sin when they had been saved as a sinner in the first place? In fact, 1 John 2:2 says that Christ paid the complete debt for our sin before we were saved: "And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world." All the demands of the righteousness of God have been met by Christ’s sacrifice in our place. Therefore God can forgive our sins, not by being lenient, but by accepting Christ’s atonement. If we had to keep from sinning after salvation in order to keep our salvation, then Christ’s death on the cross would be incomplete. Paul talks about this very nature in Romans 7:15-25, I encourage you to read that.
Hugely the idea of losing your salvation has come from misinterpretations of the bible. To read the statements above and then to assume that you can lose salvation would declare that the bible is contradictory and in such how then can you know what is true or what is false, it would then be left to each individual to decide and that my friend is chaos. I would love to talk more about this and go even further but this is not the place nor time. If anyone has any questions about eternal salvation and whether or not you can lose it, please send me a reply. Include any "Biblical" passage that you think disagrees with Eternal salvation or the lose their of and I will try my best to show biblical passages that support or dismiss your theories.
Now to the Original Poster: I recently did a Mens Bible study on Colossians 3, which I think clearly demonstrate the "new" person you are searching for. Paul clearly states that we must Put to death the old self, specifically verse 3:5 "Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry." Consider your earthly body as dead, well if something is dead than it can no longer function, it is passed away, gone, behind us. The principle here is that because we are new creations we should deem our old self as dead and now renew ourself in the new, renewing is a constant process it takes time -- but we are not left with an unknown goal, further in Colossians 3 Paul states what we are to replace the old self with. Before this is mentioned, does Paul elude to the idea of never sinning again? Most definitely not for it was Paul in Romans who stated that he does the things the he wants not to do and does not do the things that he wishes too. Ergo, it's a constant battle. Thankfully Christ left us the Holy Spirit who strengthens us and admonishes us, Thru Christ and the Holy Spirit anything is possible. To over simplify that passage, the idea is to not linger on your sin, but rather focus on the things that Glorify Christ.
As a side note, I think something that could hugely benefit anyone who is interested in learning how you can accomplish the new person that Paul describes in Colossians 3 (as well as in Ephesians 4) is to do a word study on 3:14 on the word Love there that Paul tells us to put on. The word is Agape and is the only word ever used to describe God's love to us. Study it, use a concordance to cross reference with other passages that talk about that Love and specifically God's love. As Paul states that Love is above all those other things he mentioned, Jesus used that word when asked what the greatest commandment of all was, And He said to him, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." The word Agape is used to describe both of those commandments. How important is Love to God? Just read John 3:16 a couple of times, over and over.
If anyone is interested in my study I did titled, "Be Transformed by Your Salvation", let me know and I will email my notes to you.
I hope this help answers your questions and enlightens anyone else to God's word. First and Foremost, Do the research yourself and do not trust anyone to read it for you. You must search the scriptures yourself!
God Bless,
Tony
