The Bible teaches the doctrine of eternal security. What exactly does this mean?
Eternal Security Is True Because Salvation Is from God
The reason the doctrine of eternal security can be true is because salvation is from God. This means that a person’s salvation is determined by God before that person was even born.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
Ephesians 1:3-4
In Ephesians 1:3-4, we learn that God “chose us in him before the foundation of the world” to be saved. Although we are saved through faith, our faith itself is the result of God choosing to grant us faith before we were even born.
Likewise, Romans 8:29-30 presents a “Golden Chain” of events related to salvation that cannot be broken:
29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Romans 8:29-30
Here, we learn that everyone whom God “foreknew” and “predestined,” He will also “glorify.” This demonstrates that from beginning to end, salvation is from God, which means that our salvation is completely secure, from eternity past to eternity future.
Those Who Fall Away Were Never Truly Saved
Some might ask, “But don’t some people lose their salvation?” The answer to this comes from 1 John 2:19, which tells us that if a person falls away from faith, that means that person was never truly saved to begin with.
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
1 John 2:19
