Can Salvation be Lost?

THOUGHTS FROM JOHN’S LETTERS

CAN SALVATION BE LOST?

There are many reasons why people stop going to church. Many of those reasons are not related to the integrity of a person’s faith, and their departure in no way suggests that they are not genuine followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

However, here in John’s first letter, John writes about people who have left because what they believed about Jesus Christ was different from the Jesus proclaimed by the apostles. John’s conclusion about these people is

‘They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us’ – 2:19.

John is quite clear about this. In three different ways he states that these people did not belong to the fellowship of those who believe in Christ:

‘they did not really belong to us’

‘if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us’

‘their going showed that none of them belonged to us’.

It is not that these people have simply found another church, but rather that they have deliberately disassociated themselves from those who believe in the Jesus Christ proclaimed by the apostles.

In 2:21 – 23 John identifies the core theological belief that identifies people of real, biblical faith: the belief, the affirmation, that Jesus, the human carpenter from Nazareth, is the Christ, the Son of God:

‘Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ.’

‘Such a man is the antichrist – he denies the Father and the Son.’

‘No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.’

John reaffirms this non-negotiable core belief later in his letter:

‘This is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ ...’ – 3:23.

‘This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God’ – 4:2, 3.

‘If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God’ – 4:15.

‘Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God’ – 5:1.

‘Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life’ – 5:10 – 12.

In 2:18 – 27 John referred to people who did not have true faith in the real Jesus, and who separated themselves from those who did. It is not that these people had ‘lost their salvation’: it was that they had never really been saved, because they had never really believed in the real Jesus.

This didn’t actually surprise John; he had seen it happen even when Jesus was present on earth, and had seen and heard how Jesus responded:

In John 2:23 – 25, many people gave the impression of believing Jesus, but Jesus knew that they did not really believe in him.

In John 6:60 – 66, many of Jesus’ broader group of disciples stopped associating with him. Again, it didn’t surprise Jesus. He ‘had known from the beginning which of them did not believe.’

In John 8:30 – 32, 42 – 47, 59, we read a report that ‘many put their faith in him’, but Jesus, in the conversation that followed, exposed the emptiness of that ‘faith’ to the extent that they soon had stones in their hands ready to kill him.

Only those who believe that the real human being Jesus of Nazareth, is the Christ, the Son of God, have eternal life. This faith, this acknowledgement, is a final faith, a final acknowledgement. A faith in ‘Jesus’ that is temporary, is not biblical faith. No one, knowing the real Jesus, would seriously contemplate letting go of him. As Peter responded to Jesus’ question in John 6:67 – 69: ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’