In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There is a very common teaching among certain Christians which claims that once a person comes to true saving faith in Jesus it’s impossible for him or her to fall away from it. If you’re familiar with this teaching, you’ve probably heard it expressed before through the popular phrase “once saved, always saved.” Even though there are not that many churches left that formally hold to this particular view of salvation, there is no shortage of individuals who do so on a personal level. For example, how often have we heard someone who grew up in a Lutheran Church argue that they, or someone that they love, is definitely going to heaven just because they were baptized or confirmed however many years ago, despite the fact that they no longer go to church now and they believe very few, if any, of the things that are taught in the Bible? Or what about the person who is living in unrepentant sin, like shacking up with their boyfriend or girlfriend, claiming that it’s no big deal because, after all, aren’t we all sinners anyway, and how is my sin any different from yours? Even though these individuals might not come right out and say that they believe in “once saved always saved,” that’s exactly how they’re acting. They are giving the impression that once you come to faith in Christ, it’s impossible to do anything that would cause you to fall away from it.

But is that actually the way that the Bible tells us to think about our salvation? Well, that’s what I’d like to talk more about in this morning’s sermon. On the basis of our Epistle lesson today from 1 Corinthians chapter 10, where Saint Paul addresses this exact topic, I’m going to speak to the issue of “once saved always saved” and then I’m going explain what the proper attitude towards salvation should be. 

In first place, Saint Paul reminds us in our reading that despite what some churches might teach, and how many people often act, it is not actually true that once you come to saving faith in Jesus it’s impossible to fall away from it. “Once saved, always saved” may sound nice on a bumper sticker, but it doesn’t show up anywhere in the Bible. On the contrary, as we read very clearly in verse 12 of our text, “Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” Why would the Holy Spirit, through whom these words were given, tell us to be on guard against falling away from the faith, if that wasn’t even something that was possible to begin with? That wouldn’t make any sense.

Not only is it possible for a person to fall away from the faith, but there are also many real-life examples of this happening to actual people in the Bible. Just look at what happened to the people of Israel. As Saint Paul tells us right before our reading today, “For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.”

There is no more explicit example of people falling away from the faith and losing their salvation than God’s chosen people in the Old Testament. The Lord had delivered them from slavery. He had fed them with Mana from heaven. He had kept them alive by miraculously giving them water from a rock. Time and time again, God had saved them. And yet, what happened to almost all the people that God once saved? Eventually they were destroyed. Eventually, they turned their backs completely on God’s Word, chose their sin over His grace, and missed out on entering the promised land.

And sadly, that was not an isolated incident. On another occasion, for example, the Bible teaches us about two men named Hymenaeus and Alexander who it says, “made shipwreck of their faith.” That’s from 1 Timothy chapter 1. These men believed in Jesus, but then, due to their persistent sin and unrepentance, they stopped believing. And remember what Jesus Himself tells us in the parable of the sower. There He talks about the seed that fell on the rocky soil and how they are the ones who, “believe for a while and in time of testing fall away.” God’s Word could not be clearer that just because a person has faith at one time in their life, that is no guarantee that they will have faith at the end of their life too.

Now sometimes you will hear it argued that when it looks like people fall away from the faith and lose their salvation that was just evidence that they never really had true faith to being with. But as those passages that we just read show us, that is not what the Bible says. And that assumption can lead to all kinds of other false assumptions too. On the one hand, it can make people who do have faith constantly worried for no reason that they might not, since apparently you can’t really tell if you have faith or not. And on the other hand, it can make people who don’t have faith even more secure in their sins, thinking that since they had faith in the past, they must still have it in the present.

But those who think that way about their salvation should listen again to the words of Saint Paul from our reading. They should think about the example of the Israelites. When the Israelites indulged in sexuality immorality, 23,000 of them fell in a single day. When God’s people in the past put Him to the test by grumbling against Him and disobeying His Word, He sent fiery serpents among them to bite them and kill them. The Bible warns us repeatedly not to take our salvation for granted. It tells us time and time again not to presume upon God’s grace and do things that we know are wrong on purpose. In fact, if we do take our salvation for granted, if we act as if there is nothing that we could possibly do to destroy our faith and miss out on eternal life, then we are already in grave danger of that exact thing happening. If we say that we are so strong of Christians that we don’t need to be in God’s house receiving His gifts every Sunday, and that sometimes we can skip church and do something else instead like go golfing, fishing, or take our kids to play travel sports, we show that we are not strong Christians at all. If we say that our faith is so mature that we can handle getting drunk sometimes or watching things on our TV’s and computers that we wouldn’t even let our own children watch, then we prove just how weak our faith really is. People who are strong in their faith know that they are actually weak in their faith. They know that there is temptation all around them, and it is only by the mercy of God that anyone remains in the faith at all. Strong Christians know that there is no such thing as “once saved, always saved.”

And yet, strong Christians also know that just because it is possible to fall away from the faith and lose your salvation, that doesn’t mean that we should have no confidence in our salvation at all. Yes, it’s wrong to tell people that they will go to heaven no matter what so long as they had faith at one time in their life. But it is just as wrong to tell them that they should go through their entire life constantly doubting whether or not it will end in eternal life, even if they have do have faith now. Does Jesus ever tell us that we can never be sure if we are saved? Does the Bible ever teach us to not have any confidence in our salvation at all? Of course, not. In Mark chapter 16 Jesus literally says, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” In Romans chapter 10, we read, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” When the Philippian jailor asked Paul and Silas in Acts chapter 16, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They didn’t tell him, “Well, nothing, because no one can be sure of their salvation anyway.” They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

We can be sure of our salvation when we are looking to the things that God tells us to look to. God does not tell us to look to ourselves and to our own striving and efforts when it comes to whether or not we will be saved. He does not tell us to rely on made up teachings like “once save, always saved.” He tells us to trust in Christ. He tells us to have confidence in what God has done for us in Jesus and not in what we do for Him. As Saint Paul tells us in our reading today, “God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” Notice that when Saint Paul talks about how a person endures to the end, he doesn’t talk about our faithfulness to God, he talks about His faithfulness to us.

Of course, we should doubt ourselves. Of course, we should not have confidence in our own abilities. Of course, we should not think too highly of ourselves or even of our own faith. But that doesn’t mean that we should doubt God and His promises. We can be sure that God will do what He says. We can be sure that Jesus actually did die for all of our sins on the cross. We can sure that Baptism really does wash those sins away and that the Lord’s Supper truly does forgive them. We can be sure that He who began a good work in us, will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. We can be sure of those things, because that is what God says in His Word.

God has given us all of the tools necessary to remain faithful to Him to the end. He has provided us with everything that we need to not lose our salvation. Through His Word and the Sacraments, He gives us a way to escape temptation and endure it. By the reading the Bible and coming to Church to get Communion, He promises through His Holy Spirit to be active in our hearts to keep us trusting in Jesus for salvation. Through listening to the preaching of the Law and the Gospel, He teaches us about sin and grace that we can learn to repent of our wrongdoing and know where to go to receive forgiveness when we fail. Through these humble means, God strengthens our faith so that we don’t fall away from it. 

God is faithful. That is what we hold onto in the face of our guilt and shame. That is what we cling to when we know that we have failed God’s test and given into temptation. We don’t rely on ourselves. We don’t rely on made up slogans like “once saved, always saved.” We rely on Christ. And when we are relying on Him, then our salvation is secure and nothing can snatch us out of His hand. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.