 Is one saved, always saved, or can you lose your salvation? In today's video, we'll discuss proof that demonstrates that you absolutely cannot lose it. Hello, everybody. I wanna welcome you back to Smart Christian. My name is Corey Miner, and in today's episode, we're gonna talk about one of the most hotly debated topics in all of Christianity. But before we do, I would like for you to do one thing. Hit that subscribe button. That way in the future, you'll be notified of any future videos that you might be interested in. Before we get into the topic, I wanna cover something real important. Whether you side on being able to lose your salvation or not. I wanna make it abundantly clear that one thing that we need to avoid doing as Christians. And that is demonizing those that have an opposing view. It's not so much what you know, but it is more importantly, who you know. I'm confident that there'll be people in heaven who once believed that you could lose your salvation and also folks who believe that you could not lose your salvation. We've gotta get out of this nasty habit of demonizing the other side, even going so far as saying, well, that side, they can't be Christians. That makes absolutely no sense. As a matter of fact, the Bible says, mark those who sow a seed of discord. So be careful about how dogmatic you're gonna be about this. Now, is this an important topic? Obviously it is, but not so much to the point that we start singling out who we think is saved and who's not saved. That being said, when I first became a Christian, I was on the opposite side. I believe that obviously through my own sin that I could forfeit my salvation. Because the argument is this, you mean to tell me a person could get saved and then live how they want to, they can go on and do the things they used to do and show no fruits whatsoever? Well, no, obviously not. And that's not the point that someone in my camp would take. When someone says that the Bible teaches us that you can lose your salvation, my response is gonna be this. That's not what it says in the Greek. That's not even what it says in English. But I wanna look at a particular verse in the Bible that we talk about, but we don't delve into it deeply, especially in the Greek. That is John chapter 10, verse 28. No doubt you've heard many people expound on this. Well, I wanna look at it from a couple different standpoints. One, from the English, two, from the Greek. Now, before we continue, I wanna alert you to the video series that's gonna be coming out relatively soon. And that is these 10 reasons to believe. 10 reasons that the Bible gives us, 10 evidence, 10 proofs that show that you cannot lose your salvation. But what I wanna do today is I wanna start off with the one that cannot be refuted. I had a friend who told me that he was upset with me for teaching that you could not lose your salvation. And he said that there's nowhere in the Bible where that's taught. So we went to John, chapter 10, verse 28. He was very familiar with it. And of course, his rebutt was that this passage does not say that you cannot lose your salvation. So we looked at it. So here it is. John 10, 28, the passage says this. And you all are familiar with it. He says, I give them eternal life and they will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of my hand. And so their retort is that it doesn't preclude you from leaving his hand. Well, let's look at it from the English and then I'll go ahead and make my conclusive point that the Greek shuts down any possibility whatsoever. First of all, in English, we have in verse 28, three independent clauses. Now, there's no self-respecting Christian that would say that the Bible contradicts itself. And so in verse 28, we wouldn't say that any of those independent clauses would contradict the other. Clause A says, I give them eternal life. Clause B says, and they shall never perish. And Clause C says, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. In order for our belief that the Bible doesn't contradict itself, then we would have to agree that Clause A doesn't contradict Clause B. Clause B doesn't contradict C and C doesn't contradict A or B, correct? Well, if a person could take themselves out of his hand, then wouldn't that contradict A and certainly B that says they shall never perish? Why would it say they shall never perish if knowing full well that a person could take their hand out? Let me show you conclusively that Clause B shuts down the possibility whatsoever. I know many of you may not be that familiar with Greek, but I wanna give you a quick Greek lesson. In Greek, the way you negate something is by the word oo or may. Both of those words simply mean no or not. However, in this particular passage, it says in the Greek, oo may apollon ty, which is translated, they shall not perish. The word apollon ty is the subjunctive form for the word perish, meaning may perish. Then you have in front of it a negation of oo as well as may. So if it simply said oo apollon ty or may apollon ty, that would mean they may not perish, which gives a possibility. However, in Greek, the surest way to negate something from happening, even the possibility of anything happening is to have a double negation in front of a subjunctive. In this case, we have that oo may apollon ty. So here's the question. Either John did not understand Greek when he was writing it, or Jesus didn't understand Greek when he was saying it. Or the third possibility, likely that the person who would say that you can lose your salvation, they're the ones who don't understand Greek. Remember, if that's the surest way to negate something from possibly happening, then that cuts off any possibility. As a matter of fact, we often see these emphatic negations dealing with soteriological events. We see that in John chapter six. We see it also in John chapter eight, as well as John chapter 11. So why would Jesus make this statement? Because, and again, if he says here, it is absolutely impossible. No matter what you can think of, if you can think of aliens coming from heaven, if you can think of anything, including you saying that you can leave on your own, you can jump out of his hand, Jesus negates that possibility. He shuts down that argument in the Greek. I had a person tell me, I don't care what it says or what you show me, I'm not going to believe. Well, that's just being disingenuous. That's the wrong attitude in the heart, to think that you have all knowledge and you can't change on the matter. I say, it's possible I might be wrong, it's possible. Now, as I said earlier, if I am wrong, does that make me not a Christian? Well, obviously I am. My shirt says I'm a Christian. My heart tells me I am. The fact that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, I know for a fact that I am saved. But if we differ, if we disagree on a particular topic, does that mean that a person is not saved? Because he doesn't believe the way you believe. That is the height of arrogance. Don't think that highly of yourself to where you think that you know it all and that you can't be wrong. Or to go so far as to say that the person who disagrees with you is not saved. Again, I believe that there will be people in heaven on this side and believe on that side. I still believe that we'll see both in heaven. I also believe firmly that Jesus has stated that it is impossible. Unless we ought to just ignore the rules of grammar, in this case, Greek grammar, as well as English grammar, that he foreclosed the possibility. Now, what I will do is I'm gonna give you nine other concrete reasons to show how a person cannot lose their salvation. One of the examples is that there are no scriptures that say you can. And I've heard all the arguments of the different passages in Galatians and so forth. However, remember, if we say that no passage can contradict another passage, explain to me how this passage can then be contradicted by some other passage that you think says you can lose your salvation. I'm still waiting to hear the argument that John chapter 10, verse 28 in the Greek doesn't shut that down. I'm waiting for a grammatical argument that tells me my understanding of this Greek and not just my understanding because I wouldn't put myself as a Greek scholar, but all the other Greek scholars. I'm waiting to hear someone say no, your understanding of Greek is incorrect. That being said, I formerly believed that you could lose your salvation. I believed it wholeheartedly. I fought and fought and fought and fought and I would argue with other pastors and I would argue with my own pastor and I would argue with other scholars and say that clearly you could lose your salvation. However, something changed. And I was not taught this. I just began looking at the scriptures and just reading it. I did not set off on a discovery to disprove or to prove one saved, always saved one way or the other. What I did was I began to apply certain principles to reading the Bible. And as I made my way towards the passages dealing with salvation, it became clear and evident. And it bothered me. One, to realize that I was wrong. Two, because it changed everything that I once believed about salvation. But here's a good thing. Isn't it nice to know that the thing that we hold most dear to our hearts, the thing that's most precious in our lives, our salvation, is something that cannot be lost and it's not in our hands? Isn't it nice to know that the one thing that's the most important, the most valuable thing in our lives is held in God's hand? To me, that's very reassuring. And that's why John says that these are written that you may know. The Bible keeps using these emphatic ways of denouncing the loss of salvation. And so I think just for the sake of our own peace, he's shown us that you don't have to worry about that. It's not to say that once a person becomes, say that he can live how he wants to live, go on and do the things that he used to do. No, because I believe that the person has the Holy Spirit in his heart and the person has become saved. He's not going to live that way. So with all that being said, whether this video proves to you conclusively or not, the most important thing is, let's not demonize each other. Let's have some symbols of unity. Let's be agreeable even in our disagreeing. That to me is the hallmark of being a smart Christian. Jesus said this, let the wheat and the tear grow together. He said, don't you worry about trying to separate and let me do it. Because what's going to end up happening is, you are going to inadvertently start marking unsaved people who are saved and some people who you think are saved who are not saved. Let God take care of that. Obviously, he's given us the Bible so that we can identify certain things. And I believe that he's given us the Bible so that we can know for a fact and be assured that we are His and we can rest comfortably in that.