Can a saved person ever be lost?

'Can a saved person ever be lost?'

— John 10:27-30

Can a saved person ever be lost? Our Lord Jesus emphatically answers that question for us. Listen to what he says in John 10:27-30: ‘My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.’ Our Lord himself has spoken it, and it is true not one of his own will ever perish! Any person who is truly saved, born again by almighty grace, a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, is eternally secure in the hands of Christ.

To be sure, there are many who make a profession of faith in Christ, reform their lives and to all outward appearance seem to be saved people that do fall from grace and perish. But the apostle John tells us that those who fall away, forsake the gospel and perish in their sins were never truly saved. He says in 1 John 2: 19, ‘They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us’ Any man who leaves Christ never truly knew Christ.

I readily grant that if our salvation were in any measure dependent upon us, we would most certainly be lost and without hope. But salvation is entirely the work of God’s grace and power in Christ. And since it is the work of God, it cannot be destroyed. Solomon said, ‘I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be done for ever; nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it, that men may fear before him’ (Eccles. 3:14). Paul said, ‘He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ’ (Phil. 1:6).