Once saved, always saved?

Wow.  You would think I would have a little more time to blog in the summer, but it always seems to be just the opposite.  This will be my first post in June.  It’s somewhat of a follow-up to a brief thought I shared about a month ago regarding the possibility of believing in vain.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church.  I’ve been a member of three different Southern Baptist churches in three different towns–which means, among other things, that I’ve been exposed to the well-known phase “Once saved, always saved” all of my life.  It has become something of a Southern Baptist mantra.

For the record, I despise the phrase.  I wish it would go away.  Despite the grain of truth it contains, it is so misused that not only is it not helpful, it’s often detrimental to the cause of Christ.  It seems much better to me to simply stick with the biblical emphasis on what is commonly referred to as the perseverance of the saints.  The Bible is clear, I think, on the fact that final salvation is conditional on perseverance in faith and holiness. Keep Reading...