Two Names for a Shared Hope
Can a true child of God ever be lost? On that question Calvinists and non-Calvinistic Baptists give the same answer: no. Together we stand against the teaching that a genuine believer can fall away and perish. That agreement is real, and we are glad of it.
So why study the difference? Because two people can reach the same answer by different roads, and the road matters when a believer is hurting. He needs to know why he is safe and how he can be sure. The Reformed answer is called the “perseverance of the saints,” the fifth head of doctrine at the Synod of Dort and the P in the later English acrostic TULIP. Most Baptists in America say “eternal security,” and the word that best describes it is “preservation.”
The Reformed teaching that all whom God elected and effectually called will certainly continue in faith and holiness to the end. It agrees that true believers cannot be lost, and it grounds their security in God's decree of election.
The truth that everyone who has been born again through faith in Christ is kept by God's power and can never be lost (John 10:28–29).
The view that a true believer is secure as long as he continues in faith, but can turn from Christ and be finally lost.
Here is where we stand. God chose in Christ to save all who believe, and He keeps every one of them. A true believer can sin, backslide, and come under his Father's chastening, but he cannot be lost. True believers will keep on, and they keep on because God keeps them, by His power and not their own.
Why is a believer safe, and how can he know it? Every difference in this study comes back to those two questions.
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For Deeper Study
- Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist ApproachAmazon Kenneth KeathleyNon-Calvinistic Baptist. Includes a full discussion of perseverance and assurance and affirms eternal security. We do not depend on its model of middle knowledge.
- Salvation Is ForeverAmazon Robert G. GromackiA Baptist Bible and Greek professor answers, text by text, whether a saved person can ever be lost.
- Four Views on Eternal SecurityAmazon J. Matthew Pinson, ed.Classical Calvinist, moderate Calvinist, Reformed Arminian, and Wesleyan Arminian writers make their cases and answer one another.
- Can I Lose My Salvation?Amazon R. C. SproulReformed. A short booklet that shows how a respected Calvinist explains preservation. We differ on its ground in unconditional election.
- Arminian Theology: Myths and RealitiesAmazon Roger E. OlsonClassical Arminian. Explains what Arminians actually teach. We differ on the security of the believer.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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Eternal Security
Everyone who is genuinely born again through faith in Christ is kept by the power of God and will never perish, because salvation rests on Christ's finished work and God's unbreakable promise.
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