Assurance of Salvation

The Question

The issue is often framed as the question "Once saved, always saved?" It asks whether a person who has truly believed can ultimately abandon the faith and perish.

The View That Salvation Cannot Be Lost

The Calvinist tradition, including Presbyterian churches, calls this doctrine "the perseverance of the saints."

• "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:28).
• Nothing can separate believers from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39), and he who began a good work in them will complete it (Philippians 1:6).
• Because salvation depends on God's election and grace, God preserves believers to the end.

According to this view, those who professed faith and later departed never had true faith in the first place (1 John 2:19). The view does not mean that it makes no difference how one lives; rather, it teaches that true faith is evidenced by the fruit of sanctification.

The View That Salvation Can Be Lost

The Wesleyan tradition, including Methodist, Holiness, and Full Gospel churches, holds that even believers can turn away from grace and fall.

• Warnings concerning those who were once enlightened and then fell away (Hebrews 6:4-6; 10:26-27).
• "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved" (Matthew 24:13), and the teaching that the branch must abide in the vine (John 15:6).
• The many warnings in Scripture were given because falling away is a real possibility.

This view likewise does not teach that salvation is easily lost, and it affirms that believers can be assured of their present salvation through the witness of the Holy Spirit.

The Grounds of Assurance

Both traditions ground assurance not in one's own feelings or in the date of a personal decision, but in the promises of Christ, the witness of the Holy Spirit, and a transformed life.

Distinction from the Salvation Sect

In South Korea, groups known as the Salvation Sect (Guwonpa) have been criticized by the country's major Protestant denominations for emphasizing the date of one's salvation and the moment of spiritual realization, and for teaching that there is no need for continued prayers of repentance. The Presbyterian doctrine of the perseverance of the saints differs from this teaching in that it also calls for ongoing repentance and sanctification.