Eternal Security
If someone becomes a Christian, can they lose their salvation later?
Eternal Security asks what is necessary, if anything, to maintain our salvation.
Imagine your spiritual life as an intense rollercoaster with corkscrews, loops, and sharp turns. Your goal is simple: enjoy the ride and arrive safely at the end, which represents heaven. The only thing that keeps you from flying out of your seat to impending doom is the safety restraint holding you in your seat. Discussions about eternal security are about that restraint: what it is, how strong it is, and whether you can undo it.
The most common positions are outlined below.
1. No Security
This position is typically held by those who see salvation as works-based, where deeds are weighed on a moral scale. If salvation depends on your good deeds, you can never have true assurance of salvation. Any series of poor decisions could tip the moral scales against you, leading to a disastrous outcome. Consequently, your ability to make it to heaven is entirely dependent on the choices you make. From this perspective, the rollercoaster has no restraints keeping you in your seat. Instead, there are only handlebars to hold, and you better hope you've trained your grip strength to withstand the whiplashes of life.
2. Conditional Security
Conditional security pushes back against the No Security view. Instead of salvation being totally dependent on our efforts, God provides guardrails that help keep believers saved. However, salvation is still conditional on the believer's decisions and can be lost through persistent sin, unrepentance, or unbelief. All conditional security positions conclude that it is the believer's responsibility to "keep" their salvation, though they differ on what is necessary to keep it.
Several beliefs fall under a conditional security framework, with the most common views outlined below.
Conditional - Mortal Sins
Traditional Catholic teaching holds that certain serious sins committed after receiving salvation can break a person's fellowship with God and place their salvation in danger. These mortal sins are defined by the seriousness of the act, the person's knowledge, and their intent (see Hamartiology for more information on mortal sins). If a person willfully commits a mortal sin and dies without repenting, Catholic teaching holds that they are not saved. However, God's grace remains available. Salvation can be restored through participating in the sacrament of Reconciliation, which includes confession, repentance, and absolution.
In the rollercoaster analogy, the believer is secured by a harness that is kept safe by a locking mechanism (the sacraments). A mortal sin disengages that lock, and the sacrament of Reconciliation reengages it and secures the rider again.
Conditional - Lordship
Lordship theology teaches that salvation is not merely a one-time decision but a lifelong path of repentance, obedience, and submission to Jesus as Lord. Becoming a Christian starts with faith in Christ, but remaining a Christian is seen as requiring an ongoing pattern of surrender and faithfulness that confirms the reality of that faith. In terms of eternal security, this means that ongoing faithfulness is treated as necessary for final salvation, not only as a healthy response to grace.
Anyone who stops repenting, rejects Jesus’ authority, or persistently disobeys his commands is regarded as unsaved. This can leave sincere believers repeatedly wondering whether they are currently "in" or "out" of God’s family, depending on how they evaluate their recent obedience. Some teachers within this view understand persistent disobedience as evidence that the person has either fallen away from salvation or was never truly saved in the first place.
In the rollercoaster analogy, securing the restraint at the start is necessary, but staying safely in your seat also depends on continually responding correctly to the ride operator’s instructions. Abandoning obedience is like ignoring critical safety warnings until you eventually unfasten your own harness. For many who embrace this perspective, the ride can feel less like resting in a secure seat and more like continually checking whether the buckle has clicked tightly enough.
Conditional - Apostasy
A third conditional security view teaches that persistent unbelief or willful rejection of Jesus and his grace after receiving it results in a loss of salvation. No amount of sins of commission or omission, and no degree of unrepentance on its own, would cause someone to lose salvation. However, if a person knowingly decides to turn away from Jesus after accepting his grace, God is seen as honoring that decision. This rejection or abandonment of faith is typically referred to as apostasy.
In the rollercoaster analogy, your salvation is protected by a restraint that cannot be released by the ordinary twists and turns of the ride. The only way to fall out is to intentionally pull a release handle that disengages the restraint.
Conditional - Summary
In all forms of conditional security, salvation is seen as initially granted by God's grace, but remaining saved requires the believer's ongoing cooperation through repentance, obedience, or avoiding apostasy.
3. Eternal Security
Eternal Security is an umbrella term for views that believe once God has genuinely saved someone, their salvation can never be lost or revoked. Salvation is still received by grace through faith, and God is seen as the one who ultimately keeps his people secure. Where the positions below differ is in how they understand the role of ongoing faith and obedience and how confident someone can be about their salvation during their lifetime.
In the rollercoaster analogy, Eternal Security holds that God's restraint for true believers will not fail before the ride ends. The primary question within this view is not whether the harness can break, but how you can know it has truly been fastened to you. Within this framework, there are two main approaches, outlined below.
Eternal - Perseverance of the Saints
This perspective teaches that all who are truly saved will ultimately persevere in faith until the end of their lives. Believers may go through real seasons of struggle, sin, or doubt, but they will not finally abandon Christ, because God is committed to keeping them secure and is faithful to protect his followers.
If someone appears to trust in Christ but later abandons their faith or rejects Jesus, this view understands that as evidence they were never truly saved, even if they once seemed to be. Indicators such as ongoing trust in Christ, spiritual growth, and the fruit of the Spirit can strengthen a believer's present confidence in salvation, but their salvation is not yet guaranteed. It is confirmed only if their faith endures all the way to the end of their life. In this framework, a person can have growing confidence, but never absolute certainty, in their salvation while they are still alive.
In the rollercoaster analogy, a rider may feel unsafe during sharp turns or in dark tunnels and may even wonder whether the harness is really latched. As the ride continues and they remain in their seat, their confidence grows, yet they still cannot be entirely sure the harness will hold until the ride is over. Only when the coaster stops and they are still securely in place is it clear that the harness had been fastened all along. If they had been thrown from the car, it would show they were never safely restrained in the first place.
Eternal - Radical Grace
Radical Grace substantially differs from the other positions. It teaches that once a person is saved, there are no ongoing requirements or conditions to keep their salvation. No matter what they do afterward, whether ongoing serious sin, rejection of Jesus, or even, in extreme cases, professing faith in another religion, their salvation remains secure because of their prior decision to trust in Jesus' sacrifice on their behalf. Sin and unrepentance can lead to a loss of reward in heaven and damage fellowship with God, but they do not endanger salvation. Critics of this view argue that it can appear to lessen the practical seriousness of sin, while supporters believe deep security in God's grace is what best motivates genuine obedience. This view is often summarized by the phrase "once saved, always saved."
In this view, securing salvation is a single act of faith, after which nothing can change the final outcome. In the rollercoaster analogy, this is like choosing at some point during the ride to have the restraint locked in place. From that moment on, the harness remains securely fastened, and no amount of jostling from sin or attempts to pull it open by rejecting Jesus will release it. That freewill decision latches the restraint, and God's grace keeps it locked until the end of the line.
4. Universalism
Universalism is the belief that God will ultimately save everyone, or nearly everyone, rather than leaving people in eternal separation from him. In many Christian forms of this view, salvation still comes through Jesus, but God's grace is understood to eventually overcome all unbelief and resistance. A person's faith, repentance, and choices may shape how they experience God's judgment or the path they take, but not the final outcome that they will ultimately be reconciled to God. For more information on this topic, see Universalism.
In the rollercoaster analogy, this means that everyone on the rollercoaster eventually arrives safely at the final station. Some riders may experience different routes, delays, or corrective loops along the way, but in the end no one is thrown from the ride or left behind.
Which safety harness best describes your view? Take the quiz to find out your position on eternal security!