Can an Elect Person Backslide?
1) Direct Answer
Yes—an elect person can backslide in conduct for a season, but not in their soul. They will be chastened, brought to repentance, and restored. The elect cannot be finally lost.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- The Bible says God’s sheep “shall never perish… neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:27-29). They may stray, but they are kept.
- “Whom he justified, them he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). God finishes what He starts (Philippians 1:6). That is security for the truly born again.
- “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). The seal holds till the day of redemption, not till the next mistake.
- “The just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again” (Proverbs 24:16). “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand” (Psalm 37:24).
- Peter fell badly, but Jesus said, “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not… and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Luke 22:32). He stumbled, but was restored.
- True sons are corrected, not cast away: “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth” (Hebrews 12:6-8).
- Those who go out and never return show what they were: “They went out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John 2:19). A pig goes back to the mire, but a sheep cannot be satisfied there (2 Peter 2:22).
- “If it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matthew 24:24). It is not possible to finally deceive and destroy the elect.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- A son may run from the Father’s house, but he is still a son; the Father’s love and discipline bring him home. The prodigal came back because there was a Father and a birthright drawing him (Luke 15).
- If the elect could be finally lost, then God’s seal could be broken, Christ’s intercession would fail, and His promise “never perish” would be empty. That cannot be.
- Backsliding proves weakness in the believer; staying in sin without repentance proves there was no new birth. The elect can fall, but they cannot remain fallen.
4) Reinforcing Statement
So yes, an elect person may backslide in behavior, but the Life in them will pull them back. God keeps His own, restores their steps, and finishes the work He began.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Abraham
55-0608 §11
...s. And I ask Your blessings upon all that are unsaved, tonight. May something be said or done here, tonight, that will cause the unsaved to believe You and receive You; the backslider to come back; those outside of Christ to be baptized into the body of believers. And may every sick person here tonight, Lord, every one that's cancer ridden, TB, whatever it might be, may they be perfectly whole tonight. And may there not be a feeble person left among us. May every cripple person walk out without crutch or support. M...
The placing of deacons
58-0720E §1
...s, that the first is the placing some deacons into the church. And our little church here is sovereign. It doesn't have any denomination or anything to send its deacons, it elects its own deacons. It elects its pastor, it elects its trustees, it elects everything that comes in and out of the church. No one person has the say-so over anything; it's the church. And the church are those who come and support the church with their presence, with their tithe and offerings, are always the ones that has legal say-so in the...
Condemnation by Representation
60-1113 §15
...is a woman's nation, and she will pollute this nation as Eve did Eden. (Now, you see why I'm hammering the way I do? I've got 'Thus saith the Lord.') In her voting she will elect the wrong person. The Americans will take a great beating at a place that Germany will build, which will be a great wall built of concrete (the Maginot Line, eleven years before it was ever built), but finally they will be victors. "Then when these women help elect the wrong person, then I seen a great woman rise up in the United States---...
A blushing prophet
56-1125E §24
Sinning among the Christians, among the elect, they've sold their birthrights out for popularity. The minister has swapped the Gospel for a social calling. He's swapped the old-fashioned, blood-washed Gospel for an intellectual with the people, to preach intellect, talk of societies and misuse the Gospel. Many of them has went out into the fields of preaching and used the Gospel for personal gain, to make money. Many of them has got big farms and cars and things that they never would have had---personal gain. Not a...
Conferences
60-0228 §22
Moses tried to work it out in his own way, and he found that he was wrong. And by doing so, like many others---who backslide from one revival to another, going up and trying to impersonate a Christian, or standing and making some kind of a sign, or some declaration of creed that we recite---we find ourselves in a few days defeated, because we're trying to do it in ourselves. It'll never work. We must meet God's program word by word, letter by letter. See, anything that you try to do with a intellectual mind is so c...