Is Salvation Eternal Once Received, or Can It Be Forfeited?
1) Direct Answer
Salvation, once truly received in the new birth and sealing of the Holy Spirit, is eternal and cannot be forfeited. Many can taste, feel, and even be anointed, then fall away—but that only proves they were never born of the Spirit. The true believer is kept.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- John 10:27-29: “My sheep hear my voice… I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish… no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”
- John 5:24: He that hears and believes “has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”
- Ephesians 1:13-14; 4:30: We are “sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise… unto the day of redemption.”
- Romans 8:30, 35-39: Whom He justified, He also glorified; nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.
- Philippians 1:6: He who began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
- 1 Peter 1:23: We are born again by “incorruptible seed.”
- 1 John 2:19: Those who depart show they were “not of us.”
- Hebrews 6:4-6; Matthew 13: Some taste the powers of the world to come and receive the word with joy, yet with no root; they fall away—showing it wasn’t the new birth.
- Luke 15: The prodigal was still a son in the far country; the Father restored him.
- Hebrews 12:6: The Lord chastens every son He receives; He doesn’t cast them away.
- Romans 8:9: If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His—so the issue is truly receiving the Spirit.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- Eternal life is eternal. If it can be lost, it wasn’t eternal.
- God’s seal is unto the day of redemption. If it can be broken, who broke God’s seal?
- A sheep may stray, but it cannot change into a goat. The Shepherd goes after His own.
- Many profess; only those born of the incorruptible Seed possess. Those who finally fall away never had the life inside.
4) Reinforcing Statement
So it’s not “once merely professed, always saved,” but “once truly born of God and sealed by the Holy Ghost, eternally secure.” The real believer doesn’t use this as a license to sin; the Life in him keeps him, corrects him, and brings him home.
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.
Why I'm against organized religion
62-1111E §20
Now, there's quite a vast difference between religion and salvation, see, salvation. Religion is a covering, see. Salvation is a birth, a gift of God. Salvation is a birth, a gift of God, and it cannot be achieved by any man or any group of men. It's an individual that God brings this gift to. And these gifts of eternal life were ordained of God to each individual before we even had a world, according to the Scriptures. The Bible said, in Revelation, that the antichrist that was to come upon the earth, would deceiv...
From that time
62-0713 §91
It's your American privilege, you say. Oh, yeah. If you're a lamb, a lamb forfeits his right. He don't have but one thing---wool---and he forfeits that. If you're a lamb you'll forfeit your American rights, to serve God. Say, "I can dress the way I want to. It's none of your business." It's not me, brother, sister. It's the Bible. God made a man, and made him dress like a man; made a woman to dress like a woman; made them act different, and made two covenants with them, and everything else. It's always been. The li...
Lamb and Dove
60-0805 §50
Jesus was training some men that was going to take the gospel to all the world, twelve men. So He lived a sanctified life, and forfeited every worldly pleasure for their sake. We ought to forfeit our worldly dressing, and our worldly pleasures, and things like that, for the sake of the people we're trying to lead to God, the outside world. Let the dove come in tonight. Sanctify yourself, that the dove of real faith will come in and take His abode.
A Super Sign
59-1227M §63
And said, "They couldn't hold that frantic mother. Her baby was upstairs!" And said, "All of them cried, 'You can't pierce those blazes!' But she grabbed the sheet that was in her hand, from hanging them up, and it was a wet sheet. And she threw it around her, and through the blazes she went, and upstairs, not thinking about her own danger. Then when she got there, she knew she couldn't wrap the sheet around herself to go back. But, to save the beauty of her daughter that was to follow her, she wrapped the baby in...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 4:E-114
Now I realize that it is going to be confusing for a moment here, as most people know that I was ordained a Baptist preacher and I have steadfastly declared that the Baptists have missed it for saying you receive the Holy Ghost WHEN you believe, for that is not so. You receive Him "SINCE you believed." Acts 19:2-6. "He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye...