Are Christians Already Saved?

The thickness of the Bible reveals that salvation is not just as easy as eating peanut – this is what I learned when I was in the midst of reading it verse by verse.  Salvation, unlike what others think about it, is a process where faith, work and endurance are very much essential to finish this process. Faith without work is dead and work without endurance is in vain. Salvation is a course that everyone who desires it must have a serious decision. The book of Hebrews stated,

“Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” (Hebrews 10:38)

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This is the reason why I’m wondering to those people who, at the very day they allegedly accepted Christ as their Lord and personal Savior, so easily declared that they were already saved. The Bible is a book full of righteous principles and commandments of God where our faith must be rooted in. And by faith we must live  first upon all these precious teachings, and not just with some five or six verses often read by many evangelical preachers. Paul said,

 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;

 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. (I Corinthians 15:1-2)

Believing is not enough for us to be saved. You need to live and endure on what you believe. While it is true that we can have the assurance of salvation even today, assurance is always depend on how we live upon the gospel. Living upon the gospel shows that we are saved, but to cease means loosing from salvation. There is no such thing as “eternal security”. Our salvation will be secured as long as we live upon the condition taught in the gospel. Christ said,

 “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;” (John 8:31)  And then Paul states,

“Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”  (Phil. 2:12)

Now the question is, “are we (living Christians) already saved?” Not yet. We are still in the process. We may have the assurance now, but if we failed in this process, that assurance can be forfeited. Lets take for example the humble apostle Paul when he said, ” Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:13-14) Paul, unlike some people who boast for their false claims, never count himself to have apprehended or already saved, but what he did is he pressed toward the mark of the prize by forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before. And on the days of his coming departure, then he finally claimed for himself the crown of life,

“For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” (II Timothy 4:6-8)

As long as man cannot overcome his weaknesses, he can’t say, ‘I am saved.’ “It is not he that putteth on the armor that can boast of the victory; for he has the battle to fight and victory to win. It is he that endureth unto the end that shall be saved. The Lord says, ‘If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him’ (Heb. 10:38).  If we do not go forward from victory to victory, the soul will draw back to perdition. . . . God’s holy law  is the only thing by which we can determine whether we are keeping His way or not. If we are disobedient, we are not in harmony with God’s moral standards, and we are deceiving ourselves if we say, ‘I am saved.’ No one is saved who is a [deliberate, habitual] transgressor of the law of God.