Pastor John, this is a question we get almost every day via email. Can a born-again Christian lose his or her salvation? The answer to that question, biblically, is a resounding, clear, emphatic, joyful, glorious "no." A born-again person cannot become dead, cannot be unborn again, because-- and I'll give some biblical thinking here, try to be as textual as possible and not just theological.

The life that is imparted in the new birth is precisely eternal life. This is the testimony that God has given us eternal life. Has given us, has given us eternal life. And this life is in His Son, 1 John 5, 11. So He didn't give us temporary life, He gave us eternal life.

We are already participating in the life of the age to come. And then here's another crucial word. Those whom He predestined--this is Romans 8, 30. Those whom He predestined, He called. And those whom He called, He justified. And those whom He justified, He glorified. Now, glorification is the final state of permanent salvation.

And this verse says that all the called, with nobody dropping out, are justified. And all the justified, with nobody dropping out, are glorified. So the question is, if you're called, you cannot lose your salvation. And I'm going to argue that being called and being born again are identical in biblical categories.

We will be justified, we will be glorified, because we have been called, that is, we have been born again. The kind of call that Paul is talking about there is the call of Lazarus by Jesus from the grave. "Lazarus, I know you're dead, now come out." And the call creates the life.

And that's what happened to everybody who's a Christian. God's sovereign call created the life. So that means that there's a promise attaching to the call. And here's a couple of verses. 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, "May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely at the coming of the Lord Jesus.

He who calls you is faithful. He will do it." So the logic there is, if you've been called, God is faithful, you will be kept for the last day. Or here it is again in 1 Corinthians 1, 8, "Christ will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus.

God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son." So now you can go back and see why in Romans 8, 30, all the called are justified and all the justified are glorified. Because God is faithful. There's nothing automatic. A lot of people think eternal security is like a vaccination.

Like when I was six, I prayed, "God vaccinated my arm. I can't get the disease of damnation." That's not the way it is. Rather, it's more like entering a lifetime therapy with a doctor who says, "You are my patient. You will do what I say, and I will get you to the end, whole in the last day." I will make, here's Jeremiah 32, 40, this has got to be one of my favorite all-time yes to my perseverance.

I will make with them an everlasting covenant that I will not turn away from doing good to them, and I will put the fear of me in their hearts that they may not turn from me. So the new covenant that Jesus bought with His blood is a covenant of preservation.

It's not just security in some mechanical way. It's preservation in an active way. God is active in my life. When I ask people, "Tony, how do you know you're going to be a Christian when you wake up in the morning?" A lot of people are kind of shocked. Like, "Oh, because, you know, it's like being human." No, it's not like being human.

You will wake up a Christian tomorrow morning because God is faithful. God will wake you up and awaken in you His faith. And a couple more verses. Philippians 1, 6, "I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion." The reason Paul talks like that is because of the way God's faithfulness connects to his call, his new birth.

"Now unto him who is able to keep you from stumbling." I preached on this a while back because I was at age 67, just finishing up my pastoral ministry. I'm overwhelmed by the fact that God kept me. He kept me. He didn't let me fall down and bring reproach upon His name and destroy the church.

I don't look back on that and put my thumb in my armpits and say, "What a good boy am I." I say, "Amazing, amazing." "Now unto him who kept me and will keep me." Which only leaves, I think, one key question that people always have and should have. Well, what about people who are in the church?

They've been deacons or elders. They look like they got saved in college and here they are five years later and they've thrown it all away. And some of them die in that condition. What about them? And I think there are two key verses that people should think about long and hard.

And one is 1 John 2, 19. "They went out from us because they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it may become plain that they were not all of us." And "of us" in that verse surely means born again with us, grafted into Christ with us.

And they weren't. They looked like they were. They said some of the right things. They had tasted of the powers of the age to come, but they were not born of God. And one more. You know, Hebrews 6 is a big stumbling block for people here about the kinds of spiritual experiences a person can have and still be lost.

But Hebrews 3, 14, I think, is an absolute key in the book of Hebrews where it says, "We have become sharers in Christ if we hold our firm confidence to the end." He doesn't say, "If you hold your confidence firm to the end, you will get a share in Christ." He says, "We know that we have had from the beginning of our lives with Christ a share in Christ because we endured to the end." Which means perseverance in faith is the evidence that we've been made part of Christ.

And when that perseverance doesn't hold, then we were never in. And the assurance, therefore—here's the key—the assurance, therefore, is not automatic. It's assurance rooted in our confidence in an absolutely sovereign, covenant-keeping God who gave his Son on behalf of sinners, so that as we look to him, the Holy Spirit testifies to us that we are the children of God.

Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. Please email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. At DesiringGod.org, you'll find thousands of other free resources from John Piper. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. Tony Reinke, thanks for-- Thanks for watching.