Does God Is “Able To Keep You From Falling” Prove Once Saved Always Saved?

Recently a friend brought up Jude 24 “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling …” as proof it is impossible for a Christian to fall from grace, notwithstanding Gal 5:4 which says some in the first century had “fallen from grace.” Of course the way both those verses can be true is if Jude 24 is saying God will keep us from falling as long as that is our intention also. II Chron 15:2 presents that fact clearly – “The Lord is with you, while ye be with him … but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you.”

There is no question God is able to keep us from falling; the question we need to ask is – does He do that conditionally or unconditionally? I am confident you can see the former is the correct answer from texts like II Pet 1:10 – “… give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall.”

God keeps us from falling through means not against our will. For example the Lord’s prayer instructs us to pray “give us this day our daily bread, ” but nobody thinks that prayer is going to be answered by God raining down manna miraculously from heaven like he did for the Israelites in the wilderness. No, we all understand God gives us our daily bread through means – our jobs. It is the same way for God keeping us from falling – it is done through the means of our Bible study and obedience (Heb 5:9).

We know for sure God keeping us from falling is not independent of us following his word. Jude 21 (just three verses before the proof text we are considering) says “keep yourselves in the love of God.” How does that make any sense if it is impossible for us to fall?

For a list of verses that conclusively prove a Christian can lose his salvation if he is not faithful – go to:

http://www.bibledebates.info/PersonalWork/OnceSavedAlwaysSaved.DOC

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