I don't want to get into a debate but...I disagree with the "Once saved, always saved" doctrine. The reason? Although God loves us so much that nothing can separate us from His love, that does not mean that we don't have to do anything to please Him once we are saved. I'm not talking about earning our way into heaven by good works. (The Bible says that it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast.) I'm referring to the fact that throughout the Bible, we are commanded to sanctify ourselves. Now, why would we have to be sanctified if we are always saved? That's the point -- we are to sanctify ourselves so that we can be holy even as He is holy. Maybe this will help to explain what I mean... Salvation is a free gift from God. We don’t have to earn it; we have to receive it by faith, and then maintain it by good works that are “done in God.” (John 3:21) Ephesians 2:8-10 states, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that we should walk [live] in them.” The first step in the process of salvation is confessing with your mouth and believing in your heart: “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation…. For ‘whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.’” (Romans 10:9-10, 13) Hebrews 11:6 states: “Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” The Apostle Peter says “…receiving the end of your faith--the salvation of your souls.” (1Peter 1:9) The Bible makes it perfectly clear that we are to do certain things to “stay saved,” and it calls this process sanctification. When we do our part, God will do His part to complete the process. James 5:8 says, “Draw near to God [condition], and He will draw near to you.” Philippians 2:12-13 agrees: “[you] work out your own salvation with fear and trembling [also a condition]; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” If we don’t sanctify ourselves, Hebrews 12:14 tells us that we won’t see the Lord: “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.” God works in us only when we do our part. “Being confident of this very thing, that He which has begun a good work in you will perform [complete] it until the day of Jesus Christ…” (Phil 1:6) When we do what God commands us to do, not only are we sanctified, but also these good works of God actually show that we have faith in God, and they justify us before Him. Ephesians 2:10 states that we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works that we should walk [live] in them.” “For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For, if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord: therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.” (Rom 14:7-8) Some of the things that God commands us to do are as follows: James 1:22 -- “But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only deceiving yourselves.” 1 John 1:7 -- “Walk in the light as He is in the Light.” [“God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5); John 3:21 – “But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”] Romans 12:1-2 -- “…present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” [John 2:15 “Do not love the world, or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”-- Romans 13:12 “So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.”]1 John 2:5 -- “But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.” [“Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’” (John 8:31-32)]1 John 3:7 -- “He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.” Col 1:21-23; 2:11 say that God makes us “holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight,” if [condition] we “continue in the faith” and are “not moved away from the hope of the gospel,” and [because we are in Him] He helps us to put off “the body of the sins of the flesh.”James 4:17 -- “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” James mentions “faith and works” numerous times in his epistle: James 2:14 “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?” and James 2:17 “Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead,” are just a few examples. James continues (2:22-23), “Do you see that faith was working together with his [Abraham’s] works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ And he was called the friend of God.” If we were to continue living like the world, how would anyone know that we believe in Jesus? There would be no difference between the world and us. It would be pointless to say that we believe in Jesus while we do nothing that He says. Our works (those things that we do to sanctify ourselves) prove to God that we really believe in Him, and, in turn, the faith and works together justify us before God. Paul also uses this same example of Abraham and his faith working with his works. Concerning this, he states: “But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness…” (Rom 4:5) Immediately following this example, he says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1) Paul then goes on to talk about Adam’s sin and its consequences and Jesus’ obedience and its blessings and continues to talk about justification before God: Rom 5:16 -- “And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.”Romans 3:24 -- “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”Rom 8:33 -- “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies…” As Paul brings his epistle to an end (after talking much about faith and works, Christ’s redemptive work, and the Spirit versus the flesh and that we should live in the Spirit), he says, “For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men.” (Romans 14:18) As we are pleasing to God, there will be some in the world who will not be happy with what we are doing [consider Abraham: would anyone be pleased that he was going to sacrifice his son in obedience to God’s command?]. We are not to let them force us into cowering down to “their level” and sinning. It may justify us before these sinners to do evil, but it will not justify us before God. Who cares if they reject us for doing what is right? (After all, God will never reject us.) We shouldn’t care about what people think about us, anyway. However, as people begin to see us doing those things that please God, some people will begin to approve. So we will be justified before God, not men, but some will approve of what we are doing, because they see a difference in us and know that we are doing what is right. Since we are striving to please God, we won’t care what other people think or say about us, because we only care if it is pleasing to Him. (Seems like an added bonus that people will approve of us, even though we are only trying to please God, not them.) Salvation is also synonymous with abiding in Christ. 1 John 5:4 states, “This is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. Who is He who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” How do we abide in Christ? “If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He has promised us – eternal life,” stated the Apostle John. (1 John 2:24-25) Jesus also agrees in his prayer for his disciples: “As You have given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is life eternal, that they might know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” (John 17:2-3) In 1 John 2:3-5a, the Apostle states, “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. [I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: No one comes to the Father, but through Me. (John 14:6) – therefore, Christ is not in him.] But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.” [1 John 4:8,12-16, 18 talks about abiding in Him being synonymous with being perfected in love: “…God is love…. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”] John continues in chapter 2 verse 5b, “By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.” In 1 John 3:5-6, 8, 10, John says, “…in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. [literally, practice sin] Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him… He who sins is of the devil…Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God…” [“All unrighteousness is sin.” 1 John 5:17 -- Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”] Jesus said, “And you do not have His word abiding in you: for Him whom He has sent, Him you do not believe.” (John 5:38) In John 15:4-5, 9-10 Jesus says, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine; so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches: He that abides in Me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without Me you can do nothing…. As the Father has loved me, even so I have loved you: continue [abide] in my love [Remember that in his first epistle, John talks about being perfected in love as synonymous with abiding in Christ; see above.]. If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love.” Luke 14:23-24 states, “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me.” If we are “saved” by the above criteria, our sins are forgiven. “[He] give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins…” (Luke 1:77) “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) “And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1 John 2:1) “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” (Heb 8:12) This goes along with 1 John 3:7, which says, “He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.” If we believe God and practice righteousness, we are righteous; when we sin, if we confess our sins, Jesus, our righteous Advocate, “is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” because He is righteous and “in Him there is no sin.” (1 John 3:5) 2 Corinthians 5:21 states, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Romans 5:19 also shows that we are made righteous through Christ: “For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous.” Romans 1:16-17 states, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’” “Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.” (Rom 5:18) We don’t have to be condemned; we are forgiven! Jesus said, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.” (John 3:17) Paul sums it up in this way: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh… So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His…For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” (Romans 8:1-3, 8-9, 14) The Apostle John sums up all the above criteria of salvation in his Gospel and in his first epistle:“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him…We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him…And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true and we are in Him who is true, and in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. (1 John 5:1, 18, 20)