If you believe this scripture is to the body of Christ, then you must believe one can lose their salvation. That’s a works based salvation.
I do believe that one can lose their salvation, if they stop having faith, which is also supported by scripture and which is where I got my conclusion from. Faith is not work-based. I did not say that if a person stops performing works, but the person who turns away from having faith. Works is the result of our faith and the indwelling of the Spirit. We are not saved by works, but by having faith in Christ as the One who shed his blood in payment for our sins. When we stop having faith, then we have wandered from the truth and go back to living according to the sinful nature. A person in that state is accumulating sin and is on their way to death. If they are turned back from that wandered stated, the multitude of sins are covered that they were accumulating in that state and are saved from death.
When we come to Christ, it does not give the believer carte blanch to willfully continue living according to the sinful nature. Our part is faith, from first to last. Consider the following:
"Once you were alienated from God and were hostile in your minds because of your evil deeds. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy, unblemished, and blameless in His presence—
if indeed you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope of the gospel you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature
e under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
"But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are His house,
if we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope of which we boast."
"We have come to share in Christ
if we hold firmly to the end the assurance we had at first.
"For the gospel reveals the righteousness of God that comes by faith from start to finish, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
"You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” That is correct: They were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will certainly not
g spare you either.
So, according to those scriptures, faith is conditional upon our salvation. Without faith we are dead in our sins. If a believer turns from faith, wandering away from the truth, then in that state that person is accumulating sin and is on his way to condemnation. In that state a person is no longer taking up his cross, no longer bearing fruit and is no longer being transformed into the image of Christ. A person in that state needs to repent and return to his faith, then as the scripture states, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleans us of all unrighteousness. But if a person remains in that wandered state and dies in it, they will have died in their sins.
If OSAS was true, no matter what you do, what of all the warnings throughout scripture?
If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done. And if I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and right—if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, return what they have stolen, follow the decrees that give life, and do no evil—that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the sins that person has committed will be remembered against them. They have done what is just and right; they will surely live.
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