Question:
Can a child of God, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, so far apostatize as to be at last eternally destroyed? Or, in other words, can a person “born again” be unborn and lost?
Answer:
Every soul is redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. Only those who accept that redemption will be saved. “Begotten” is a better term to use than “born.” The very fulness of birth will not occur until the resurrection, though the essential part of it, the character, must be produced here. Whatever figures the Lord uses to indicate or symbolize the change of character which must take place in the children of earth to be saved, they must not be understood to preclude man’s free choice. The natural child is begotten and born without any will of its own, and while God does all the work through His creative power in the spiritual child, the spiritual child must choose. And, having decided, he can retract his choice.
Saul was, by the Spirit of Jehovah, “turned into another man.” “God gave him another heart.” 1 Samuel 10:6, 9. Yet Saul rejected God and turned to the agents of darkness instead, for which he died. 1 Chronicles 10:13, 14. “He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.” Matthew 24:13. The highest of all created beings, Lucifer, son of the morning, fell to destruction. These things are given us in warning; for we, “holy brethren,” “are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” Hebrews 3:1, 14. See also Hebrews 6:4-8; 10:26-31.
