What About Salvation?
Finished or ongoing?
Finished or ongoing?
If salvation depends on obedience, ordinances, and continued progression, then assurance is never possible.
Scripture presents salvation as something accomplished, not gradually achieved.
If salvation is never finished, the burden never lifts.
If salvation depends on your obedience, your ordinances, and your continued progression, then assurance can never exist. You can hope you’ve done enough, but you can never know. Every failure becomes a threat. Every shortcoming becomes a setback. Salvation becomes a moving target — always ahead of you, never secure beneath you.
Scripture presents a very different picture. Salvation is not described as a ladder to climb, a status to earn, or a process of becoming worthy. It is described as something accomplished — finished by Christ, given by grace, received through faith.
The New Testament consistently teaches that:
Christ’s sacrifice is once for all (Hebrews 10:10).
Believers are justified — declared righteous — not gradually improved into righteousness (Romans 5:1).
Eternal life is a present possession, not a future possibility (John 5:24).
Salvation is a gift, not a wage earned through effort (Ephesians 2:8–9).
If salvation is never finished, the burden never lifts. You are always qualifying, always striving, always wondering if you’ve progressed enough. But if salvation rests on Christ’s finished work, the weight shifts from your shoulders to His. Assurance becomes possible because the foundation is no longer your performance, but His perfection.
The question is simple:
Do you want a salvation you must continually maintain — or a salvation secured by the One who has already completed the work?