Many biblical texts teach that Jesus gives his people “eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” But the Bible also warns Christians of the possibility of apostasy, encouraging followers of Jesus to stay on guard against an “evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.”

How can it be true that Christians cannot fall away and also true that they can fall away? The key is to understand the difference between the Christian’s condition as elected by God, and the lived-in experience of the Christian’s faith life. Those who are elected by God from before the foundation of the world can never finally fall away, but are assured by God that the faith which he has granted is secure. However, there are people who at one point genuinely believe that Jesus died for them, but who later in life turn away and abandon their Savior. These ultimately have no assurance of salvation, in spite of their previous baptism and confession. These do not apostasize because they “lost” their faith, as though they were faithfully following Jesus and one day realized they didn’t believe in him anymore. Instead, they sadly made a decision to abandon him and live for themselves, either implicitly or explicitly.