What the Early Christians Believed About Eternal Security

Once a person has been saved from this world, can he or she lose their salvation? Or, to put it another way, is salvation a “once and done” operation, or is it conditioned upon an abiding obedient relationship with Christ? When a person receives Christ, does he receive pre-forgiveness for every sin he may commit in the future—or does he receive forgiveness for past sins?
It’s easy to pull proof-texts from the New Testament to supply a variety of answers to those questions. But what do we discover about a believer’s security when we look at every verse of the New Testament? The early Christians did that very thing. They looked at every New Testament passage, and they had a uniform understanding of what the New Testament teaches about eternal security. All believers owe it to themselves to know what the original, historic teaching of the church was on this vital subject.