Objection: We Don’t Have to Keep Getting Saved the Way We Have to Keep Getting Healed, So Healing Can’t Be in the Atonement

There are two problems with this objection.  The first is that you can lose your salvation, though you would have to knowingly reject Jesus to do it.  If you can’t, James 5:19-20 means nothing: “Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”  (This would be the case with someone who has not walked in the deeper things of God; Hebrews 6:4-6 speaks of people who have “tasted” the powers of the world to come and says that they cannot be renewed to repentance again.)  Also, 1 Timothy 4:1 says, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils....”  You can’t depart from something that you have never been in.  I cannot depart from a city until I am first IN that city before I depart.  Paul talked about young widows who would “[have] damnation, because they have cast off their first faith” (1 Timothy 5:12) and exhorted the Corinthians to “examine themselves” to see if they be in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5)!  I could quote many other passages here, particularly 2 Timothy 2:12, Hebrews 10:29, Hebrews 2:1-3, Hebrews 3:12-14 and 2 Peter 2:20-21, which you should read if you’re still not convinced.  Because it is possible to lose your salvation, this entire argument is based on a faulty foundation, and it is therefore invalid.  (Please note that you cannot “lose” your salvation by accident the way you might “lose” your cell phone.  In that sense of the word “lose”, you cannot lose your salvation.  You would have to exercise the free will you still have and knowingly and deliberately reject Jesus.  As long as you don’t do that, your salvation is secure and unrelated to your works or how much you sin or don’t sin.)  If you want a lot MORE proof that salvation CAN be lost, see Objection: Healing Cannot Be in the Atonement Because Healing Can Be Lost, but Salvation Cannot Be Lost.

The second problem is that while the new birth happens in an instant, appropriating the benefits that became legally yours through the new birth will take you a lifetime.  Just because you are born again does mean that you walk in constant peace all day.  But why shouldn’t you?  That’s just as much part of the Atonement as forgiveness and healing, because the chastisement of your peace was laid upon Jesus Christ.  Can any serious Bible student argue that peace was not provided in the Atonement because we do not always walk in it?  If we cannot use this logic with peace, we cannot use it with healing, either.  The fact that you don’t walk in health all the time doesn’t mean that it wasn’t provided for you in the Atonement.

In one sense, salvation is instant, but in another sense, you must “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).