This topic causes a lot of discussion that leaves people wondering whether we really understand what the Bible says about works and salvation. For example, many people today claim to be Christian yet live like the opposite of what a person would live like if they truly were saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. Now here comes the good part. “Once saved, always saved.” Yes, “once saved, always saved,” but truly saved is where we have the disconnect. You see, many “Christians” say that after they were saved they turned back to a life of sin for awhile and then turned back to God, and they claim “once saved, always saved.” However, if we look at what 1 John 3:9 says, we see that if we are born of God (saved and regenerated) then we will not sin, because the Holy Spirit abides in us and as a result we cannot sin. Now, we are still sinners because the sin nature is never completely destroyed until we are resurrected. However, when we sin, we know it, because the Spirit convicts us immediately and we repent (sometimes not immediately). That is what it means when the verse says that because we have the Spirit in us, we cannot sin; it’s not that we will not sin at all, for there is only one who is perfect and that is Jesus Christ. The way that I have heard this verse justified to fit the “once saved, always saved” concept is that this verse is talking about blaspheming the Holy Spirit by denying the existence of God and that is the only sin that cannot be forgiven. In other words, if you are saved you will not blaspheme the Spirit (I agree). However, that is not the only thing that it is talking about. So when it comes to salvation and works and the relation between the two, it is plain throughout the Bible that if a person is “truly” saved, then he or she will demonstrate a change in their lives by doing good works out of love for the Lord, because the Holy Spirit has filled them with His presence--instead of just saying a prayer and going about life as though nothing has happened (because nothing did).
