Suicide, Sin, and Salvation: Is Suicide Unpardonable?Sample

Can a Christian Who Dies by Suicide Lose Their Salvation? 

Most Protestants do not believe that it is possible for a Christian to lose his or her salvation, even if that person commits suicide. We will now summarize biblical principles on the subject of “eternal security” and apply them to the issue of suicide.

The Bible assures us, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). A literal translation would be, “We can actually and with full assurance know intellectually and personally that we have eternal life.” This phrase does not mean that we gradually grow into assurance, but that we can possess here and now a present certainty of the life we have already received in Jesus.

But first we must “believe in the name of the Son of God.” “Believe” means more than intellectual assent—it is the biblical word for personal trust and commitment. We can assent to the fact that an airplane will fly me from Dallas to Atlanta, but I must get on board before it can. No surgeon can operate on the basis of intellectual assent—we must submit to the procedure.

If you have made Christ your Savior, you can claim the biblical fact that you “have eternal life,” present tense, right now. You are already immortal. Jesus promised that “whoever lives by believing in me will never die” (John 11:26). We simply step from time into eternity, from this life to the next.

Nowhere does the Bible say how it feels to become the child of God, because our feelings can depend on the pizza we had for supper or the weather outside the window. No circumstances or events can guarantee our salvation.

It takes as much faith to believe we are Christians today as it did to become believers. We still have not seen God or proven our salvation in a test tube. If we had, we could question the reality or veracity of what we saw or thought.

Either the Bible is true, or it is false. Either God keeps his word, or he does not. He promises that if you “believe in the name of the Son of God,” you “have eternal life” this moment. You cannot lose your salvation, for you are already the immortal child of God. This is the fact of God’s word.

Apply the lesson 

• Have you heard people say that those who die by suicide lose their salvation? Let’s rest on his sure salvation and share this hope with others. 


• Read John 11:17–27.