Some Christians like to talk about being saved more than once. Is this right?
It’s a matter of perspective. The most Biblical perspective is this:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God (Eph 2:8 )
This gift was given once:
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Heb 9:27-28)
So we are saved once – because we die once, and because Jesus died for us one time, and saved us by the gift of God
However there is a sense in which we can be saved more than once – a prospective sense. This is because even after we are baptised, we can fall away from grace:
This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. (1Ti 1:18 – 20)
So, you can fall from grace, but you can also learn, and come back to grace. In this sense, you are saved “again” – and this can happen any number of times, though it would obviously be better just not to fall from grace at all.
How do you explain Hebrews 6:4-6 (6) For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, (5) and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, (6) and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.