Week 9 - Perseverance of the Saints

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.

And I think this beautifully shows it's not ultimately about our grip on God, but his grip on us. That's the foundation of our assurance and of our perseverance. This is why I like the way R.C. Sproul titled this as the preservation of the saints. as perhaps better stated than perseverance of the saints. It's about God's preservation of us. Now, the second point is God preserves us by ensuring that we continue to repent and believe. Or as the Baptist faith and message says,

yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith, unto salvation.

And that's important because this is not saying once saved always saved in the sense that you pray a prayer or walk the aisle and then at one time in your life and then no matter what you're going to heaven. No, Perseverance of the Saints is saying that it's the same power of God that brings someone to genuine faith and repentance in the first place is going to ensure that they continue to walk in repentance and faith. And so we need to be clear that the Bible is very clear that someone who's not presently trusting in Christ is not on the way to heaven. There's not this assurance that because of some past thing, no matter whether I'm repenting and trusting today, I have this great assurance. No, the Bible's very clear that you have to finish the race. Matthew 24, Jesus says,

and because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold, but the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Or in Hebrews chapter 10, verses 35 through 39, he says,

therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has great reward, for you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised for yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith. And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

This is why Paul can say near the end of his life, in 2 Timothy chapter four,

I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there's laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing.

We have to finish the race. The Bible is crystal clear about that. We have to continue to believe to the end. It's the one who endures. But the great comfort of Perseverance of the Saints is that God himself is going to strengthen us and enable us to do that. He preserves us by ensuring that we continue to repent and believe. The danger is when people want to hold to, you can't lose your salvation in abstraction from the rest of Reformed theology, and they start trusting in some past action that they did as the guarantee that they're going to be saved no matter how they're currently living. I prayed a prayer, I walked the aisle, I got baptized, and I was sincere. But the Bible doesn't offer assurance based on that. It says, We must finish the race. But again, the Reformed theology says God saves us by changing our hearts and by that same power he keeps us, by continuing to work in our hearts so that there will continue to be repentance and faith and the fruit of salvation. Listen to 1 Peter 1 3-5. Peter writes,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded or kept or preserved through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

So it's God's power that causes us to be born again, and it's God's power that keeps and preserves us through faith for this inheritance that God has for us. But this brings us to a third point. What about those who do stop repenting and believing? How do we make sense of that? Well, the third thing would mean, would be perseverance means that those who fall away were never truly saved. The implication, if we confess the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, well, it doesn't mean that we deny that there's any such thing as an apostate or, you know, someone who at one time professed to be a Christian, seemed to be a Christian, and then fell away. But it means that we interpret that not as a genuine Christian losing his or her salvation, but as someone who appeared to be a Christian, then it being revealed that they weren't really one. So, for example, listen to 1 John 2, verse 19. John says,

they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

Okay, so John is writing to a church about some who have embraced new teachings. It sounds like these new teachings are excusing and giving a license for immoral behavior and many in the church are upset by this, they're confused, they're disoriented, they're thinking, you know, am I gonna be next? Or they're thinking, you know, are these people seeing something that, are they really smart and see something that I just don't see? And John is saying, no, no, no, the reason is They were never truly of us. They may have seemed like they were believers, but it's now been revealed that they weren't of us. If they'd been of us, they would have continued with us. So that would be the way we understand those that fall away. I think this is also helpful for addressing some of those texts in the Bible that seem to go against the doctrine of perseverance, in particular, Hebrews chapter 6 and 2 Peter chapter 2 can, at least at first, really sound like it's talking about Christians losing their salvation. But I think on closer inspection, it actually becomes clear that this isn't talking about that. It's talking about people who were very acquainted with the gospel, people who experienced a large measure of the outward blessings accompanying the gospel. and then have chosen to reject it. So in the interest of time, let's just look at the 2 Peter example. 2 Peter 2 verses 20 through 22. Peter says,

for if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness, than after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

Okay, so at first glance, we think, okay, so these are people who have escaped the defilements of the world, who've come to know Jesus and the way of righteousness, but then they've turned back to the world. And I mean, that seems to sound like how we would describe a Christian. But then look at the next verse. Peter continues,

what the true proverb says has happened to them. The dog returns to its own vomit and the sow, having washed herself, returns to wallow in the mire.

Now remember, when someone becomes a true Christian and God performs the miracle of regeneration, They become a new creature. There's an inward transformation and renewal that takes place. Now, is that what Peter is talking about here? Well, no. Listen to what he says. It's like a pig that you wash off and put in a different environment. You clean it up. But then because it's still a pig, eventually it goes back to wallow in the mire. I don't think Peter is talking here about someone who has been truly converted, who's been truly regenerated and born again, who's experienced transformation like that. He's talking about someone who on the outside has been cleaned off. You know, who has come to understand much spiritual truth, who has, you know, likely been brought into the fellowship of the church, who's stopped living in the defilements of the world and has tasted something of a righteous and holy life, and now they've rejected it. And Peter says the latter state for that person is worse than the first. So there's a lot we could glean from this about just how much a non-Christian can really look like a Christian. But I don't think this passage is inconsistent with the doctrine of perseverance. Now, with that background, I wanna spend the time we have left to focus on, so why can we be so confident that God will preserve those who are his? What reasons might we give? And I'm going to open it up, try not to just read off the notes, already kind of given away the answers, but what would you say? Why can we be confident that God is going to preserve us in our faith? Yeah. Right. Yeah, kind of reaching back to a couple weeks ago when we talked about limited atonement. If Christ died, not just to make salvation possible, but to actually secure our salvation and ensure it, how could we be lost? If Christ already paid the penalty for our sin in full, how is it possible that then we would be in hell paying for it? They go together. Great. Yeah. Right. I mean, if God's election from before the foundation of the world is unconditional, as we talked about before that. I mean, do we think that suddenly God is just going to change his mind partway through your life? I'm just going to let you perish. No, God set his love on us. He chose us for salvation before the foundation of the world. He has been working through history to bring to fruition this plan of salvation for thousands of years. He's going to finish it. As we've talked about before in Romans 8, verses 29 and 30,

for whom God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. And then whom he predestined, these he also called. And whom he called, these he also justified. And whom he justified, these he also glorified.

There's nobody that comes to faith and gets justified and then kind of falls off the train before glorification. It's an unbreakable chain. No one is lost along the way. Good. What else? Yeah. Yeah, and we've already seen a number of verses in addition to that as well that clearly seems to be taught biblically. Just to round out, we've already mentioned the L and the U. You see the first in the notes, U-L-I. You know, Perseverance of the Saints is going to follow naturally from unconditional election, limited atonement, and then irresistible grace. We've talked about unconditional election and limited atonement. Irresistible grace, just think about if the Holy Spirit, when we were dead in transgression and sin, totally depraved, I mean, totally unresponsive to God, if the Holy Spirit by His power can bring us to life and bring us to faith in the first place, I mean, how much more is He able to preserve us in that faith? It's not like it was our free will that God has saved to begin with, so it's not like our free will is somehow going to override God's purposes and cause us to be lost forever, right? The irresistible grace naturally, just the follow-on to that is he preserves, he keeps. Now, in addition to, you know, the U, L, and I, the next point I have is when we just think about the love that God has for us, What a reason for assurance, what a reason to be confident in perseverance. You know, if God loved us enough to send his own son to die for us when we were his enemies, if that couldn't separate us from the love of God, how much more now that we've been reconciled, now that Christ has died for us and lives for us, is God's love for us going to ensure that we're kept? You know, and this is the argument of Romans 5 and Romans 8. In Romans 5, verses 8 through 10, Paul writes,

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, Much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

And then jumping ahead to Romans chapter eight, verses 31 and following, Paul says,

if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Then he says,

who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If God loves us like that, to not spare his own son, How could anything separate us from his love? He will keep us to the end. Number three, God has already given us his spirit as a guarantee. So in Ephesians chapter one, verses 13 and 14, Paul says,

we were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.

I mean, a guarantee is like a down payment. It's like the pledge of what's to come. I mean, if God has already given us the guarantee, he's already given us the down payment, he's already given us the pledge, the spirit of adoption is already within us. I mean, how can, do we think God is going to default on the loan? Is God not going to come through? No, we're gonna receive the inheritance, we're gonna receive the resurrection, the fullness of adoption that has been guaranteed to us by the fact the Holy Spirit has already been given. Number four, Christ himself intercedes for us. Hebrews 7.25,

he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them.

And just think of it this way. What was the difference between Peter and Judas? Yeah. I mean, Satan entered Judas, and then we know that Satan demanded to have Peter that he might sift him as wheat. And Jesus says, to Peter,

but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.

And friends, Hebrews 7.25 says Jesus prays for us. And what a ground of assurance. He prays that our faith would not fail, that his sacrifice would be fully applied to us. And then a fifth reason. We can be confident that God will preserve us because God's own glory is on the line. I remember an illustration by a preacher one time and his illustration was about a college football game and it had come down to this final field goal and I think the underdog team was behind and the kickers there to to kick the field goal, and they hike it, and he kicks it, and the ball goes through, and everyone's going crazy, and the fans storm the field, and everyone's celebrating this great victory, and then somebody notices the penalty flag. And the refs, you know, they get everybody off the field, and they say, oh, there's a penalty, re-kick, and this time he kicks it, and he misses. And what the preacher's point was, God is not gonna let that happen in salvation. You know, in Luke 15, Jesus says,

there's more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance.

I mean, can you imagine the celebration in heaven when one person comes to faith, when a soul is saved, and this person has been rescued by the power of God from the clutches of Satan? And is God going to suddenly let that be halted by a penalty flag? Oh, wait a second, Satan now has him back. God is not going to allow Satan to win out, to snap someone back out of his grasp. His own glory is on the line, the celebration of heaven. So this all brings us, there's probably more reasons we could list, but those are all reasons why we can be so sure that God is going to preserve us. And I wanna land with the final thing, so why does this matter? You know, what difference practically should this make for our Christian lives? And of course, the overarching thing that all of this is driving is the glorious assurance we can have, this wonderful confidence that our salvation isn't just hanging in the balance, it's secure. But I want to apply it in two particular ways. First, I think the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints provides the security we need as we look to an uncertain future. You know, when you think about what the future might hold, you know, what following Christ might demand of you, I don't know, if you ever think about this, maybe reading some of the old stories and we think about Christian martyrs, it's like, what would I do? Would my faith fail? Would I stand the test? Or even in our own country, I mean, things can shift and what if being faithful to Christ could mean being thrown into jail? What if it means poverty? What if it means losing your job? What if it means public shame and humiliation? I think it can be very frightening to us when we think about all the things that the future might hold and am I really strong enough? Well, the wonderful comfort of this is God isn't going to let you go. God is gonna give you the strength that you need to persevere. It's not, well, I can just deny Christ and everything will be fine, but it's God is going to strengthen you so that you can be faithful. And therefore, we can have peace even in the midst of a very frightening future. And then secondly, I think this doctrine provides us the encouragement we need not to give up when we face a difficult present. I don't know if you've ever tried distance running, but I haven't been that serious about it, but I've run every now and then, and maybe you've tried to run a mile, and maybe you had a goal time, right? So it's like, I'm going to try to beat six minutes or whatever time, and you take off, and you do the first 400, and you just feel horrible. My body is going to fail. And at least if you're like me, what's going through your head is like, you know, if I'm going to fail either way, I'd rather quit now, right? If I'm not going to make it, why do this next lap? And I think the doctrine of perseverance is so helpful because it's like the assurance that you're not going to fail. You're going to make it. And so it might be just as painful, it might feel just as hard to keep going, to persevere, but there's this confidence, I'm not gonna fall short. As I continue, God is gonna give me the strength I need. God is gonna enable me to finish. And that's oftentimes the boost we need to keep running and to finish our race. And so may we hold tightly to the comfort and the hope that this doctrine of perseverance of the saints brings. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word and for the goodness of the gospel and for the wonderful comfort and encouragement it is to know that you have begun a good work in us, we'll finish it. Lord, may we praise you for this. May this bring us comfort and may it bring us encouragement to be faithful and to run the race well. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.