We have all known people who started out well on the Christian road. They had a glowing testimony; they were eager in the Lord’s work, zealous in evangelism, an encouragement to others. Yet after a few years, they were back in the world. You shake your head in disbelief. How could such heat turn so cold, and such light turn to darkness?

The Doctrine⤒🔗

Can a believer lose his salvation? The Westminster Confession of Faith, of course, is clear:

They, whom God hath accepted in His Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally, nor finally, fall away from the state of grace: but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved. Chapter XVII.I, Of the Perseverance of the Saints

Paragraph 2 of this chapter gives a Trinitarian rationale for this in the work of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and in the nature of the covenant of grace. Paragraph 3 soberly reminds us that, nonetheless, saints can sin, even grievously, and lose for a time the favour of God, their testimony and their assurance.

But they will not Lose their Salvation←⤒🔗

Uncertainty about this doctrine is sometimes reflected in the different names people use for it. Should it be called the doctrine of ‘eternal security’? Or should we use another phrase such as ‘preservation of the saints’ (which says much the same thing but with more emphasis on God’s personal involvement)? Or should we stay with the time-honoured and careful formula of Westminster, ‘perseverance of the saints’?

The matter is more than merely academic. The issue of ‘perseverance’ is, for many people, where ‘the rubber hits the road’ in relation to the convergence of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility.

God’s Work or Mine?←⤒🔗

One objection arises because of uncertainty about how the work of God and that of man interrelate in perseverance. The problem can be formulated like this: There are, broadly speaking, two groups of texts on this subject in the Bible. One group speaks from God’s perspective, emphasizing his sovereignty. The other is from man’s side, emphasizing my responsibility. Someone may reason like this: ‘It is all very well for you to say that God will never let me go, that his decrees are unchanging, that Christ will never lose one who comes to him, one for whom he died and for whom he is praying, that the Holy Spirit is with me forever, that the covenant is everlasting and that the life God has given me is eternal, BUT – I still have to make the effort to obey, to persevere, and to keep believing, or I will be lost. If I “turn back” a Calvinist will say I was never truly converted. It is not that I have lost my salvation, but that is small comfort to me as I struggle. In the end isn’t it all down to me?’

R. T. Kendall, in his book Once Saved, Always Saved, argued for his version of ‘eternal security’. There he asserted that the classic formulation of ‘perseverance of the saints’ leads to the conclusion that ‘I have no assurance that I am saved unless I am also in a state of godly living at every moment.’¹ This is classic Arminianism, in fact. ‘Perseverance’ for Kendall means one has to be constantly in a state of ‘godly living’. The doctrine, however, does not teach that. Kendall’s interpretation ignores the words ‘totally’ and ‘finally’ to describe the ‘falling away’ from which believers are protected. He overlooks the third paragraph of the Confession’s Chapter XVII, which asserts that believers may still sin grievously. Above all he does not appreciate the significance of persevering being ‘through faith’.

One theologian who had problems with the question of per­severance was Clark Pinnock. Attempting to teach the doctrine from Hebrews, he could not square it with the warnings of falling away and the exhortations to persevere. He later wrote:

The exhortations and warnings could only signify that continuing in the grace of God was something that depended at least on the human partner. And once I saw that, the logic of Calvinism was broken in principle, and it was only a matter of time before the larger implications of its breaking down would dawn on me. The thread was pulled, and the garment must begin to unravel, as indeed it did.²

We know where that unraveled thread led. Not everybody who believes in the primacy of the human will ends up with an ‘Openness of God’ theology (though it is only because they are inconsistent that they do not). Pinnock’s experience, however, does highlight the need to explain as clearly as possible the relationship between the two groups of texts referred to: those that begin with the sovereignty of God on the one hand, and, on the other, those that address the responsibility and the will of man.

Kept by the Power of God←⤒🔗

A text that is helpful at just this point is 1 Peter 1:4-5. Peter speaks of the ‘inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time’ (ESV). It is by God’s power that the believer is ‘guarded’ (or ‘kept’ [KJV, NKJV]; or ‘shielded’ [NIV]). The word ‘guarded’ (phrouroumenos from phroureo) can be translated ‘kept safe’, ‘carefully watched’. It is primarily a military term. The governor of Damascus guarded the city so that Paul could not escape (2 Cor. 12:32). Believers were ‘kept’ (‘imprisoned’) under the law before faith came (Gal. 3:23), and the believer’s mind is ‘guarded’ by the peace of God (Phil. 4:7). The word has the connotations both of keeping something safe and of keeping from escaping. The word ‘shielded’ in the NIV only gives half of the sense. The believer is kept safe by God’s power and is kept from escaping from the realm of grace. Satan will attack us from without to tear us away from God, but he also has an ally within. Thus we would never hold out were there not a greater power not only keeping us secure but also preventing us defecting to the enemy.

Kept through Faith←⤒🔗

Yet this ‘guarding’ is ‘through faith’. Robert Leighton says:

Now the causes of our preservation are two: 1. Supreme, the power of God. 2. Subordinate, Faith. The supreme power of God is that on which depend our stability and perseverance. When we consider how weak we are in ourselves, yea, the very strongest among us, and how assaulted, we wonder, and justly we may, that any can continue one day in the state of grace: but when we look on the strength by which we are guarded, the power of God, then we see the reason of our stability to the end; for Omnipotency supports us, and the everlasting arms are under us.

Then Faith is the second cause of our preservation; because it applies the first cause, the power of God. Our faith lays hold upon this power, and this power strengthens faith, and so we are preserved ... thus the weakest believer is safe, because by believing he is in the strongest of places ... This is our victory, even our faith.³

The connection between God’s power (preservation) and my persevering is even closer than Leighton specifically says. The means by which God keeps the believer is the believer’s faith. ‘God is continually using his power to guard his people by means of their faith.’⁴ God works in me to sustain and strengthen my faith so that I will endure. It is not a question of God’s doing a part (even the bigger part, even 99%) and my doing the rest (even as little as 1%). God does it all, but he does it through me. Paul urges the Philippian believers to work out their salvation with fear and trembling ‘for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure’ (Phil. 2:12-13). My willing and doing are both from God. Because it is his work in me, my willing and doing are to his good pleasure.

Moreover, returning to 1 Peter 1:5, the guarding of God is not just for a while or for a temporary purpose. Peter assures his readers that they are garrisoned by God unto a salvation which is ready to be revealed in the last time. There is no time when the keeping of God will stop short of the ‘desired haven’ (Psa. 107:30). There is no time when the believer’s faith will fail ‘totally’ or ‘finally’. The Lord will keep you to the end. You will endure to the end.

The Means God Uses←⤒🔗

With this framework in place let us ask, ‘what means does God use to “empower” our faith?’ If it is true that he guards us through our faith, exactly how does that work?’ What we would expect is that he will use every means possible to sustain, strengthen, feed and increase our faith.

This is not in tension with what he has decreed in eternity or with his precious promises. It is precisely the way that his decrees are worked out and his promises fulfilled. One would not be surprised, but would actually expect, to see the Word full of faith-feeding truths, for ‘faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ’ (Rom. 10:17). Statements about God’s character and decrees are there not only for the sake of doctrinal completeness (or we would have just cause to complain that God has left much unsaid) but also to help his children to endure. Similarly exhortations to persevere are not surplus to requirements (‘because God will save to the uttermost anyway’) or contradictory to statements promising eternal security (as Pinnock seems to have thought); they are the very means God uses to work out his preservation in our lives. Even warnings of the dangers of not enduring, of falling away, are necessary to my sin-diseased soul. Whilst we are in this mortal body, we shall need the stick (and what a gentle stick it is!) as well as the carrot to keep us going.

Of course, if God were to take us all to glory the moment he regenerated, justified and adopted us, there would be no problem of perseverance. In terms of his decrees, there is no gap between justification and glorification (Rom. 8:30). But in terms of my experience there is a huge chasm. This large area is called ‘the Christian life’, and it lasts as long as God wills. The link in the chain of redemption that connects God’s decrees with me is the faith which he gives me and which he sustains. Humanly speaking, I must exercise faith. Hebrews 11 is devoted to illustrating this from the lives of the people of God as an exhortation to wilting Christians. In John Murray’s words, ‘Perseverance means the engagement of our persons in the most intense and concentrated devotion to those means which God has ordained for the achievement of his saving purpose.’⁵ That is faith at work!

There is no conflict within Scripture between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. There is a conflict in some people’s minds, and, hopefully, for many a careful explanation of texts such as 1 Peter 1:5 will help. If, as for Clark Pinnock, the human will must remain absolutely free and in effect supreme over God’s will, the problem does not go away so easily. However, here the problem is with much more than the doctrine of perseverance, and it will eventually unravel the faith.

Complacency←⤒🔗

Another objection to the doctrine of perseverance is that it produces carnal security and spiritual complacency. When perseverance is taught as meaning ‘once saved, always saved’ or ‘eternal security’, and there is no further qualification, this is a valid criticism. For R. T. Kendall, for example, everything hinges on Romans 10:9, that ‘if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved’. From this Kendall draws the conclusion that ‘Such a person will go to heaven when he dies no matter what work (or lack of work) may accompany such faith.’⁶ This treats faith as if it operated in a vacuum and neglects its inseparability from works. A good reading of James’s letter is in order!

But the doctrine of perseverance properly understood does not lead to complacency. It is hard to credit how the charge could be laid when one considers the lives of men who were convinced of it – the apostle Paul and John Calvin to name but two. The allegation completely misunderstands the nature of God’s working and of spiritual motivation. The answer again is found in a proper understanding of faith, which we have seen is central to persevering. What is faith? It is ‘the assurance of things hoped for’ (Heb. 11:1), the ‘sight of the soul’, the God-given sense of spiritual things that above all sees Christ, loves him and wants more of him. It is an appetite for Christ and the things of Christ. This is why promises of eternal security never create in the true believer the attitude of complacency. Knowing that God will never let you go only whets your appetite to love him more, to serve him better, and to not offend him by careless, sinful living.

When a man knows that his wife loves him, it does not cause him to do less for her, or to say, ‘Well, I don’t need to work at the marriage now: I’m secure.’ Just so the Lord’s promises that he will never, never forsake his people (Heb.13:5) only motivate the believer to cling to him more closely.

Knowing you are secure is an incentive to energetic work in more ways than one. No longer working to maintain one’s salvation, one is free to work for God. As the young telephone engineer was told as he nervously clung to the top of a telegraph pole, ‘Hey up there! Lean back in your belt and trust it, so you can work with both hands.⁷ So it is not, ‘Let go and let God.’ Rather, we say, ‘Trust God and work hard.’

Scriptures Feed Faith←⤒🔗

Texts to establish eternal security can be multiplied. The Westminster Confession’s first reference (in Chapter XVII) is Philippians 1:6: ‘And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus.’ The immutability of the divine decree is illustrated with reference to 2 Tim. 2:19: ‘But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows who are his”’ (see also Rom. 8:29-30, Eph. 1:3-14).

The love of God the Father is proved by reference to Jeremiah 31:3: ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love.’

The merit and intercession of the Son are confirmed by Hebrews 10:14: ‘For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified’ and Romans 8:34: ‘Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us’ (see also Luke 22:32, John 17:11).

Finally the work of the Spirit is proved from John 14:16-17: ‘And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth...’

The promises of God that directly assert or clearly imply that salvation cannot be lost include the following:

John 3:16; 5:24, which state that the gift of God is eternal life.

John 6:44, where we are told that Christ will raise up those who believe in him, that is, he will complete the work (see also John 11:25).

John 10:28, which states: ‘I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no-one will snatch them out of my hand.’

Acts 20:28 shows us the preciousness of the blood that He paid for the church, (see also 1 Pet. 1:19).

Eph. 1:14 shows us that the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance.

In 1 Thess. 5:23-24 Paul prays that God will sanctify his people completely and concludes: ‘He who calls is faithful; he will surely do it.’

Heb. 6:17 tells us that God’s word and oath are unchangeable. Heb. 7:2.5 shows that Christ is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him.

Heb. 10:14 tells us, ‘For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.’

In Heb. 13:5 the writer adds Christ’s promise, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’

Other promises speak of the character of God (e.g. Num. 23:19), and of the everlasting nature of the covenant (Isa. 45:3; 54:5-10; Jer. 31:31-33). These are great and mighty promises and surely are to be believed.

The Lord also stirs up our faith with exhortations. These texts tell us that the believer’s effort is essential if he is to be saved. The Lord taught his disciples that ‘the one who endures (ho hupomeinas) to the end will be saved’ (Matt. 24:13; cf. 10:22).

John 8:31 adds: ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples’, and John 8:51: ‘Truly, truly ... if anyone keeps my word he will never see death’.

John 15:1-5 insists on the believer’s abiding in Christ.

2 Tim. 2:12 affirms, ‘If we endure, we will also reign with Him.’

2 Pet. 1:3-10 again demonstrates the harmony between God’s work and ours. Peter tells us that, in the light of God’s having given us by his divine power everything we need for life and godliness, so that we participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption of the world, ‘For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue...’ etc., and, ‘Be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practise these qualities you will never fall’ (verse 10).

This passage illustrates the close link between perseverance in doctrine, practice, and assurance. The doctrine of perseverance is the objective truth that the believer will not lose his salvation. The prac­tice of perseverance is the believer’s enduring to the end. Assurance is the subjective confidence that one is the Lord’s. Perseverance in doctrine and practice will feed assurance. Assurance will feed per­severance. They help each other.⁸

To exhortations that we must persevere can be added warnings against falling away as in Hebrews: ‘Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God’ (Heb. 3:12; see the whole passage 3:7-4:13).

These do not contradict the assurances of eternal security. They do remind us that God preserves us through our faith, and that our faith requires all manner of encouragements.

Are There Contradictions in Scripture?←⤒🔗

What, however, of those texts that appear to teach that believers can fall away? These are a more serious challenge to the doctrine of perseverance. They do not posit a tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility (there is none) but a seeming conflict within Scripture as to whether salvation is eternally secure or not.

There are such difficult passages as Hebrews 6:4-10 and 10:26-29, which many interpret as describing the falling away of a true believer; and 2 Peter 2:20-22, which describes certain false teachers. In Matthew 24:10-12 the Lord warns of many falling away and of the love of many growing cold. What of the seed in the Lord’s parable of the sower (Luke 8:1-13) which grew and then died away under the pressure of persecution or the attractions and cares of the world? Paul, in 1 Timothy 4:1, speaks of some who ‘will depart from (aposteesontai, fall away, abandon) the faith’ (cf. 1. Tim. 1:19).

What do these passages teach us? They teach that much that passes for true faith is not true faith. Consider Hebrews 6:4-10. The illustration the author uses of two fields, both receiving the rain but one bearing fruit and the other not, clearly shows that two people may come under the same spiritual influences. In the one case there is fruitfulness, in the other, not. The ‘problem’ may again be resolved into that of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility (why does God regenerate one and not the other?), but this passage is not teaching that a regenerate person can lose his salvation. What is remarkable and sobering is the degree of spiritual influence under which a person may come, yet not be saved. These are described in the careful phrases heaped up by the writer.

This and the other passages in no way contradict the basic teaching of Scripture that one whom God has elected from eternity and about whom he knows everything, even the very worst things, cannot lose that salvation. It is the work of the omnipotent, omniscient God. After all, what is there in the life of the child of God after conversion that could cause God to reject him, if when he was a rebel and under God’s wrath, God loved him, and Christ died for him (Rom. 5:6-10 )?

There are other ‘difficult’ texts. Paul, in Galatians 5:4, speaks of the Galatians having ‘fallen away’ from grace, but this seems to mean that they have fallen away from the pure doctrine of justification by grace through faith and are seeking to be justified by law. He is not addressing here the issue of the believer’s eternal security.

Romans 14:15 warns some that the ‘strong’ believers must ‘not destroy (apollue) the one for whom Christ died’ (see also 1 Cor. 8:11). Can one for whom Christ died be ‘destroyed’ in the sense of being lost eternally? There are two possible ways of approaching these texts.

1. One may see them as God’s using means to achieve his ends. An illustration of this is found in Acts 27:23-32. God promised Paul that all who sailed with him would be safe. Yet when some sailors tried to cut the lifeboat loose and escape, Paul said, ‘Unless these men stay in the ship you cannot be saved.’
   
   The end result had been decreed, but there was a condition that had to be fulfilled. Commenting on 1 Corinthians 8:11 (and the same remarks could be applied to Romans 14:1 5), Charles Hodge refers to the Acts 27 passage and says: ‘(God) secures the end by securing the means. It is just as certain that those for whom Christ died will be saved, as that the elect shall be saved. Yet in both cases the event is spoken of as conditional. There is not only a possibility, but an absolute certainty of their perishing if they fall away. But this is precisely what God has promised to prevent.’⁹
   
   The warnings to ‘the strong’ are, therefore, all part of God’s ‘protection’ programme for the weak. Hodge applies the same principle to texts warning of the apostasy of the elect.
    
2. Alternatively, these passages can be seen in context to be warning of a serious fall coming which is short of complete apostasy. As Robert Reymond points out, in Romans 14:4 Paul says of both the strong and the weak brother, ‘He will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.’¹⁰
   
   In Romans 14:8, ‘Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.’ These sound like assertions of ‘preservation’. In 1 Cor­inthians 8:12, Paul speaks of the conscience of the weaker being ‘wounded’, which is serious, but is short of apostasy. Complete falling away is not a necessary interpretation of the danger in which the weaker brother lies.

These passages are not easy but they can be justifiably interpreted in line with the basic conviction that the believer is kept by the power of God through faith.

Encouraging Perseverance←⤒🔗

We ask, finally, how may one go about encouraging others to per­severe? Remember what perseverance is. It is not mere doggedness in ‘doing Christian things’. Look at how faithful many unregenerate people are in church attendance. It is not mere continuance in Christian habits and traditions. It is not merely persisting in a course of duty. I have used the word ‘merely’ in these examples advisedly, because in each case perseverance may include such persistence in ‘doing good’ and very often will feel like no more than ‘hanging on in there’.

However, perseverance must be more than simply holding on. The battle in perseverance is the battle for faith. We live by faith. It is the perseverance ‘in faith’ (or ‘of the faith’) of God’s elect. It is a promise of God enacted and fulfilled through the obedient faith of his people. Since it is a promise it draws on faith. It is his work; therefore, it operates through faith. The saints persevere because he preserves, but he preserves by energizing their faith, not through by-passing it.

A case study in perseverance is found in the letter to the Hebrews, a ‘word of encouragement’ (13:22). Here we see that means are used to encourage perseverance, but these are not of the ‘just stick at it’ variety of ‘encouragement’. The writer uses every means he can to strengthen faith. Above all Christ is presented here in all his finality and supremacy. From beginning to end Hebrews is a letter about the supremacy of Christ. Readers are repeatedly exhorted to look to him in his different capacities but above all as their great priest (Heb. 3:1, 4:14-5:10; chapters 7-10). They are to look ‘to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith’ (12:3). What creates or strengthens faith more than looking to Jesus?

Everyone must, of course, also pay careful attention to the word they have heard (Heb. 2:1). They must understand Christian truths, in their contexts, and especially see how Christ fulfils all the Old Testament types. We may need to grasp the finality of justification by grace through faith, the irreversibility and implications of regen­eration, the privileges and inalienability of adoption, or the radical and disabling nature of total depravity and the consequent necessity of unconditional election. Doctrine feeds faith. Believers must understand that it is through many hardships that we enter the kingdom of God and that discipline, though painful, is a mark of family life. In the context of this the exhortations to hold our original confidence firm to the end (Heb. 3:14, etc.) and warnings about the dangers of falling away (Heb. 3:7-4:13) are not urgings to self-effort but calls to faith. ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts’ (Heb. 3:7, 15, 4:7; from Psalm 95:7-8).

From chapter 10:19 on, Hebrews is almost all exhortation. We are told to draw near in full assurance of faith, not to neglect meeting together (that is, to attend the means of grace), and to consider the awful consequences of falling away (10:19-31). We must look to our past endurance as an incentive to persevere (10:32-34), do the will of God that we may receive the promise (verse 36), and, above all, we must not ‘shrink back’ (verse 38). The conclusion is encouraging: ‘But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls’ (verse 39, emphasis added). There follows the great chapter on faith, concluding with the greatest of all heroes of the faith, Jesus Christ (12:1-3). Chapter 12:18-29 reminds us that we have a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Chapter 13 is a survey of perseverance in practice: in love (1-3), in purity (4), and in contentment (5); (note that here, in a homely exhortation to ‘be content with what you have’ comes that wonderful verse about God’s never forsaking us). We are told to remember our leaders (7), and are reminded of the unchanging Christ (8) who enables us to hold on to sound doctrine (9). We are to consider our privileges (10), even embracing suffering with Christ (11-14), praising God, and doing good (15-16). The letter ends with a prayer that the God of peace may ‘equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ’ (13:21). And, we may ask, what is there more pleasing to God that he could work in us than faith (see Heb. 11:6)?

Conclusion←⤒🔗

Once the sovereignty of God is granted, the great texts that assure the eternal security of his people and the texts that address human responsibility are not at all in conflict. The first group teach us to look to Christ in confidence; the second group teach us to look to him in our weakness. Of all the names for this great doctrine, ‘the per­severance of the saints’ is the best. It alone incorporates the fullness of the biblical material.

Perhaps I should add two provisos: that it be seen as a promise of God before being a duty of man, and that it be understood as the perseverance in faith of the elect. Thus understood, the doctrine gives confidence without complacency, encourages effort without self-dependence, and reveals as complementary rather than contradictory God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. It is he who works in us and points the believer to Christ, so that in all things we grow up into him who is the founder and perfecter of our faith.