Introduction⤒🔗

In recent years we have been receiving statistics with alarming figures about the number of people leaving the church. The large church communities in the Netherlands experience a shocking decrease in membership. It is becoming ever clearer how rapidly the secularization proceeds. The development affects also the smaller, orthodox churches, although the figures are here not quite as bad. Against this background the disturbing question arises: Is there any certainty that we will remain faithful? Is there any prospect of perseverance in the faith in a culture where secularization is increasingly gaining territory?

The well-known author, Dr. Anne van der Meiden, retired professor of Public Relations and a liberal minister, published a book that emphatically focuses on this question.¹It deals with perseverance in the faith in connection with the increasing number of members who leave the church. Van der Meiden is a liberal, and that becomes clear in this book. He is not really interested in what the Canons of Dort confess about the perseverance of the saints. There are texts in the Bible that comfort us with God’s protection, but there are just as many places in Scripture where all depends on the believer. The Bible is a book of many colours, and that does not make it possible for us to always draw logical conclusions.

Van der Meiden refers especially to the second kind of texts: believers themselves are responsible for their steadfastness. And they can accomplish perseverance by seeking continuing renewal — just as in the case of businesses and organizations. The author applies this specifically to the contents of the faith. Aspects wherewith as modern people we can’t do anything must be discarded. With their convictions of a “faith that really belongs to a museum” the churches have been far too inflexible, and that’s why they are emptying. Faith creates perseverance for itself as long as it is willing to change, to make fundamental corrections in what for too long has been cherished as “treasures of the faith.” In that way perseverance is the business of the churches and the believers. It is continuing renewal that guarantees perspective for the future!

Our confession←↰⤒🔗

The theme of perseverance in the faith is very much present in our confession. The Canons of Dort in fact devote an entire chapter to it. That is not accidental, for in the seventeenth century the Remonstrants stridently attacked this aspect of our faith. They had serious objections to the assertive statement of Lord’s Day 21: “And I believe that I am and forever shall remain a living member of this congregation.”

They found such language altogether dangerous. It resulted in carelessness and superficiality. Their objection clearly had a pastoral motivation. The Remonstrants wanted to emphasize the seriousness of sin and the great responsibility of the congregation. They referred to the many Bible texts that underline this responsibility. For did not the Lord Jesus say that the one who endures to the end will be saved (Matt. 24:13)? And does not Paul warn us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12)? The assertive confession of Lord’s Day 21 altogether ignores what the Bible says about the possibility of falling away from the faith (see Ezek. 18:24; Heb. 3:12). Surely the Bible means what it says in 1 Corinthians 10:12, “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.”

The Remonstrants did not deny that Scripture speaks of the protection of believers. They knew of their being guarded by God’s power (1 Peter 1:5). But they saw this being guarded as conditional. The believers are guarded if they do not lack faith.² Faith gets a conditional character and becomes the “moving cause” of perseverance. In fact, they taught that he who guards himself in the love of God is guarded by God. And so they maintained that those who really believe and have been born again “not only can fall completely and definitely from justifying faith, and also from grace and salvation, but indeed…often do fall from them and are lost forever” (Canons of Dort, V, Rejection of Errors 3). The result was that the Remonstrants rejected the idea that a child of God could be assured of his perseverance and salvation. That idea, they believed, was only “an excuse for the sinful flesh.” In the end, then, it is the human being, according to their doctrine, who decides what will happen with him. And nothing is more changeable than a human being. For that reason they spoke emphatically of the fall of saints.

It was this doctrine that the fathers of Dort attacked. Over against the comfortless idea of the Remonstrants they confessed the comfort of the perseverance of the saints. And they added that this perseverance is a fruit of election. The first chapter of the Canons dealt already with this election. From there they move on to chapter V. ³ V.1 clearly refers back to I.7 when it speaks about “those whom God calls according to his purpose.” Also in V.6, we hear about that “purpose,” which is said to be “unchangeable.” In V.8, the fathers of Dort mention specifically this unchangeableness of God’s “counsel” over against the doctrine of the possible falling away of the saints. Whoever confesses election according to Scripture cannot but reject the opinion of the Remonstrants. For that denies God’s unchangeable election and breaks the golden chain of our salvation: “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30).

The Canons do mention that God’s elect can fall and sin deeply and seriously. They point to David and Peter. But at the same time they confess the faithfulness of God who “mercifully confirms his children in the grace once conferred upon them and powerfully preserves them in that grace to the end” (V.3). And according to that purpose God does not permit them to sink so deep that “they plunge themselves into eternal ruin” (V.6).

When dealing with perseverance in the faith, the Canons do not point at all to the believing person. It is not the believer ensures endurance; it exists simply and only because of God’s election and his faithfulness. It is not the human being who perseveres; it is the Lord who perseveres in his own. Perseverance of the saints is in fact nothing else than preservation of the saints.

Scripture←↰⤒🔗

It cannot be denied that Scripture speaks in a very consoling manner about the preservation of God’s children. We notice this already in the Old Testament. Because the Lord is at David’s right hand, he shall not be shaken (Ps. 16:8). Of the righteous person Scripture says, “Though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand” (Ps. 37:24). God is David’s mighty rock and therefore David knows: “I shall not be shaken” (Ps. 62:6). The Lord “will never permit the righteous to be moved” (Ps. 55:22). Israel “shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity” (Isa. 45:17). The Lord shall carry the house of Jacob even to old age (Isa. 46:4). He has covered his own in the shadow of his hand (Isa. 51:16). Because of God’s promises David can exult that the Lord “will fulfill his purpose” for him (Ps, 138:8).

In the New Testament this promise of preservation comes even closer to us. It is the Father’s will that Christ should lose nothing of all that he has given him (John 6:39). The sheep listen to the voice of Christ and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of Christ’s hand (John 10:28). The Saviour prays that the Father will keep those whom he has given him (John 17:11). Paul exults that nothing can separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8:39), because Christ Jesus is interceding for us (Rom. 8:34). He points to God’s faithfulness, which will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability (1 Cor. 10:13). We may be convinced that God will establish us and guard us (2 Thess. 3:3). Peter assures us that we are being guarded “by God’s power” (1 Peter 1:5). John writes: “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him” (1 John 5:18).

The protection the New Testament so often speaks or appears to be altogether the work of the triune God. We already heard about the protection by the Father and the intercession of Christ. Paul adds the Holy Spirit when he calls the Spirit the guarantee given us by God with a view to the glory that awaits us (2 Cor. 5:5) and tells us that we are “sealed” by the Spirit, safely protected for the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30). About this enduring presence of the Spirit we hear also when John tells us that God’s “anointing” remains in us (1 John 2:27).

It is clear: Scripture speaks at length about the protection of God’s children. This is a great consolation. For when we look at ourselves we have to admit that there is no certainty whatsoever that we will reach the finish and safely enter God’s kingdom.

Honesty forces us, however, to admit that there are also different words in Scripture, words that underline our responsibility and warn against the danger of falling away.

In this connection people have pointed to the continued warnings that we meet in many places. Only he who “endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22). By our endurance we will gain our lives (Luke 21:19). We have need of endurance to receive what has been promised us (Heb. 10:36). The ever-recurring word “if” seems to suggest even that the Remonstrants are right. “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love” (John 15:10). “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:14). “He who keeps his commandments abides in him and he in him” (1 John 3:24). “…If we love one another, God abides in us” (1 John 4:12). Reconciliation with God applies to us only if we continue in the faith, stable and steadfast (Col. 1:23).

Don’t all these serious warnings take away the consolation we derive from the Bible texts that speak of God’s protection? Especially when Paul warns us, “Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12) and states that “some have made shipwreck of their faith” (1 Tim. 1:19)? What are we to think when it is actually said to the congregation, “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) and when we are warned to keep ourselves in the love of God (Jude 20)? Does it then depend on us after all, and are the Remonstrants right when they say that the preservation is “conditional” and that God preserves only those who keep themselves in the love of God?

Gift and task←↰⤒🔗

It is striking that there does not seem to be any tension in Scripture between the promises of protection and the warnings that we must persevere. They often occur in what is clearly the same context. Paul warns us: “Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12), but points at the same time to the faithfulness of God who will not let us be tempted beyond our ability (1 Cor. 10:13). Peter speaks of a being guarded in the power of God, but significantly adds “through faith,” thereby reminding us of our responsibility (1 Peter 1:5). John comforts us by speaking of him who protects us and who ensures us that the evil one does not touch us (1 John 5:18), but he also warns, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). Christ says, “Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world” (Rev. 3:10).

Scripture clearly proclaims the perseverance of God’s children as a gift that is inseparably connected to the task to be faithful. That is not surprising, for it is the way in which the Lord deals with us in his covenant. In the covenant, promise and responsibility go hand in hand. And that is so because of the nature of the covenant.⁴ The Lord speaks to us in the covenant and at the same time makes it clear that he has a claim on us. He gives us salvation in Christ and demands of us to live according to that gift. We see that very compactly when the Lord says to Abraham, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless” (Gen. 17:1). That promise and demand go hand in hand belongs not only to the nature of the covenant, but is also the result of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit does not destroy our personality but renews and sanctifies it. His work has as purpose that we learn to function again according to God’s intention. He renews us in order that we “will” and “work” (Phil. 2:13) what the Lord asks of us.

Promise and demand go together because of the nature of God’s covenant. They can go together because the Holy Spirit makes us willing and ready to serve the Lord. What the Lord asks of us he works in us through his Spirit. And so we can say: the Lord promises what he asks and he asks what he promises. The demand is the contents of the promise!

We must keep this in mind when we deal with the question: will we persevere? The promise of our protection is not an unconditional promise of salvation. Only those who endure to the end will be saved (Matt. 10:22; 24:13). We are being guarded by God’s power, but “through faith” (1 Peter 1:5). The Reformed fathers of the seventeenth century did not hesitate to speak of the condition of belief and conversion.⁵ But they resolutely rejected the way the Remonstrants spoke about this — namely as something that we must achieve by our own strength and that totally depends on our will. Our fathers did not forget the little word “if” of John 15, but stated: it is the Lord who gives us the strength to accomplish that “if.” We can meet his conditions because he himself works in us “to will and to work.” There is perseverance because he makes it possible for us to persevere.

The cautioning words we read so often in the New Testament have no other purpose than to urge us to live a God-fearing life. They draw attention to the fact that God’s promises are fulfilled by way of faith. The promise of protection is being realized because we work out our salvation by faith in God’s power. The extent to which in the perseverance of the saints promise and demand go hand in hand we hear in the Canons of Dort, V.14: “Just as it has pleased God to begin this work of grace in us by the preaching of the gospel, so he maintains, continues, and perfects it by the hearing and reading of his Word, by meditation on it, by its exhortations, threats, and promises, and by the use of the sacraments.”

Whoever carelessly thinks: “God’s children will make it, no one will be able to snatch us out of his hands,” ignores the emphatic warning in Scripture and forgets that gift and demand are inseparably connected. The confession of perseverance can never become an “excuse for the sinful flesh,” as the Remonstrants thought. When it functions like that, then one has totally forgotten how Scripture speaks about this!

God’s faithfulness←↰⤒🔗

But if also in the case of our perseverance we have to speak of gift and requirement, promise and demand, can we then still speak of the comfort of the perseverance of the saints, as the Canons of Dort do? Doesn’t the little word “if” in John 15 indicate the dark possibility that we do not remain in Christ and do not keep his commands? Doesn’t Paul speak of the possibility of “falling” (1 Cor. 10:12), and of a “making shipwreck” of one’s faith (1 Tim. 1:19)? What guarantee do we have that this will not happen to us and that we will persevere?

These questions have been seriously considered already by the fathers of Dort. They do not deny that God’s children can sometimes wander far away from the road on which they have been graciously led. They are then tempted by their sinful desires and follow them. And so it happens that they are pulled along by Satan to commit heavy and horrible sins. Scripture shows us that more than once, particularly in the cases of David and of Peter. What the Canons say about perseverance stands in the midst of our weakness and the aggression of our mortal enemies: the devil, the world, and our sinful heart.

The Canons therefore underline that there would be no perseverance if it depended on us. If the believers should be left to themselves, they would not be able to remain standing in the grace they had received (V.3). Here the Canons clearly turn against the Remonstrants’ delusion that perseverance is a matter of human faithfulness. When we look at ourselves there is no ground for a confession about perseverance. Then there is no comfort.

The terrible fall of David and that of Peter teach us not to speak of human faithfulness. In the entire process of perseverance there is only one who is faithful, and that is the Lord. When in V.3 all human possibilities are closed, there is the jubilation, “But God is faithful, who mercifully confirms them in the grace once conferred upon them and powerfully preserves them in that grace to the end.”

There is a grace that has “once been conferred” upon us as believers. About that grace the Canons spoke when in Chapter I they confessed God’s merciful election and in Chapter III/IV the grace of conversion. God does not forsake the work of his hands. On the contrary, he confirms us in mercy and guards us with power in the grace he once conferred on us. It is what Paul states with jubilation in 1 Corinthians 1:8, 9: He “will sustain you to the end…. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The way in which the Lord sustains his own, also when they have fallen deeply, the Canons explain when they say that God keeps them from plunging themselves into eternal ruin and committing the sin unto death. Also in their sin the Lord does not leave them to themselves. By his Word and Spirit he renews them to repentance. And so the miracle happens: they repent and turn away from the evil they committed (V.6, 7). We see that also with David and Peter. God’s children can grieve the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30); they can even resist the Spirit (Acts 7:51). But the fathers of Dort confess at the same time the invincibility of God’s grace ⁶ : “The power of God whereby he confirms and preserves true believers in grace is so great that it cannot be conquered by the flesh” (V.4). We may obstinately continue in our sinful way, but we will lose out against the power of the Spirit. When he “arrests” us, we shed tears of repentance!

Paul writes: “But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one” (2 Thess. 3:3). That is the guarantee for all endurance, for our perseverance, on the way of faith. We may be convinced that “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6); that he will continue the work, also if we wander from the road, are dragged away by our mortal enemies, and fall deeply. God in his grace and compassion will show the truth of the promise that “no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (John 10:29).

Consolation for believers←↰⤒🔗

The Canons are very pastoral. That appears again in Chapter V. Repeatedly they speak of the consolation of what we may confess about perseverance (see V.10, 15). And they are right. If we did not know that the Lord will bring his work in us to completion and will guard us “until that Day” (2 Tim. 1:12), we would permanently live in uncertainty and lose all courage.

But this does not mean that we always feel that certainty. The Canons are here again very realistic (V.11). We still struggle much with all sorts of doubt. Also, when the devil attacks us and we are greatly tempted, we tend rather to despair than to put our trust in the glory of God. But the Lord is with us also in the deep valleys. In the end he does lead us where we should be and ensures us again, by his Holy Spirit, of the certainty of perseverance.

Luther calls faith “a restless thing.” There are often ups and downs. The Canons therefore say that believers will have certainty of their perseverance “according to the measure of their faith” (V.9). The more we live “in faith,” the more certain we are of it: “the Lord will bring it to completion for me”, and the more clearly will the confession be heard: “I believe that I am and forever will remain a living member of this congregation”.

The Canons emphasize that this consolation is one for all who fear the Lord (cf. V.15), and they warn against pride and sinful complacency (V.12). What Scripture says about God’s guarding is a promise for those who believe. If we do not walk on “the ways of the elect” (I.13), then we may not claim this consolation of election. No one may carelessly take it for granted and say: I believe and therefore I will cross the finish line. We cannot draw logical conclusions here. For in the confession of the perseverance of the saints we do not deal with logical argumentation but with a mystery of salvation for those who fear God. It is of the righteous person that Psalm 37:24 says, “Though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.” In their weakness and in the midst of the evil one’s aggression the Lord encourages his children, “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you” (Isa. 54:10).

Professor Van der Meiden is wrong. Faith does not create perseverance for itself. Perseverance does not depend on our preparedness to renew, and certainly not when it means relinquishing the contents of our faith wherewith modern people “can’t do anything.” Jude, on the contrary, warns us to contend for “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), admonishes us to build ourselves in our “most holy faith,” and proclaims that as the way to keep ourselves in the love of God (Jude 20, 21). The Lord Jesus connects the abiding in him with the abiding of his “words” in us (John 15:7).

Rigid conservatism does not save the church. Fearfully preserving traditions can contribute to people’s leaving the church. The church may not forget that we live in another time than those who came before us. There is a charge to “stay with the times.” Renewal is sometimes drastically necessary. But that may never happen at the price of what under no condition may be given up: faithfulness to the Word of God, guarding all that Christ has commanded us. Practicing such faithfulness is the way for the church to have a future. In that case there is the promise: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).