Perseverance of the Saints Explained
Perseverance of the Saints Explained
OSAS tends to lead to the view that there is nothing remaining for the believer in their walk of faith. Who denies that there are not a few of those that sign the pledge card or answer a
Finneyistic altar call soon show themselves to be not of us for they went out of us?
The reason is that the typical OSAS view, never carefully explained from the pulpit, ends up in error, such as in Keswickian
Exchanged Life views that include rationales leading to licentiousness--doing whatever a person wants "now that I am saved and always will be". OSAS fosters the wrong mindset, for example:
Perhaps, but you cannot renounce Jesus and His finished work and start worshipping Satan as your God and still be justified forever. You cannot blaspheme the Holy Spirit or become a godless atheist cursing the possibility of God/Christ and still be justified.
Since you would agree with me that circ cannot do this, why is it so hard to see that uncirc cannot do it (MAD makes up mythical two gospel theories to justify nonsense as above). You are being lied to and not presenting a biblical view.
Some of your MAD friends would say that it is not possible for a Christian to kill someone. This is also false.
"Perhaps, but you cannot renounce Jesus and His finished work and start worshipping Satan as your God and still be justified forever."-wolf
Yes I can. I am justified forever. I could deny the Lord Jesus Christ, worship satan, kill 100000000000 people, and I am justified forever.
You see, wolf, that is the difference between a saved , honest man, like myself, and a religious, dishonest prostitute like yourself. I know the bad news, and thus I know the good news, and what happened 2000 years ago, and why it was necessary. You are clueless. My evidence? Evey one of your perverted posts.
Beloved,
believers are not mere punctiliar (one-time event) Christians. The Spirit waters and feeds our repentance and faith through the means of grace. These means
keep us alive in the faith and are not just a means for
starting us in the faith. God commands our
ongoing attention to our faith, that we examine ourselves (
feed our faith, starve our doubts) to make sure our
faith is real. God also
provides that which He commands, ordaining the
ends as well as the
means to the ends—even the believer's
conversion (re-birth, faith, sanctification, final glory). Augustine's little prayer sums it up: "
O Lord, grant what Thou dost command and command what Thou dost desire." Pelagius never grasped what Augustine meant, failing to see that no one can please God unless God provides us in some manner via His means to meet His requirements.
As Scripture teaches, enduring to the end, holding fast to the faith, abiding in Christ and His Word are vital to one's
conversion (“conversion” here meaning the full salvific process). If these evidences of faith do not exist a professing Christian, upon self examination, should question their conversion to prove it out. But in no way whatsoever does this perseverance imply
doing good works. Rather it is from the believer’s duty, their “oughtness” that good works springs, and yet even these good works are not at all of themselves, but wholly from the Spirit of Christ.
But,
and this is important, there are some who would hold that a true believer
may not persevere and can be ultimately lost. Such is but the view originating from Rome that has smuggled into evangelicals who harbor semi-Pelagianism bringing dishonor to God and Our Lord for what He did for us.
At this point, some would then ask, "Well, if the believer
will persevere then why do the Scriptures contain admonitions and warning verses for salvation?" In reply I answer, as noted above, God ordains the
end but also the
means to the end. One of those means of God for His glory is the
perseverance of the believer in faith to the end. God
effects His means of perseverance in the believer by
admonishing them of the consequences of not persevering to the end. We must take these admonishments seriously. Why? Because these admonishments serve as a
means to
stir up the faithful.
An example from Scripture might help explain. Consider Paul about to be shipwrecked in Acts 27. We read that God had
assured Paul that no one would lose their life in that shipwreck. Yet, despite this clear assurance
from God, Paul, being stirred up,
admonishes those on the ship that unless the persons trying to leave by the lifeboat remain on board, those on the ship
would not be saved. Note here that the Apostle was
assured of their salvation, Paul knew the
means of their salvation, and his warning produced the
desired result.
Speaking under the superintended inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Peter tells us that those who are "
elect according to the foreknowledge of God" and "
begotten again unto a lively hope" are "
kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." (I Peter 1:2-5).
Indeed, God's almighty power
preserves the true believer so that he or she receives that final and complete salvation that will be revealed at the eschaton. It can be no other way, for
the work of salvation is God's work and
God's work does not fail.
The teachings of the
perseverance of the saints in Scripture is succinctly described in the
Westminster Confession of Faith as follows:
Chapter XVII - Of the Perseverance of the Saints.
1. 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. (Phil. 1:6, 2 Pet. 1:10, 1 John 3:9, 1 Pet. 1:5,9)
2. This perseverance of the saints depends not upon
their own free will, but upon the immutability of the
decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father; (2 Tim. 2:18-19, Jer. 31:3) upon the efficacy of the
merit and intercession of Jesus Christ, (Heb. 10:10, 14, Heb. 13:20-21, Heb. 9:12-15, Rom. 8:33-39, John 17:11, 24, Luke 22:32, Heb. 7:25) the abiding of the Spirit, and of the seed of God within them, (John 14:16-17, 1 John 2:27, 1 John 3:9) and the nature of the
covenant of grace: (Jer. 32:40) from all which ariseth also the certainty and infallibility thereof. (John 10:28, 2 Thess. 3:3, 1 John 2:19)
3. Nevertheless, they may, through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins; (Matt. 26:70, 72, 74) and, for a time, continue therein: (Ps. 51 title, Ps. 51:1) whereby they incur God’s displeasure, (Isa. 64:5, 7, 9, 2 Sam. 11:27) and grieve His Holy Spirit, (Eph. 4:30) come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts, (Ps. 51:8, 10, 12, Rev. 2:4, Cant. 5:2-4, 6) have their hearts hardened, (Isa. 63:17, Mark 6:52, Mark 16:14) and their consciences wounded; (Ps. 32:3-4, Ps. 51:8) hurt and scandalize others, (2 Sam. 12:14) and bring temporal judgments upon themselves. (Ps. 89:31-32, 1 Cor. 11:32)
AMR