Perseverance of the Saints

This is the one everybody likes to believe in. OK, well not everybody. This doctrine is referred to as “once saved, always saved”, eternal security, or the preservation of the saints. Let me start by saying that I have struggled to put my thoughts into print on this but it’s not because I find it hard to believe.

Arminians, or those who are not Calvinists, believe that the hinge - the point at which salvation is effective or not - lies with man. They say yes, God has made salvation possible in Jesus Christ, but we must believe for the atonement to be effective. How can this lead to security? If man “throws the switch” so to speak, can’t we “unthrow” it? Some would argue that once we make the decision to “accept Jesus” (as if we stand in judgment of Him) that God then obligates Himself to keep us, but I believe that when the triune God accepts us (because He judges us), He will keep His chosen for His own sake, and for His glory!

There was a time when I wasn’t sure about the security of the believer. As some of you know, I grew up Mennonite. Even among Mennonites, there is a wide range of beliefs on many topics so I’ll narrow it down even more. I grew up Old Colony Mennonite. For those who don’t know, this means black clothes for preachers (all the time, not just when preaching), no assurance of salvation, long homemade dresses on most of the women, and black “head coverings” for the women. Some go as far as not using rubber tires because of some obscure and misapplied Bible verse, although this was not my experience. People lived lives of pure legalism, and had no understanding of the gospel.

When I was old enough to drive I began attending a Sommerfeld Mennonite church. There was somewhat less bondage here, but it was still taught that there was no assurance of salvation. Thinking about it now, it really felt like a works salvation church. As long as you were “good” after trusting Christ you were saved, but if you committed one of the “big” sins you were lost. The big sins seemed to be defined by how much gossip they would produce. Sins like pride wouldn’t produce much, but being a drunk or committing sexual sin or anything “juicy” would produce a lot.

Then my family and I started attending a Baptist church. Here eternal security was preached. The teaching here was more biblical, although there was still much legalism. The definition the church had for legalism was adding works to salvation, so they didn’t believe they were legalistic even though there were many extra-biblical “standards” to aid in sanctification. Some of the rules to attend the Bible College there were simply laughable. Anyway, my assessment of the teaching here was that if you responded to an altar call and “prayed the prayer” in response, perhaps, to an emotional appeal or to the music, that you were saved forever. If you later left the church and lived a life of sin, the church prayed for “rededication”. If the sin was bad enough, maybe whether someone had really ever been saved was called into question, but this was rare.

Some might be thinking at this point, “Who is he to say we can judge if someone is saved or not?” It turns out that the Bible has something to say about this. 1 John 2:3-6 says:

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

Further, 1 John 3:6-10 says:

No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

This of course does not mean we must be completely sinless, but if the unbroken practice of our lives is to not keep His commandments, the Bible says we have not been saved.

So what about those who made professions of faith, but then something happened like the death of someone close to them, or they were impacted horribly by someone else’s sin and then they left the faith? Well we know that salvation is forever:

1 Pet 1:3-5 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, ⁵ who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

John 17:11 Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.

John 10:28-29 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. ²⁹ My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.

Rom 8:33-39 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written: “ For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”³⁷ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So we look at people who once professed faith, and now they have fallen away. If we try to use personal experience in this way and we say that they lost their salvation, we have elevated our experience above the Bible. We know (or we should know) that the Bible doesn’t contradict itself. So we study further and come to 1 John 2:19:

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.

This verse explains why some people who were professing Christians left the faith. They were never really “of us”. The fact that they left indicates that their faith was a mere profession. If we preached the gospel the way Jesus did, we wouldn’t have the false conversions. We need to count the cost and take up our crosses daily, and we should tell people this up front when evangelizing. Salvation is not necessarily going to give you a wonderful life this side of eternity.

So what about the verses that say things like “he who endures to the end will be saved” or “if you continue in the faith” or other similar statements? I would say that because we know the Bible clearly says salvation is eternal, that these are descriptive of what a saved person will be like, not prescriptive of what it takes to be saved. In other words, these statements will be true of those who are really saved. They will endure to the end, and they will continue in the faith. It’s not that we work really hard and try really hard, and if we can remain faithful to the end, we will be worthy of being saved.

Finally, be aware that there is such a thing as a false believer. They are called false brethren, and tares whom the enemy has planted. I am told that tares look just like wheat, but have no edible grain. Tares look just like Christians but do not have the Holy Spirit in them, so they are not Christians (Rom. 8:9). If you keep in mind that not all who profess to be believers really are, it will help us to make sense of people who have left the faith, and it will help us make sense of those who go to church and call themselves Christians, but whose lives do not show that they are children of God.