Persevering Grace for 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. I and the Father are one.” John 10:27-30
Dear Friends & Family,
The Perseverance of the Saints (or perhaps a better title, Persevering Grace For the Saints) is a Biblical doctrine that speaks to the endurance and eventual glorification of God’s elect. True Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ will endure to the end and be saved, not because they hold on to Christ, but because He holds on to them. When we witness professing Believers fall away from Christ, it isn’t because they were saved and somehow have now lost their salvation. This is, according to Scripture, an impossibility. Instead, it’s important to understand that “The Faith That Fizzles Before the Finish was False From the First.” In other words, they never truly knew Him or were regenerated by Him, although they gave the outward appearance of salvation. They were simply “tasters” of the heavenly fruits. Christ has much to say about counterfeit men and women who profess His name, looking and sounding like authentic Believers for a time, only later to be truly revealed as being sinfully apostate by time and circumstances.
John Murray in Redemption Accomplished and Applied wrote the following: “In order to place this doctrine of perseverance in its’ proper light we need to know what it is not. It does not mean that everyone who professes faith in Christ and who is accepted as a believer in the fellowship of the saints is secure for eternity and may entertain the assurance of eternal salvation. Our Lord himself warned His followers in the days of His flesh when He said to those Jews who professed His name, “If you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31, 32). He set up a criterion, the ID badge for authentic Christianity, by which true disciples might be distinguished, and that criterion is a love and continuance in Jesus’ Word.”
“We are secure, not because we hold tightly to Jesus, but because He holds tightly to us.” R.C. Sproul
It is important to understand that authentic regeneration is monergistic (a three-dollar theological word meaning “singularly powered” by God) and therefore, is not something that changes or loses its power because God never changes or loses His power. Were our salvation dependent upon us to remain enduringly faithful, steadfast and immovable to the end, who could make it? Who would be able to hold on to Christ year after year, experiencing the trials and temptations that are all too common to man? No one. Were it not for His persevering grace in us, these things would surely seduce us away from His love and His salvation. It is the truth of Persevering Grace that may be the shiniest of all the Doctrines of Grace, for if this one is not true, what good are the others? God is the author and perfecter of our faith. He is faithful to guard and complete what He started in us and holds on to us all the way through to the end. This doctrine, when thought through thoroughly, should cause the regenerate to humbly rejoice!