The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints logically flows from the doctrines of unconditional election, irresistible grace, total depravity, and limited atonement. If God is sovereign, as the Bible teaches and Calvinists assert, then God can and will preserve those whom He set His infinite and eternal love upon. God Preserves the Elect Psalm 37:28. “For the Lord loves justice, and does not forsake His saints; they are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked shall be cut off.” Plumer writes: “God’s people are surrounded by walls of fire, by a heavenly host, by the infinite care of God. They are kept as the apple of God’s eye, Ps. xvii. 8.”143 “He will preserve them to his heavenly kingdom; that is a preservation for ever, 2 Tim. iv. 18; Ps. 12:7.”144 Psalm 121:3, 7-8. “He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber.… The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul. The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and forevermore.” Jeremiah 32:40. “And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me.” In this passage God promises that He will never leave or forsake His people. This verse proves that God works effectually in the elect. God causes His people to persevere by changing their hearts. Real Christians fear God because of the Holy Spirit’s ability to work directly upon the human heart to change it. The Holy Spirit guarantees that true believers will never depart from God. Hodge writes: “The certainty of the perseverance of the saints in grace is secured...by the constant indwelling of the Holy Ghost. He acts upon the soul in perfect accordance with the laws of its constitution as a rational and moral agent, and yet so as to secure the ultimate victory of the new spiritual principles and tendencies implanted in regeneration. John xiv. 16, 17; I John iii. 9.”145 John 17:11. “Holy Father, keep [from tereo, preserve] through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.” Pink writes: “How this brings out the value Christ sets upon us and the deep interest He has in us! About to return to the Father on high, He asks the Father that He will preserve those so dear to His heart, those for whom He bled and died. He hands them over to the care of the very One who had first given them to Him. It was as though He said: I know the Father’s heart! He will take good care of them! And why was it, why is it, that we are so highly esteemed by Christ? Clearly not for any excellency which there is, intrinsically, in us. The answer must be, Because we are the Father’s love gift to the Son.”146 Romans 14:4. “Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.” Shedd writes: “It denotes not merely the pronunciation of a favorable judgment, but also support in that course of life and conduct which results in a favorable judgment. The ‘strong’ shall be enabled by God’s grace to stand in faith and obedience, and thereby in the final judgment.”147 Romans 16:25. “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ....“ “God is able to establish or strengthen believers so that they will not ‘vacillate, and depart from evangelical truth.’”148 1 Corinthians 10:13. “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” Hodge writes: “He has promised to preserve his people, and therefore his fidelity is concerned in not allowing them to be unduly tempted. Here, as in 1, 9, and everywhere else in Scripture, the security of believers is referred neither to the strength of the principle of grace infused into them by regeneration, not to their own firmness, but to the fidelity of God.”149 2 Corinthians 9:8. “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, have an abundance for every good work.” “The sacred writers often appeal to the power of God as a ground of confidence to his people. Rom. 16, 25. Eph. 3, 20. Jude 24.”150 Ephesians 5:25. “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.” Philippians 1:6. “Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Note that a Christian’s confidence resides not in himself but in God. The work of grace that God has begun in Christians will be brought to completion. What God starts He completes. God can guarantee a believer’s preservation, “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). I Thessalonians 5:23-24. “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.” Morey writes: “The Apostle places the basis of ultimate salvation upon the covenantal faithfulness of God. God’s faithfulness was displayed when He effectually called us into union with Christ (I Cor. 1:9). And as God’s faithfulness began our salvation by calling us, His faithfulness guarantees the ultimate completion of our salvation. The Apostle says that God ‘will do it,’ i.e., He will bring His people to complete sanctification. God’s covenantal faithfulness guarantees it.”151 2 Thessalonians 3:3. “But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one.” 2 Timothy 1:12. “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.“ Calvin writes: “What I have entrusted to him. Observe that he employs this phrase to denote eternal life; for hence we conclude, that our salvation is in the hand of God, in the same manner as there are in the hand of a depository those things which we deliver to him to keep, relying on his fidelity. If our salvation depended on ourselves, to how many dangers would it continually be exposed? But now it is well that, having been committed to such a guardian, it is out of all danger.”152 2 Timothy 4:18. “And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen!”153 Hebrews 12:2. “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” Hughes writes: “He alone evokes and stimulates faith; and it is because he is the pioneer of our salvation (Heb. 2:10) that he is the author of our faith. Our faith, moreover, is initiated and sustained by him because he has prayed the Father that we may come to faith (Jn. 17:20 f.) and that our faith may not fail (Lk. 22:31 f.). Thus we look to him as ‘the apostle and high priest of our confession’ (Heb. 3:1), and we have assurance that he who has begun a good work in us will bring it to completion (Phil. 1:6).”154 1 Peter 1:4-5. “To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Why do Christians have an inheritance which can never be taken away? Because believers are kept by the power of God. The heir “is guarded by God’s power. What power is greater? Paul makes the same point in Romans 8:38, 39. Nothing is more powerful than God. Thus the heir also is utterly secure.”155 Jude 1. “To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ.” Jude 24. “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy....” Thomas Manton writes: “To him that is able to keep you, it may be referred either to God, or to Christ as Mediator: from falling, aptaistous, that is, from total apostasy. God is able to keep us altogether from sin, if we speak of his absolute power; but he speaketh here of such a power as is engaged by promise and office. Christ, who is the guardian of believers, hath received a charge concerning them, and is to preserve them from total destruction. And to present you faultless. This clause showeth more clearly that Christ is intended in these expressions; for it is his office to keep the church till it be presented to the Father, and at length will present them faultless; it is, Eph. v. 27, ‘Without spot and blemish.’”156 Some may wonder: “God is able, but is He willing?” There are many passages which teach that God will keep and preserve His people—every single one of them (e.g. Jer. 32:40; Jn. 6:39; 10:28; 17:2, 11). ..Salvation is of the Lord! - Jonah 2:9
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 00:59:02 +0000
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