God’s Purpose, Promise, and Power 

One aspect that is often overlooked in any discussion of perseverance is the tremendous stake that God himself has in the security of his children. I am sure you remember how Moses pleaded with God to spare Israel when he announced that he was going to wipe the whole nation out and start all over with Moses as the new Abraham. Hear again the exchange between God and Moses:

And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. (Exodus 32: 9–13 KJV)

Notice how Moses argues that the very glory and reputation of God is at stake. The heathen will say that God’s grace and power are not sufficient to fulfill his purposes. His professed love for this people is not strong enough for him to forgive and keep them. Moses pleads God’s covenant promise and God’s power. God’s oath, power, purpose, and reputation are tied with Israel, his chosen people.

Our Lord realized that he was responsible for the safety of every sheep the Father had given him. This is clear in the following verses:

While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost.… (John 17:1 KJV)

That the saying might be fulfilled, which he spake, Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none. (John 18:9 KJV)

Again it is clear that the both the glory and reputation of our Lord and his Father are tied up with the perseverance of every one of the sheep. There are three things involved in this subject. There is the stated purpose of God, the specific promise of God, and the sovereign power of God.

The stated purpose of God is clearly set forth in the five golden links in the chain of grace described in Romans 8:28–32. Every person who has been chosen and predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ is going to be effectually called and perfectly justified. They are already—past tense—glorified in the mind and purpose of God. If one of the sheep in the chain of grace is lost, the whole chain is broken and God’s purpose is unrealized.

The specific promise of God is set forth in, among many others, the following passage from 1 Corinthians:

I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Cor. 1:4–9 KJV)

Notice the clear promise in verse 8. God has pledged to confirm the elect “unto the end.” Verse 9 assures us that God is faithful to perform the things that he promises. Just as he faithfully called those he had chosen, so he will be faithful in keeping them in grace. I will grant that this has two sides. 1 Peter 1:5 tells us that we are “kept by the power of God,” and Jude 21 exhorts us to “keep ourselves in the love of God.” These are the two sides of one coin and are not in contradiction. We keep ourselves in the love of God purely through the grace and power of God that is given to us. Notice how John states the matter. “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not (1 John 5:18 KJV). The “keeping” of ourselves is possible because of the truth that regeneration gives us a new nature. “…greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4 KJV).

The sovereign power of God in keeping his people is set forth in 1 Peter:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3–9 KJV)

The salvation of God begins with God’s abundant mercy in choosing us. We are then begotten by God’s power unto a living hope. That same grace enables us to keep on believing in spite of many hindrances and temptations. We are enabled to rejoice even in tribulation because we are positively certain of reaching the final and full salvation of our souls.

Observations

The eternal-security position does not consider the biblical exhortations to perseverance, and the saved-lost view incorrectly proposes that such exhortations would never have been given if it were not possible to fall away. It has not occurred to adherents of these positions that the very means that God uses to assure our efforts to persevere are the warnings against apostasy. Someone has said, “To warn a traveler to keep to a certain path, and by the warning keeping him to the path, is no evidence that he will ever fall into a pit by the wayside just because you warned him about it. The very warning was necessary to keep him in the path.” John Bunyan said, “There are two deep ditches on either side of the road to heaven. The one is the ditch of despair, and the other is the ditch of presumption. In front of the ditch of despair, God has placed a row of hedges made of promises to keep the poor pilgrim from despair in times of defeat. In front of the ditch of presumption, he has placed another row of hedges made of up of fearful warning to keep the poor pilgrim from presuming on the grace of God.” J.C. Ryle said there were two thieves on either side of Christ. The one was saved in order to show there are death-bed conversions, and the other was lost to show that no one should wait and presume.

I must add one last observation. Whenever you say that a man was saved and is now lost, you make two possible grievous mistakes. You judge the man’s heart in saying he was saved, and then you judge a second time when you say he is lost. We would all have pronounced Judas as saved for nearly three whole years, and we would have been wrong. We would also have labeled Peter a lying hypocrite when he cursed and swore, and again we would have been wrong. Judas was lost even when everyone would have put him on the saved list, and Peter, though backslidden, was a true believer, even though all of us would have put him on the lost list.

The nature of true salvation is covered in Appendix A, which consists of those portions of The London Baptist Confession of Faith that deal with this subject, and in Appendix B, which examines the carnal Christian doctrine.