Perseverance of the Saints (Calvinism Series: Part Five)

Perseverance of the Saints and Preservation in Christ

Hi, this is Jimmy. On TheoCast today, we wrap up our five-week series on Calvinism. We talk about the fifth point of perseverance of the saints or preservation of the saints. Within that conversation, we take a look at, quite honestly, the real struggle of the Christian life.

And we even answer the question or take an attempt to answer the question is, how much can a sinner sin? And for how long can a sinner sin and still be among the elect? The conversation gets a little lively in our members podcast.

And so be sure to check that out as well. Thanks for listening. Welcome to TheoCast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a reformed perspective. Our hosts today are John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, and myself, Jimmy Buehler, pastor of Christ Community Church in Wilmer, Minnesota.

What's going on guys?

Oh, you know, living life, trusting Christ, getting cold outside.

There it is.

We had a wee bit of frightful weather blow through Western North Carolina yesterday morning.

Yeah.

First snowfall season for us. We're all in a cold snap.

Yeah. Yeah. Other than that, man, honestly, what we're talking about today, I don't want to give away the farm or anything. We're talking about the assurance and the perseverance of the saints and life for us.

Lately in the Purdue house and all has felt a little bit like grind and being ground down to powder somewhat just with the rigors of small kids. And like my toddler's got a broken bone in his leg and all this kind of stuff.

You told me that yesterday.

I was like, what?

Sometimes, sometimes toddlers get fractures in their tibia. So we've got the pediatric orthopedist appointment tomorrow. Everybody's excited for that. And, um, yeah, so it's just one of those, it's one of those seasons of life where, uh, I think my wife and I both occasionally look at each other and it's like, you know, we could just quit, you know, like all of this stuff.

And so I think in our human experience, this stuff that we're going to be talking about today, it matters a ton because if my life as a husband, as a dad, as a pastor is ultimately going to be fueled by my, I don't know.

Anything. It's not going to go well. So that's, that's where we are. I mean, there's a lot of good things in life because God is kind. God is gracious. It's still college football season. It's bourbon time.

I mean, it's nice and cool and crisp outside. Nice, nice time to gather around a fire. We're super grateful for our friends in our church who encourage us and point us to Christ and pastors need that just as much as anybody, you know?

Yeah, that's very true.

I mean, this isn't my cultural update, but I like to rob it.

Yeah.

So now that I've, now that I've literally uplifted everyone.

Yeah, you have, you guys, I'm encouraged.

Yeah, no, I was just going to say my son and I went deer hunting for the first time ever. Of course we didn't shoot anything and yeah. And so we, you know, we're out in the blind and we sat out there for about two hours with my, my neighbor and we, it was a great, it was beautiful day.

And of course never saw a deer, never heard a deer. And then the next morning, my kids wake me up to tell me that three deer, including a buck, walk right across my front yard, you know, 50 yards away.

That's how it works. They are smart.

Hunting though is a remarkable thing in that you can go hunting and not see anything and still have a good time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, as, as, as somebody who actually has shot a deer, I mean, no offense, John. Um, yeah. Shout out, shout out to my buddy, Josh, who helped me gut that thing. But as somebody who has been hunting a few times, you know what the key is?

Perseverance.

What's that?

Perseverance.

You know what?

Best transition of the year.

I know that was good. I mean, that was remarkable. Do you like that?

Yeah.

I mean, we were hanging on the edge of our seats, Jimmy. What is the key, brother? Please tell us.

I mean, I do say that, you know, tongue in cheek, but it is, I am serious. Like there is so much perseverance required to sit out in the cold. I mean, for us, it's cold. I don't know about your weather per se, but to sit out in the cold and, you know, be motionless and be silent.

But anyway, John, what are we, what are we talking about today?

Well, today is the final podcast around our Calvinism series. We went through the history and actually through each point biblically and.

Historically.

Yeah, we're done with Calvinism after today.

Yeah.

We're never talking about that again.

Well, an overview, an overview. And today is 0 .5, which is Perseverance of the Saints. So if this is your, your first episode to Theocast, we have 10 other episodes that are available. You can go back and listen to our intro episodes, which is about 20 minutes long, and I'll give you a little bit of an overview of what we're doing.

Here as a podcast and those 10 episodes, just like the gospel are free.

Oh man.

There you go. And then you can go back to episode one and you can listen to the introduction of the history and then total depravity. And I would say that total depravity really is the foundation for the Reformed faith and the understanding of, and what I mean by foundation, it helps under, it helps us understand the purpose of the gospel and how the gospel affects us in our lives.

So today is the fifth and final, which is the Perseverance of the Saints, which JP here in a minute is going to maybe offer us another, as I think we've done with every single one, you know, every single point at this point, we have given maybe another, and it's just language, change of language, sometimes the confusion around it, but we are talking about the final stage of the five points of Calvinism, and that is the Perseverance of the Saints.

So gentlemen, which one of you would like to give us a definition and then maybe offer with that definition, maybe an alter instead of using Perseverance of the Saints, we might want to use something else.

So JP, do you want to take, yeah, go ahead, man.

Sure, man. So the acronym TULIP that describes and summarizes the five points of Calvinism. The reason that we often offer other terms that can be used is there are other terms that might be more fitting that just would not fit into this nice word TULIP, and so, yeah, it's legitimate to do this.

Perseverance of the Saints is an entirely fine term, and it implies, I think what we're going to be talking about today, that those who are gods, whom he has chosen unconditionally from before the foundation of the world, those for whom Christ has died and accomplished redemption on their behalf, those whom God has called effectually to himself, will persevere to the end and will be finally glorified and saved and will be with God forever.

And so that in a nutshell is what the Perseverance of the Saints is. It's that all of God's people will endure to the end and will be with him, will be saved. An alternative term that's, I think, good, that can be helpful, that might even be more precise, is the Preservation of the Saints, because that puts the emphasis on God as the actor rather than on our perseverance.

Of course, we do persevere by God's grace, but it's not so much grounded in us, obviously, as it is grounded in God who preserves us in Christ. And so that's the conversation we're going to be having today, is the work of God in preserving us in his Son unto final salvation.

I think that's helpful, Justin, and I just want to point out kind of a verse that encapsulates this idea nicely. It comes from Romans 8, verse 28, which is a very popular verse. You could call it a coffee mug verse or even a refrigerator verse, if you will.

Romans 8, 28 and going on all the way through 30. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.

In order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Verse 30 here specifically, and those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified.

So historically, this has kind of been known as, perhaps you've heard it as the golden chain of salvation, the chain of salvation that cannot be broken. Or you might've heard it in its Latin term, or ordo salutis, that those whom God has predestined, he's called.

We talked about effectual call last week. Those whom he has called, he has justified. This is a free justification by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone. And also, and this is kind of what we're talking about today, that those whom he has justified, he has also glorified.

That Paul can speak with such confidence that those who have been justified by faith, God will indeed glorify.

Amen.

I would say that another verse to add to that is in Paul, Paul is writing to the Philippians, and he's writing to people who are partnering with him in the gospel, and the assurance he gives to them is this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

He does not commend them and say, if you remain faithful, if you do enough works. He says, if the work that's being done in you is a work of Christ, then that is a work that will be accomplished by him.

Of course, he says the same thing to the Galatians, that you begin by the spirit, or did you begin by the flesh? If you begin by the spirit, that means you're going to continue by the spirit. So, the on-working of the work of the father in the believer's life is connected not to their own perseverance, but as I think JP has said, the perseverance or the preservation of the Holy Spirit.

Jimmy, you referenced Romans 8 .30 pointedly. Well, Paul immediately after that, in verses 31 to 39, continues in his line of thinking, and he takes us immediately to the love of God for us in Christ.

He asks a number of rhetorical questions. Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It's God who justifies. Who's going to condemn us? It's Christ Jesus who died for us, and more than that, who was raised for us.

Will we ever be separated from the love of Christ? Answer, no. Immediately, that's where Paul goes in grounding these wonderful promises that God in this, like you said, the golden chain of redemption and salvation that won't be broken, it's all grounded in God, and it's grounded in Christ and the love of God for us in Christ.

That's where we look ultimately. We're going ahead and talking about a number of scriptural passages right now to support an understanding of the perseverance of the saints. We would be remiss if we don't mention John 6, John 10, where Jesus makes it quite clear that it is the will of his Father that he would lose none of the people that the Father has given him, but he would raise them up on the last day.

So it's like, you want to know what the will of God is? The will of God is that none of the elect in Christ Jesus will ever be lost, and God himself will see to it that that happens. Christ has said, I will accomplish this, and Christ is not going to fail.

Then in John 10, he says a whole host of things about laying his life down for the sheep, and how he's the good shepherd, and how he knows his sheep, and they know him, and they listen to him, and they follow him.

But then he promises us that he has given us eternal life, and that no one will ever be able to snatch us from his hands, and no one will be able to snatch them from the Father's hands. So we're in Christ's hands and in the Father's hands both.

That's our assurance. That's our peace.

And then just to add a couple of other verses there, 1 Peter 1 .5, Peter says, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed on the last time? So it is not a power on us, it's God's power.

And referencing John that JP had just talked about, John 10 .28, I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. And in the negative sense, and we'll get into this a little bit later, if someone actually does end up fully and finally walking away from Christ and fully denying the blood of Christ, 1 John 2 .19 says that if they go out from us, but they were not of us, or if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.

And we'll get into this a little bit later, but I would say from a scriptural standpoint, these are just a few verses that we can, we'll put more on the website and give you some book recommendations, but as an example, it's very clear throughout the New Testament that the preservation of the believer is not placed in the power of the person who has faith, but in the power of the Holy.

Spirit.

So if somebody were to ask me, Justin, how do you know that you'll be finally saved? How do you know that you're going to make it to the end? And that's the question, if we're all honest, that's gnawing away at our hearts and minds all the time, because I still struggle against my own corruption mightily every day.

We've already alluded to that even earlier. I did in my cultural update. It's like, man, life's hard right now and I'm not crushing it. And my wife doesn't feel like she's crushing it. So how can we have any hope, any peace, any confidence that we will be counted amongst the righteous on the last day?

The answer to that question is Christ, full stop. And I'm mindful, I'm going to give us one more verse. And like John said, we'll put other references in the show notes. But three verses from the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 7, 23 through 25, read this way.

The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office. But he, Jesus, holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

That's how I know. That's how we know. It's because Christ intercedes for us. He has lived a perfect life for us. He's died an atoning death for us. He's absorbed and satisfied the wrath of God for us.

He's conquered death, hell, and sin for us. And he intercedes for us and he's coming back to get us. It's all about Christ.

Yeah, I think another helpful verse to think about, 2 Timothy 2, beginning in verse 11, the saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him, if we endure, we will also reign with him, if we deny him, he will deny us, so Paul definitely speaks of this tension, but then he gives us this great hope in 13, if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself, and I think what's so helpful about that little poetic aside in Paul's second letter to Timothy is that Paul is ultimately pointing to God's faithfulness to us, that God is the one who is in this act of preserving, and I know that this doctrine, almost kind of more than any of the other ones, can promote almost an unhealthy level of navel gazing.

Am I persevering enough? Am I doing enough? Am I offering up the right things unto the Lord? Where ultimately, Justin, I think the way you put it earlier is very helpful. Where this is God's preservation of the saints, not us acting in and of ourselves outside of God, preserving ourselves, but it is God preserving us.

Justin Perdue. I agree, Jimmy. I'm going to read something probably later on from the Canons of Dort that speak beautifully to that and our utter inability to be able to pull this thing off. I'm mindful of Ephesians 1, verse 3 through 14, where we're told that we've been given every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus, and by every spiritual blessing, I assume that Paul means every spiritual blessing, and he goes on to outline a number of those, how we've been chosen, we've been adopted, we have redemption, we have all these things in Christ.

But then I think what sometimes is overlooked is the stuff that Paul says about the Holy Spirit in the last few verses of that section, where he tells us that we have been sealed by the promised Holy Spirit in Ephesians 1, verse 13, and where he tells us in verse 14 that the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of God's glory.

So not only is Christ doing all of this work on our behalf and interceding for us, but the Holy Spirit has sealed us. That's partly why we, as Baptists, will say, remember your baptism. That's what happened.

You have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, and you will be kept unto salvation by the Holy Spirit of God.

Well, some Baptists will say that.

Well, that's why I said we, guys, in terms of the three of us, in terms of our understanding, we will do a podcast down the road, perhaps.

The three Baptists on this podcast will say that.

We will remember your baptism.

We are.

Yeah.

A Baptist 400 years ago would have said that. I'm just saying.

I don't disagree with you. This is why Theocast has become, I think, important for people because we have recovered a lot of the rest that's been lost in baptism.

So, you know, I didn't mean to stir all that up, but anyway.

No, no, it's fine. I'm just being funny.

Neither here nor there.

So to connect this to you guys, in the world that a lot of people that listen to us come from, a Baptistic world. So just kind of reference what Justin was just saying. There's a different term they would use.

They wouldn't use perseverance of the saints. They would use security of the believer.

Eternal security.

Eternal security. And I would say that I will agree with that statement, if rightly defined. Where I take issue with that statement is when you are basing it upon a point in time in history where your security is, I'm pointing to this moment in my life where I know that because of this moment, I am eternally secure.

Some would say that it is a prayer. I said the sinner's prayer, Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner coming to my heart. And some would point it to, they had this emotional experience where all of a sudden the reality of the gospel hit them.

And now, oh, because I had this massive repentance, I transitioned. I was going down the path of whatever sin they want to say. And I stopped doing that sin. And it was at that moment, and because of that transformation in my life, I now have the security of my eternity.

And I would say, if you're basing your security of your eternity on a moment of time that happened, like something happened in your life, that would not be what I think scripture is speaking of. Now, some would point to the apostle Paul.

Paul had his Damascus Road event. And what I say is that the normative in scripture, well, the hard thing about Acts and a lot of the New Testament is that there's not a lot of normal things going on because there's people being in transition.

But for instance, all three of our families are growing up in a gospel-centric home. Our kids aren't going to have this frantic moment of transition in their.

Life.

And of course, their conversion is just as miraculous as Paul's. But I agree exactly with what you're saying, Jon. In that, especially the book of Acts, it's such a hinge point in redemptive history, where the Messiah has come.

He's ushered in the new covenant era. The church is being established. It's unique and not normative. Anyway, Jimmy, jump on in, man.

Eternal Security, Decisionism, and the Danger of Looking Backward

Jimmy Buehler. Well, no, I think what you're saying is helpful, Jon, particularly this phrase, eternal security. Let's try to get some categories lined up here, if we can. I would say, and you guys can perhaps push back or agree if you want, that when I don't see kind of this classical understanding of preservation of the saints and eternal security on the same plane, and let me just explain why.

And I think you are absolutely right, Jon, in what you were talking about, where this kind of eternal security view, I mean, I think it's kind of like the, dare I say, the ugly cousin of preservation of the saints, where there is a lot of overlap in terms of some of the ideas, but frankly, I think eternal security is more of a man-centric way or a man-centered way of understanding perseverance, that my security is not found within the glories and mysteries of Christ, but rather my security is found in a decision that I made in my life.

I can look back and say, well, yeah, decisionism is king, where decisionism becomes the gospel, that I have made a choice, either at a conference or at youth camp or whatever it is, and I am banking on that rather than trusting in Christ now and continually, where it's like, ultimately, preservation of the saints is Christ-focused.

It's that Christ will lose none. God will lose none. I will not be snatched. And that doesn't cause carnal living. That doesn't cause us to just run rampant and say, well, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I can just do whatever I want, but rather we fix our eyes upon Jesus, again, to speak to Hebrews again, but Justin, you were going to jump in there.

Justin Perdue I was just going to say, the kind of eternal security paradigm often ends up in the sort of cliche slogan, once saved, always saved, and that's the kind of—you're looking back to that prayer you prayed or the decision you made or whatever, but then there's often in that kind of a schema, a very mechanical perspective of this whole thing that I think is really unhelpful and misleading.

It's this, like, well, once saved, always saved, God's just going to mechanically kind of pull this off, where what we would be speaking to in the preservation of the saints or the perseverance of the saints is something that is quite living and active, where God keeps us through means, and there's a whole host of means that we'll talk about later.

I know I want to take us to maybe the confessions briefly before we even flesh this out more in terms of implications and life in the church. I know we've got a couple of different paragraphs from the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith that we want to look at.

John, do you want to jump in on one of those? Do you want me to jump in on one? I've got the canons of Dort waiting on deck, so whatever.

Yeah, I'll transition us over there for sure. One of the things I wanted to add to what Justin just said is the once saved, always saved, the reason why a lot of people find Theocast's message, which is, I mean, if we're going to be honest, we are just ripping off the confessions and the Reformers.

There's none of us have ever had an original thought, and if we did, you should run from us as fast as you can.

You should stop listening.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So we're here to really recover what's already been written and been faithfully administered to the church for thousands of years now.

But if anything we ever say sounds new, it's just because it's so old that you've never heard it on this continent.

That's a good way to put it, yeah.

That's right. The danger, and we've mentioned this, but I wanted to point it out. The danger of once saved, always saved is that if you are basing the once saved on that event, that conversionism, that transformation of life, what happens when you have a Peter or David moment where your life isn't matching up?

And this is why in the Baptist world and in some other denominations, you have multiple conversions and multiple baptisms because that once moment, once saved, always saved, it must not have been real.

I remember sitting in my own bed wondering, was I genuine in my prayer? Was I genuine in my conversion? And if I wasn't, then I'm not once saved, always saved. I haven't had that once saved moment.

And that's all birthed out of revivalism. I mean, Charles Finney said, this is a paraphrase, he said that the Christian life falls apart if the Christian is not continually reconverted.

Wow.

I can't.

Seriously.

I mean, and so that's where this nonsense comes from. But anyway.

Yeah.

So we're going to go ahead and go over to the London Baptist confession. But I would say, for those of you that are new to confessionalism, much of what is written in the LBC is very similar because as our Presbyterian brothers like to say, we just copied the Westminster and I don't disagree.

It was a guilty as charged.

That's right.

It is a wonderful confession and this is not what this podcast is about. So anyways, the LBC is one that we are going to read from just for particular for this particular podcast. We are excited to announce that we have a new free ebook available at our website called faith versus faithfulness, a primer on rest, and we the hosts put this together to explain the difference between emphasizing one's faith in Christ versus emphasizing one's faithfulness to Christ and how one leads to rest and how the other often to a lack of assurance.

And you can get this at theocast .org slash primer. And if you've been encouraged by what you've been hearing at Theocast, we'd ask you to help partner with us. You can do that by joining our total access membership.

That's our monthly membership that gives you access to all of our material that we've produced over the last four years, or simply by donating to our ministry. And you can do that by going to our website, theocast .org.

We hope that you enjoy the rest of the conversation. So this is chapter 17 on the perseverance of the saints, and I'm going to read to us just a portion of point one. The opening statement says, thus God has accepted in the beloved, effectually called and sanctified by his spirit and given the precious faith of his elect can neither totally nor finally fall from a state of grace.

And I want to stop right there. That is probably one of the most important theological concepts to understand when it comes to this idea of the preservation of the saints. Let me read this again. And given the precious faith of his elect can neither totally nor finally fall from a state of grace.

What they are alluding to, and we will read throughout the rest of this confession, what they're alluding to is that Christians do have the capacity to fall away from grace, where they find themselves trapped and ensnared in sin.

And can do so for long periods of time, which I know some people are going to struggle with and call us antinomian, but please hear us out. Don't be quick to use the antinomian card foul here too quick, because we are not heralding something that's new.

We read the confession so that you can hear. We are connecting it to a very old tradition, not a new tradition. So gentlemen, when you hear the confession say neither totally nor finally fall from a state of grace, please, what do they mean by this?

I mean, I would say certainly that God is faithful to keep his own, that the promises that God has made us in Christ, in the gospel, that once we have been confronted by the law, and I mean, just the heinous nature of our sin has been thrown in our face, but we've also, by the spirit, been awakened to the truth of the gospel.

You know, our church has been working through first Corinthians and looking at this Christ and him crucified Christ for sinners, you know, the word of the cross is folly to the perishing, but to those being saved, it's the power of God.

But we so desperately need the spirit's help to awaken. And again, we're just appealing to the broader narrative of scripture that when we receive the spirit, it's a guarantee. It is a down payment. It is a deposit of what is to come.

And we can indeed fall away in a sense through our own sin. We can become blind to our own sin. We can become completely, you know, we can show serious negligence to the ordinary means. And this kind of shifts over to paragraph three of chapter 17 of that confession, where the framers say this, they may fall into grievous sins and continue in them for a time due to the temptation of Satan and the world, the strength of corruption remaining in them.

And this is what I want to point out, the neglect of means of their preservation. And I want to be so crystal clear here, okay, that I believe what these guys had in mind when they're talking about neglect of means, we're not talking about this individualistic expression of the Christian faith.

We are talking about participating in the body of Christ through word and sacrament, and dare I say, discipline, that we submit ourselves to our local church and our elders and the leaders over us to care for us and shepherd our souls.

And when we neglect that, we lose out on how God operates. So go ahead, JP, I have more to say.

They clarified, Jimmy, you don't mean spiritual discipline, so you mean the discipline of the church.

That's right.

Right.

And not just discipline in like, we're kicking you out sort of way, but discipline as in a care sense.

Informative discipline and care.

That's right.

Well, I mean, he's talking, it's a Hebrews 10 reality, right? Like don't neglect assembling together. Like in the context of that whole deal and the full assurance of faith, the writer of the Hebrews points them to gathering together to stir one another up to love and good works and all the rest.

And so certainly when the reformers and the framers of these confessions were thinking about negligence, they're thinking about ordinary means in the context of the gathered church. And couldn't agree more with that.

I think, John, you threw it out to us. Like, what do we think when we hear that it will not be like totally or finally lost or that we would not totally and finally fall away? I'll just throw a couple of thoughts in here and then kick it back over to you.

We've done podcasts in the not terribly distant past about the reality of sin in our lives, about how wicked we are, about how serious our remaining corruption is, and how Christians are capable of extraordinary evil.

And so Christians, it's normal, not okay, but it's normal for Christians to fall into sin, even serious patterns of sin and heinous sin, egregious sin. I mean, pick your descriptor, right? I mean, it's really bad.

And yet God has promised that in and through all of that, He is sovereignly and graciously working, and He has not lost control of this thing, and He is going to keep His children. And so in the church, in the Christian life, we're going to see all kinds of stuff that's scary, where people are hardened to their own sinfulness.

They're blind to it, as you said, Jimmy, where they might even find their sin enjoyable for a season of time, and they neglect every good means they could neglect, and yet at the end of it, before the story is written out and it's over, God has brought them back to the fold.

It could look like that.

Right.

And this is why, I mean, I just, I cannot overemphasize, you know, just the ordinary use of means that we sit under the preaching of the word. And this is, in our church, you know, liturgically speaking, we practice weekly where we read God's law, and I will frankly just kind of stop the service for a moment.

I just want this to sink into you. You know, I'm not sure where you're at. Like, I mean, honestly, assess and think and look at yourself as we read God's law, we're not talking about, you know, are we trying, are we being perfectly obedient, and we just kind of let the law undo us, but immediately after that, we move into a time of confession and then assurance of pardon from scripture and pronouncing forgiveness based on the authority and promise of God, but again, when we neglect these things, when we neglect these things, I mean, it's no wonder we fall into these, you know, grievous sins, because we're denying the way that God has promised to work.