Preservation of the Saints

When we talk about once saved, always saved, it's important to know what it means and what it doesn't mean. It is a mistaken notion which regards the perseverance of the saints or the preservation of the saints as some kind of amazing insurance policy irrespective of the lives that we live. Preservation of the saints is a biblical doctrine. The apostles clearly embraced it and taught it, but unfortunately, it's been misunderstood in some dangerous ways. This week on Renewing Your Mind, we're focusing on some of the essential truths of the Christian faith, and our teacher today is Alistair Begg.

When John Bunyan closes Pilgrim's Progress, he does so with a staggering statement, Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gate of heaven, as well as from the city of destruction. I have been involved in the affairs of church life now for essentially all of my life, having known the benefit and blessing of a Christian upbringing. And therefore, there have been many, many people, and continue to be, who have marked and stamped my life for good and who have walked before me, marking out a path that I might follow.

In the vast majority of cases, I have followed their progress with the greatest of joy and continue, in some respect at least, to model my own life after theirs. The greatest sadness for me in relationship to all of that is to know the names today of some who once preached the Bible to me, others who explained it for me, others who walked before me, and yet who today are not involved in the affairs of the church, do not follow hard after Christ. Indeed, if addressed, would deny the very professions of faith which they had made in their earlier days, and they have wandered from the way. They have essentially taken the pathway of pliable in Pilgrim's progress, who in finding himself along with Pilgrim in the slough of despond, entered into an altercation with Pilgrim, asking him, is this the kind of thing that you expected when we set out from the city of destruction?

And without essentially waiting for Faithful or for Pilgrim to give him much of a response, he determines that he will out of the slough of despond, and Bunyan tells us he gets out of the slough at the side closest to his home, and he went back and was heard from no more. The fact is that in the course of each of our lives, if we are honest, we have witnessed the sorry spectacle of those who once walked the path and who yet have not continued. Now this is a subject that has not simply been given to me to address, although it has, but it is a subject which is uppermost in my mind at the moment, because in the course of our Sunday by Sunday exposition back in Cleveland, we are studying together at the moment the book of Hebrews.

And in the opening six chapters, which is as far as we have gone, I've been forcibly struck by the recurring emphasis which the writer makes on the absolute necessity of persevering, of staying the course, of keeping on track. And if your Bible is on your lap, why not turn to Hebrews for just a moment with me and let me underscore this for you. In Hebrews chapter 2 and in verse 1, the writer says we must pay more careful attention therefore to what we have heard so that we do not drift away, so that we do not drift away.

And it is moving through these opening chapters to the conclusion of chapter 3 and to three great, staggering questions. In verse 16, Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt?

And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? He is recording there one of the saddest and sorriest lines and lines of tombstones that is ever recorded in Scripture.

Some six hundred thousand of them who never made it into the Promised Land, despite a quite glorious beginning. Now if you note and allow your eye to scan back up to verse 12 of chapter 3, he says, I want you to see to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. In verse 14, he says, you know, we have come to share in Christ, and then notice the little two-letter word that is so important in a game of Scrabble if it lands on the right square, and it is vitally important here. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. Indeed, he says the same thing in verse 6, but Christ is faithful as a son over God's house, and we are God's house if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast. You go on into chapter 4 and in verse 1, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of the rest which God has promised to us. Verse 11 of chapter 4, let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.

Now, loved ones, I start here because I want to be very, very clear for myself and for you too. My understanding of the Bible is such that I believe that the doctrine of the preservation of the saints or the perseverance of the saints does not in any way make a fiction of these warnings in the book of Hebrews. These are real warnings for real people who have made professions and stepped out on the path. Indeed, quoting from Sinclair in his book, The Christian Life, from which I've derived as much help as any single book on the Christian life, he says, the New Testament warns us by precept and example that some professing Christians may not persevere in their profession of Christ to the end of their lives. So the issue then is not a matter of theological precision. It is definitely a matter of theological importance, but it is a matter of deep personal concern. It was to the Apostle Paul who on one occasion and recorded in 1 Corinthians 9 says, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. And the great skill in pastoral care in relationship to these things must surely be to know when to emphasize the warnings and when to come and administer the promises. And the book of Hebrews is full both of promises and warnings.

Every pastor understands this. I recall in the very early days in one of the three churches in which I have served being called to the home of a family that I didn't know. I had only been in the church, if I recall correctly, a matter of weeks. And I went there relatively early in the morning to be confronted by a fairly mature couple who were shattered by the untimely death of their daughter. And as I sat and listened to them, they told me that just in the early hours of that same morning, their daughter had been killed in a motorcycle accident. She and her boyfriend, with whom she had been living for some time, had been out the previous evening drinking and carousing.

And in the early hours of the morning and making their way towards their apartment, they had crashed into an oncoming car and both of them had been killed. And the father's great concern was to find out from me, and I've never forgotten how he had put it, because I think it was the first time I had heard it put in this way. His great concern was to ask me as his new pastor, Pastor, do you believe once saved, always saved?

Now, of course, my answer to that is yes. But in relationship to his daughter, what was I to say? This was a girl who for a period of time, indeed for some years ever since her teenage years, she had shown no interest in the things of Christ. She had not attended church.

She had absolutely no interest in Christian things whatsoever, and snatched away in a moment from the back of this motorcycle. Her father had gone somewhere in the house and had found a card that she had signed following an evangelistic meeting when she was a teenage girl. And he said to me, so we'll be okay, won't we? After all, you believe in once saved, always saved. Many of the people who approach me with these kind of questions are individuals who are marked by a kind of smug complacency and a groundless optimism, which has little if anything at all to do with a doctrine of salvation, which begins in the eternal counsels of God, and therefore will bring to the end those in whose lives He has begun a good work. And therefore it is imperative for us that we make sure that when we are thinking about the preservation of the saints, that an experiential grasp of this biblical doctrine is not something which ushers us into a life of carelessness and false bravado, but it is something which ushers us into a life of deep carefulness.

And I would suggest that those who have been embraced by it and are learning to live in the light of it will be those who are taking most care to the very warnings that are conveyed in the book of Hebrews. Now, all of that by way of introduction, because I'm getting ahead of myself. We need somehow or another to define our terms, and so let me do that. Indeed, let's allow Berkhof to do that. I had my own definition, but when I compared it to Berkhof's, I thought maybe Berkhof's would be better.

And if I told you mine, you would agree immediately. Berkhof says, perseverance is that continuous operation of the Holy Spirit in the believer by which the work of divine grace that is begun in the heart is continued and brought to completion. It is that continual operation of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life by which the work of divine grace begun in the heart is continued and brought to completion. Strictly speaking, and when you read theology you discover this, we're talking about the perseverance of God. It is on account of the fact that God perseveres in his love towards his own that we are enabled to persevere in our love towards him.

It is not some mustering up of frenetic activity on the part of the well-meaning professor, but it is rather that we have been laid hold of by his great and powerful hand. And that of course is brought out in the fact that as you will note from your outline today, the subject was described not as the perseverance of the saints, but of the preservation of the saints. And I would think purposefully in order to emphasize the activity of God so that we might know that it is he who preserves, it is he who keeps, and it is he who guards us. Now there are so many places in the Scriptures where this unfolds for us in the most helpful of ways. Let me turn with you for a moment of 1 Peter and to the opening verses there and simply underscore this essential truth, having supplied the definition.

Let us look to the Scriptures and see the way in which it unfolds in the plain and obvious meaning of the text. 1 Peter 1 3, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Peter writes to the scattered believers of his day to encourage them right out of the chute in his opening words, he tells them, you have been chosen by God the Father.

You are sanctified by the Holy Spirit and you are sprinkled with the blood of Christ, three facts which are true of every genuine Christian. And then as he proceeds from there to work it out, he tells them, isn't this a wonderful thing that on account of God's mercy towards you, he has brought you out of the realm of hopelessness. You have been born anew to a living hope. If there is one thing that marks the Christian believer in a world of hopelessness, it is surely this, and in what does it have its foundation? Not in the fact that the weather is lovely today, not in the fact that we live in the best of places, nor that all is well in business and in home, because the fact is if we were to take time with one another and pursue many of those things, many of us carry heavy burdens and walk with heavy hearts.

But the amazing truth is that God in his mercy has done something within us that has brought us out of that realm and into a new realm. If you go to see the long movie version of Hamlet, you will be struck again by the things that you were forced to learn as a schoolboy or schoolgirl, and there are some wonderful moments in it, but I was struck again by the king as he sidles up to Hamlet. And of course, he wants Hamlet to come around from his discomfiture at the death of his father and all of the badness that is in that. And as he sidles up to Hamlet, he says, how is it that the clouds still hang on you? And Hamlet walks out from there and begrins that great soliloquy, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this life.

And that is a great introduction to the picture of modern man. You may write that across the front page of People magazine when you're next getting yourself a gallon of milk at the grocery store, for it is weary and it is stale and it is flat and it is unprofitable and into all of that unprofitable flatness, the grace of God has come and born us again to a living hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead, the work which is goodness began. Secondly, you will notice that in accord with this in verse 4, he is granted as an inheritance.

This inheritance can never perish or spoil or fade. It's got your name on it at Willcall. I didn't know what Willcall was.

I thought it was a person's name when I came here in 83. But when you go to the Willcall thing, you go with a bit of a flutter in your heart, don't you? Because you always leave it to the last minute. There's no reason to go early because after all they're there.

At least I hope they're there. And even as you stand in the line, you can't be sure. And many of us have had the experience of walking up fairly boldly and announcing our name and showing our driver's license and holding our breath as they go through the envelopes and they look back through that little keyhole and they say, I'm sorry, there's nothing here at all. And it is the most wretched of all experiences. Because on the ground of what someone else has said they would do for us, we have based our whole evening.

And it has all gone wrong. And some people's view of Christian living is just like that. That they're heading for the Willcall, but they're not sure if there'll be an envelope there with their name when they arrive. Dear ones, in the life of everyone who has been born again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, He has an inheritance and it has your name upon it and it awaits you. And it cannot be touched by death and it cannot be stained by evil and it cannot be impaired by time.

That's what He's saying. Thirdly, He says, you are not only those who have been born again according to His great mercy and born into an inheritance which has your name on it reserved in heaven for you, but in the present you are through faith shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. Shielded by God's power. It's actually a military term which describes the guarding that was done by soldiers. It would be accurate to use this word, I believe, when you see those scenes of a boxer, and I think particularly of Muhammad Ali from the old days as we used to await his appearance from the dressing room. Such a big, strong, strapping, powerful character. And how did he come? You could hardly see him because he was shielded by a great company who were his helpers and his adherents. And they surrounded him and brought him safely to his destination.

That is exactly the picture which is used here. You, He says, dear believers who have begun in the journey of faith are looking forward to a day that is about to come. Yes, you have trials and yet in these trials you may rejoice when you understand the wonder of what God has done. It is God's power which garrisons the believer, and it is in this that the child of God finds his security in the unending struggle of the soul. Now, pay attention carefully to two words in verse 5. It doesn't say, kept in heaven for you who are shielded by God's power. It says, who through faith are shielded by God's power. It is a mistaken notion which regards the perseverance of the saints or the preservation of the saints as some kind of amazing insurance policy irrespective of the lives that we live.

And you're sensible people and you'll need to check in and make sure that this is the case. That the Bible makes clear that there is no preservation without faith. And at the same time it emphasizes that those who have faith are those who persevere. Indeed, back in Hebrews again, it was the very absence of faith on the part of the listeners which resulted in the fact that the Word of God was of no value to them at all. And back now in Hebrews chapter 4 and in verse 2, he says, For we also have had the gospel preached to us just as they did, but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. We are preserved and we persevere through faith and never apart from faith. That is not to say that we retain salvation on the basis of the persistence of our faith, but it is that we give evidence that we possess salvation by the continuation of our faith.

Such a simple yet important distinction. God preserves his saints. Alistair Begg has been our teacher today on Renewing Your Mind as we continue the series Essential Truths of the Christian Faith. This week we've heard from Dr. R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, and Sinclair Ferguson, covering topics like the authority of Scripture and the holiness of God. In 12 messages, this series points out key truths of the Christian faith. We'd like for you to have all of these messages. Simply contact us today with a donation of any amount of Ligonier Ministries, and we will send you the complete series on a single USB drive. Plus, we'll include Dr. Sproul's classic collection.

That series provides you with 10 of R.C. 's most requested messages. You can give your gift online at renewingyourmind.org, or you can call us at 800-435-4343. Let me take just a moment to thank you for your support of this ministry. Your gifts allow us to continue producing teaching series like the one we're hearing this week, and I would humbly ask that you consider coming alongside us on a regular basis by becoming a ministry partner. When you pledge $25 or more a month, you're helping us take these life-changing truths to millions of people around the world, and you receive benefits and special offers reserved just for our partners.

To find out more, call us at 800-435-4343. Well, tomorrow we're going to wrap up this series on the essential truths of the Christian faith, and Dr. Sproul's message will help us look ahead to that incredible day of the Lord that awaits all believers. The Bible tells us that the end of our sanctification is our glorification, where all vestigial remnants of sin are removed from our character. It's all gone. No more doubt, no more fear, no more error, no more pain, no more evil—all gone. I hope you'll make plans to join us again tomorrow for Renewing Your Mind. .