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Philippians 2:13
“For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
To join the church triumphant, we must persevere in following the Lord Jesus Christ till the very end so that we die in faith and enter His presence. This entails working out our salvation in fear and trembling, believing and repenting not only at conversion but day by day. We are to follow the Holy Spirit in our sanctification, putting sin to death and cultivating personal holiness. “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13).
God has granted us a role in perseverance, the outworking of our salvation as He changes us over the course of our lives. Importantly, however, Scripture recognizes that at times we will fail in this. Dr. R.C. Sproul reminds us in Truths We Confess that “the doctrine of perseverance does not teach that once a person becomes a genuine Christian, he never backslides or strays from the path of righteousness.” What the doctrine does teach is that the true child of God who strays will not persist in straying but will return to serving the Lord. It’s possible also that someone who merely professed faith but did not possess it will be truly converted while outside the visible church. Either way, those whom God has chosen for salvation must reach the end in faith.
There are many reasons for this. Philippians 2:13 gives us one of them: God is working in His children to will and work for His good pleasure. Also, we see in Romans 8:29–30 that all those whom God elects and justifies He also glorifies. The Lord does not give up on those who have truly believed in Jesus but pursues them until they come back if they stray. He always finishes what He has started. Nothing and no one can snatch us out of our Father’s hand, not even our own unbelief and sin (John 10:29). If we think we have fallen so far that God will not receive us back, we could not be more wrong. Like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, God will embrace us and rejoice when we return, giving us a fresh assurance of His love (Luke 15:11–32).
Ultimately, the question whether we can fail to persevere in faith or lose our salvation concerns not us but the Lord. None of us has the power and willingness in ourselves to persevere. The question is whether God is willing and able to keep His children in salvation. To that, Scripture replies with a resounding yes.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Our faith and repentance in themselves are never perfect. Until we are glorified, we can always believe God’s promises more firmly, turn from sin more readily, and follow Jesus more completely. Thus, ultimately, we are relying on God to preserve us to the end. We look to Him to keep us. Our ongoing faith and repentance are inevitable and necessary fruits of our looking to Him, but He gets the final credit for our perseverance.
For further study
- Psalm 37:28
- Isaiah 46:8–11
- Hebrews 7:25
- 1 John 5:18
The bible in a year
- Daniel 11–12
- 3 John 1–15