Vol 60 Issue 05

The truth that God in His sovereign grace keeps His people and causes them to persevere in grace and salvation, makes the salvation of the people of God absolutely certain.

As Reformed believers we confess the truth of God’s preservation and our perseverance. By God’s preservation we mean that God will certainly preserve us in the salvation we have in Jesus Christ. He will not allow any power, whether in heaven or on earth or even in hell, to rob us of that which we have in Christ. By perseverance we mean that, in the power of God’s preserving grace, we will indeed persevere in the way of our salvation. In other words, we will remain faithful to God, if needs be even unto death, and thus receive the crown...

In defense of the error of the falling away of the saints reference is made to the Scripture passage in Hebrews 6:4-8, which reads as follows:

The expression “sin and death” occurs in our Canons, in the fifth head. In Article 6 of the positive section we read, and we quote: But God, Who is rich in mercy, according to His unchangeable purpose of election, does not wholly withdraw the Holy Spirit from His own people, even in their melancholy falls; nor suffers them to proceed so far as to lose the grace of adoption, and forfeit the state of justification, or to commit the sin unto death; nor does He permit them to be totally deserted, and to plunge themselves into everlasting destruction.

In I Peter 1:5 the doctrine of perseverance is not only clearly proved, but it is set forth as a great multiplication of God’s grace and peace to His saints. In verse 3 the Apostle Peter speaks of our election according to the Father’s foreknowledge and shows how this grace of God in election is sealed to us and becomes ours through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit as He leads us to perfect peace in the way of blood-sprinkled obedience.

That is the question. How can I be sure that I am andforever shall remain a living member of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ? From what source does this assurance come? This question has troubled not a few of God’s people over the years. From one point of view this question ought not have in the past and ought not now trouble the believer. The Bible, God’s holy and infallible Word, does answer the question clearly and beautifully.

The carnal mind is unable to comprehend this doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, and the certainty thereof; which God hath most abundantly revealed in His Word, for the glory of His name, and the consolation of pious souls, and which He impresses upon the hearts of the faithful.

About This Issue This is our first special issue of the current volume-year, and it is the last one devoted to the so-called Five Points of Calvinism. It is devoted in its entirety to the subject of the Perseverance of the Saints.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.  Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,