II. Perseverance

The Scriptures declare that, in virtue of the original purpose and continuous operation of God, all who are united to Christ by faith will infallibly continue in a state of grace and will finally attain to everlasting life. This voluntary continuance, on the part of the Christian, in faith and well-doing we call perseverance. Perseverance is, therefore, the human side or aspect of that spiritual process which, as viewed from the divine side, we call sanctification. It is not a mere natural consequence of conversion, but involves a constant activity of the human will from the moment of conversion to the end of life.

Adam’s holiness was mutable; God did not determine to keep him. It is otherwise with believers in Christ; God has determined to give them the kingdom (Luke 12:32). Yet this keeping by God, which we call sanctification, is accompanied and followed by a keeping of himself on the part of the believer, which we call perseverance. The former is alluded to in John 17:11, 12—“keep them in thy name.… I kept them in thy name.… I guarded them, and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition”; the latter is alluded to in 1 John 5:18—“he that was begotten of God keepeth himself.” Both are expressed in Jude 21, 24—“keep yourselves in the love of God.… Now unto him that is able to guard you from stumbling …”

A German treatise on Pastoral Theology is entitled: “Keep What Thou Hast”—an allusion to 2 Tim. 1:14—“That good thing which was committed unto thee guard through the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us.” Not only the pastor, but every believer, has a charge to keep; and the keeping of ourselves is as important a point of Christian doctrine as is the keeping of God. Both are expressed in the motto: Teneo, Teneor—the motto on the front of the Y. M. C. A. building in Boston, underneath a stone cross, firmly clasped by two hands. The colored preacher said that “Perseverance means: 1. Take hold; 2. Hold on; 3. Never let go.”

Physically, intellectually, morally, spiritually, there is need that we persevere. Paul, in 1 Cor. 9:27, declares that he smites his body under the eye and makes a slave of it, lest after having preached to others he himself should be rejected; and in 2 Tim. 4:7, at the end of his career, he rejoices that he has “kept the faith.” A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 115—“The Christian is as ‘a tree planted by the streams of water, that bringeth forth its fruit in its season’ (Ps. 1:3), but to conclude that his growth will be as irresistible as that of the tree, coming as a matter of course simply because he has by regeneration been planted in Christ, is a grave mistake. The disciple is required to be consciously and intelligently active in his own growth, as the tree is not, ‘to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure’ (2 Pet. 1:10) by surrendering himself to the divine action.” Clarke, Christian Theology, 379—“Man is able to fall, and God is able to keep him from falling; and through the various experiences of life God will so save his child out of all evil that he will be morally incapable of falling.”