Perseverance of the Saints
Written by W. Robert Godfrey |
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
The focus in this article is on the Word of God and the sacraments. The Word of God helps to preserve us in the faith as we hear it preached, as we read it in church and privately, and as we meditate on it. The article highlights what we will find in the Scriptures when we hear, read, and meditate on them. First, we will find exhortations. The Bible calls us to live the faithful Christian life and instructs us in the character of that life. Second, we will find threatenings. Even though God will surely preserve us in grace, we need to hear the warnings of God as one of the means that He uses to confront us with our sin and draw us to repentance. Third, we find promises.
Calvinism does not have five points. Calvinism as summarized in its great confessions and catechisms was never meant to be reduced to five points. The Arminians, however, had five attacks on Reformed teaching. On the fifth point, they wrote:
Whether they [those incorporated into Jesus Christ] can through negligence fall away from the first principle of their life in Christ, again embrace the present world, depart from the pure doctrine once given to them, lose the good conscience, and neglect grace, must first be more carefully determined from the Holy Scriptures.
The Arminians in 1610 were uncertain about the doctrine of perseverance. But in the years that followed, they increasingly taught that the truly regenerate could fall from grace and be lost.
Clearly, the Arminians feared that the doctrine of perseverance would make Christians negligent, lazy, and self-indulgent. They seemed to imagine that the Reformed taught that the Christian life is like a train running downhill. Just get it started, and it will run on its own momentum.
The great Synod of Dort (1618–19) answered the Arminian doubts and fears clearly and helpfully. It reminded all Christians that God does indeed so preserve His own that they will not fall from grace. But He preserves them through the means that He has appointed, and by His Spirit He ensures that they make good use of those means.
The Canons of Dort take up the subject of perseverance in the fifth head of doctrine. In fifteen articles, the fifth head presents a remarkable biblical and pastoral statement of the Reformed teaching. It begins by recognizing that sin remains a problem in the life of regenerate Christians. Since sin is a daily problem and affects even our best works, we must daily turn to God anew:
These [sins] are to [Christians] a perpetual reason to humiliate themselves before God and to flee for refuge to Christ crucified; to mortify the flesh more and more by the spirit of prayer and by holy exercises of piety; and to press forward to the goal of perfection, until at length, delivered from this body of death, they shall reign with the Lamb of God in heaven. (Article 2)
Here is clearly no mechanical, or automatic, sense of preservation. Human responsibility and active turning to God are upheld as the fruit of the grace of God.
We see here how important means are to persevering in the faith. The canons mention first the cultivation of humility and faith in the Christian life. We dare not be a proud people, as though we had accomplished much by our own strength. But we must recognize our weaknesses and look away from ourselves to Christ. One of the key means of cultivating humility is prayer. In prayer, we acknowledge that God is the source of all strength and hope in our lives. Article 2 also encourages “holy exercises of piety” in addition to prayer. Here the stress falls on reading the Bible and engaging faithfully in worship with fellow believers. The canons recognize that even the regenerate, left to themselves and their own strength, would not persevere. Only the faithful, persevering grace of God can uphold the regenerate as they face the temptations of sin.
The canons recognize that God’s saints can fall into terrible sins, of which David and Peter are clear examples. Such terrible sins bring with them terrible consequences.
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On Eagles’ Wings
The Lord is teaching you to fly. To trust him. And if you fail, there is a gracious safety net. Look back and remember “what you yourselves have seen”—how the Lord has borne you up on eagles’ wings so many times before. Remember how he did it for Israel, not just here in the wilderness but countless times throughout their history.
In Exodus 19.4 God says that he bore his people on eagles’ wings. What does that mean? It’s a picture he returns to in Deuteronomy 32.11, where he says he dealt with Israel Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions…
When an eagle judges that its young are ready to fly, it pushes them out of the nest, forcing them to flap their wings and try to fly. If the eaglet isn’t able to do this immediately, it will drop like a stone. But the eagle swoops down underneath and catches its young and bears it up to safety. Then the process is repeated until the young bird learns how to use its wings. It sounds cruel—but it’s for the eaglet’s good. It needs to learn to fly and that will never happen in the security of the nest. But the mother is watchful, strong and swift to come to the rescue if needed.
That’s the Lord’s own description of those two or three months Israel has spent in the wilderness since leaving Egypt. The Lord has been disciplining his people, testing them and training them to trust him. Perhaps at times his methods have seemed harsh, even cruel.
Think of how he led the Israelites in a circle until they were trapped, with the Red Sea behind them and the whole Egyptian army racing towards them. How distressing that must have been for them! How damaging for their mental health! Ex 14.10 says that they ‘feared greatly’. But the Lord swooped down to catch them, parting the Red Sea and bringing them safely through.
Think of how he led them for three days with no water—right on the brink of what the human body can endure. He brought them to Marah where there was water—only for them to find the water was bitter! The Lord is tossing them out of the nest. Will they flap their wings of faith and fly? Will they trust him? No—so he swoops down to catch them and makes the water sweet.
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God’s Deliberate Encouragement
He knew the depths of his mourning. Now he comes deliberately to him to announce His resurrection. God knows us. He gives us what we need when we need it. Even when we have blown it royally, He reminds us of His resurrected and powerful life—a life we enjoy because He lives in us.
The Lord had been crucified, and his disciples were left in stunned disbelief. All of their hopes and dreams had been nailed to a cross. They had left everything to follow Him, and now He was dead. Think of the myriad thoughts, questions, and fears filling their minds!
Now, after the resurrection, an angel appears to three ladies as they came to place spices on Jesus’ tomb. He has risen! And they were instructed to go tell the others.
But notice the angel’s precise instructions:
“Go tell the disciples AND PETER…” (Mark 16:7)
Peter had been clearly marked as a leader among the disciples, along with James and John.
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When the State Tells Pastors What to Tell Their Congregations
Written by Forrest L. Marion |
Monday, October 25, 2021
James I “transmitted the Declaration to his bishops with an order that it be read from pulpits, but resistance was immediately forthcoming. Some clergy, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, determined to refuse compliance, while a few bold spirits preached against the royal proclamation.” The king withdrew the order, but the declaration’s impact upon England was felt for decades, if not longer, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.Readers may already know that last week a Canadian pastor, Artur Pawlowski, was arrested again for holding worship services in Calgary, in the Province of Alberta. Previously, Pastor Pawlowski had been charged with civil contempt and jailed for holding church services in violation of a court order forbidding the organizing or attending an “illegal public gathering.” Following the most recent incident, Pawlowski was sanctioned by a judge to 18 months of probation. As Fox News reported, in addition to the hefty court costs and fines, one of the conditions of Pawlowski’s probation requires him “to parrot ‘the majority of medical experts in Alberta’ regarding social distancing, mask wearing and vaccines, even when he speaks in church.”[1]
The purpose of this short piece is not to take sides in the legal matters at hand nor delve into the technicalities of Pastor Pawlowski’s dealings with the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta; the October 13, 2021, citation of which is available online. Neither is it to argue the merits or demerits of various COVID-19 developments or responses to it, in Alberta, Canada, nor anywhere else. Rather, the focus here is on the citation’s “requirement that whenever [Pastor Pawlowski or his brother] are opposing the AHS [Alberta Health Services] Health Orders in any public forum, (including social media forums), they must also place the other side of the argument on the record.” Moreover, the court directed exactly what “the other side of the argument” entailed. Artur Pawlowski “must indicate in his communications” the following:
I am also aware that the views I am expressing to you on this occasion may not be views held by the majority of medical experts in Alberta. While I may disagree with them, I am obliged to inform you that the majority of medical experts favour social distancing, mask wearing, and avoiding large crowds to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Most medical experts also support participation in a vaccination program unless for a valid religious or medical reason you cannot be vaccinated….[2]
Pawlowski’s attorney and Fox News note that the court’s directive does not exclude the worship services of the church. So, a Canadian pastor has been told the very words he must speak to his congregation in order to comply with the law. Sobering, but not without precedent.
Nearly four centuries ago, in the third week of October, 1633, King Charles I reissued a declaration that his father, James I, had first announced in 1618, known as The Book of Sports or Declaration of Sports. The declaration encouraged various forms of “lawful recreation” during the afternoon following divine service. Activities included dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting, “. . . or any other such harmless recreation.” While James appeared mainly concerned with encouraging his male subjects to engage in “such exercises as may make their bodies more able for war, whenever we or our successors shall have occasion to use them,” the decree became entangled in the religious controversy in England regarding the proper observance of the Christian Sabbath, or Lord’s Day, which itself was integral to the social-economic disequilibrium involved in the transition from premodern England to a modern nation-state.[3]
As historian Winton Solberg wrote four decades ago, James I “transmitted the Declaration to his bishops with an order that it be read from pulpits, but resistance was immediately forthcoming. Some clergy, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, determined to refuse compliance, while a few bold spirits preached against the royal proclamation.” The king withdrew the order, but the declaration’s impact upon England was felt for decades, if not longer, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.[4]
James died in 1625, bringing his son, Charles I, to the throne. Under his arbitrary rule which included dissolving Parliament in 1629, Sabbath-related issues between Anglicans and Puritans and their allies – the king and Parliament, respectively – grew even more divisive. On October 18, 1633, Charles reissued his father’s Book of Sports, adding his own preface. Bishops were to ensure that the document was read, and published, in all parish churches. In fairness, however, Solberg wrote that the new Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, “. . . does not seem to have punished refusals to read the Declaration with particular severity.” But some bishops “enforced the requirement vigorously.”[5]
While the Puritans’ Great Migration to New England from 1620 to 1640 – the vast majority arriving during the second decade – is well known, it is noteworthy that the Declaration of Sports, including its reissuance, was influential. Solberg wrote, “Emigration to New England greatly quickened as a result of the Book of Sports. Many clergymen, including John Cotton, John Davenport, Thomas Hooker, and Thomas Shepard, fled at this time.” Solberg’s book is highly regarded, and I confess I found it quite useful in my own studies in graduate school in the 1990s. If his conclusion on this point was basically correct, then the fact that such a momentous decision on the part of pastors and parishioners was made to some degree because of the interference of the state upon matters of the church and her worship – to the extent of compelling the speech of pastors – should grab our attention today. It strikes at the all-important issue of who is the rightful head of the church: Jesus Christ, or anyone else. If a pastor in England in the 1630s, or one in Canada in the 2020s, can be compelled to speak certain messages at the state’s command, then religious liberties are at risk. Christians must think, pray, and plan for the issue coming to a church near you.[6]
Forrest Marion is a ruling elder in Eastwood Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Montgomery, Ala.[1] Jon Brown, “Canadian pastor defiant as judge orders him to parrot ‘medical experts’ from pulpit: ‘I will not obey,’” Fox News, Oct. 15, 2021, including quotes. See also Jon Brown, “Jailed Alberta Pastor Alleges Abuse In Prison But Remains Hopeful; Lawyer Condemns ‘Bizarre’ Detention,” The Daily Wire, May 10, 2021; Dewey Roberts, “Former ARP Canadian Pastor, Steve Richardson, Under Attack and Needs Our Help,” The Aquila Report, Jul. 8, 2021.
[2] “Citation: Alberta Health Services v Pawlowski, 2021 ABQB 813,” Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta, Oct. 13, 2021, pp. 8-10, including quotes (filed on Oct. 15, 2021), pdf accessed at the Fox News article above.
[3] Winton U. Solberg, Redeem the Time: The Puritan Sabbath in Early America (Cambridge, Mass., and London, England: Harvard University Press, 1977, pp. 71-72, including quotes.
[4] Solberg, Redeem the Time, pp. 73-74, including quote.[5] Solberg, Redeem the Time, pp. 75-77, including quotes.
[6] Solberg, Redeem the Time, pp. 77-78, including quote.
