You must persevere. To be sure that you will never fall “be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election” (2 Peter 1:10). But the way saints persevere is not in their own strength. We fall and we fail. But we keep coming back to the cross. 

Many people suppose that “true believers are able to fall through their own fault into shameful and atrocious deeds, to persevere and to die in them; and therefore finally to fall and to perish.”[i] This opinion seems to be supported by Scriptural warnings against falling away, and examples in the Bible and in our own experience of people who negate earlier professions of faith.
But a right understanding of Scripture and experience suggests a different view. God’s beloved children can backslide. But those who finally fall away prove that they were not truly of the people of God (1 John 2:19). God’s children “can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.”
The Truth of Perseverance
Perseverance is a vital part of the ordo salutis: Whom God predestines, he also calls, justifies, and glorifies (Rom. 8:30). If God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” including perseverance (32). Those who are born again have “an inheritance that is imperishable, kept in heaven for them. God guards them “through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:4, 5). The outcome of genuine faith is actual salvation (9).
If God accepts a person in Christ, that person cannot be cast away. Paul expressed confidence about the saints at Philippi: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). Those who are genuine partakers of grace God will surely make pure and blameless at the day of Christ (7, 10). This was Jesus’s conviction. Our Lord gives his sheep “eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of [his] hand” (John 10:27, 28).
Those who will persevere are saints truly in a state of grace who actually love the Lord and diligently walk in his ways. “For good reason, we speak of the perseverance of the saints, not the perseverance of all who profess faith.”[ii] God never promises that those who make a bare confession of faith in Christ will persevere to the end. In fact, “Among those who hate Christ the most, some once professed to trust him. His claims are so exclusive, and his demands so pervasive that, in the end, you must either give yourself to him completely or give him up altogether. There is no middle ground.”[iii]
But the truth of the perseverance of the saints, of those indwelt by the Holy Spirit, is firmly fixed in Scripture.

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Every work of the Spirit serves God’s eternal plan for his world and his people. In ordering God’s creation, beautifying Israel’s tabernacle, and bringing life to the First Adam and the Last Adam, the Spirit perfects and completes God’s eternal plan in history.

The first instance of the Spirit’s work appears in the opening verses of Scripture.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.Genesis 1:1–2
On day one of creation, God created all matter, time, and space. Think about it—before the first day of creation, all that existed was the triune God. There was not matter, time, or space. God created all of that on the first day.
But as Genesis 1:2 tells us, that space and matter—heaven and earth—was “without form and void.” Simply creating matter and space did not mean they were yet arranged in such a way so as to be inhabitable by human beings.
And so, it was the Spirit of God who hovered over the face of the waters as the person of the triune God who brought order to creation. The Hebrew term rûach can mean “breath,” “wind,” or “spirit,” depending on the context. The same is true in the New Testament of the term pneuma. We can have confidence that the term in Genesis 1:2 refers to the Holy Spirit because of the verb “hovering,” which would not fit “wind” or “breath.” Moses uses the same verb to describe God “hovering” over his people at the end of the Pentateuch as well, which appears to be a deliberate parallel with the opening verses of the Pentateuch (Dt 32:11).
Additionally, as we will soon note, Moses portrays deliberate parallels between the Spirit’s work in creating the world and his work in the creation of the tabernacle, further evidence that he intended rûach to refer to the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1:2. Similarly, Job states, “By his wind [rûach] the heavens were made fair” (26:13), and Job 33:4 clearly refers to the divine Spirit when it states, “The Spirit [rûach] of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
In other words, in the opening words of Scripture we find the Spirit of God actively involved in the work of creation. Indeed, in the opening chapter of Genesis we find all three persons of the triune God active in creation: God [the Father] created the heavens and the earth, he did so through his Word [the Son], and the work was brought to completion by his Spirit—these appropriations of the work of creation to persons of the godhead reflect their eternal relations of origin. Psalms 33:6 portrays this trinitarian act of creation: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath [rûach] of his mouth all their host.” So all three persons of the godhead were involved in creation, and as is true with all of God’s works, God performed the work through the Son, and that work was brought to perfection by the Spirit.
Thus, in the six days of creation, the Holy Spirit of God brought order to the cosmos—he brought to completion and perfection the creative activity of God. This orderliness is reflected in the Greek term cosmos, which the Greek translation of the Old Testament uses to characterize the finished work of creation: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host [cosmos] of them” (Gn 2:1). Paul uses this same term to describe creation in his sermon on Mars Hill: “The God who made the world [cosmos] and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man.”
The Holy Spirit of God formed the cosmos, an ordered arrangement of heaven and earth such that creation displayed his own orderliness. This is why God declares his creation “good” (Gn 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). The Hebrew word implies more than just moral goodness; the term embodies the idea of aesthetic beauty and harmony. Creation is beautiful because it reflects the order and harmony of God himself.
Psalm 104 poetically embodies this idea of creation manifesting the beauty and order of God, identifying the person of the Trinity who brings about such wondrous creation:
30 When you send forth your Spirit [rûach], they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.
The Holy Spirit of God, in his active work of creation, brought wondrous order to the world that God made.
Wisdom and Beauty
Notice also the particular quality that characterizes the Spirit’s work of creation in Psalm 104:24:
24 O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
Wisdom is the quality the psalmist ties to the Spirit’s creative work, and this helps us to further confirm the nature of this first work of the Spirit. Wisdom is the capacity to fit things together as they ought to be, the skill to create harmony and order. Thus we should not be surprised when Proverbs 3:19 states that the Lord founded the earth by wisdom—by the skill to fit things together in a harmonious fashion.
This harmony and order of creation that was brought about by the Spirit of God is what we call beauty. Beauty is fittingness, order, and harmony. This is ultimately the Holy Spirit’s work in creation. As Ambrose of Milan noted, “After this world being created underwent the operation of the Spirit, it gained all the beauty of that grace, wherewith the world is illuminated.” The Holy Spirit is the beautifier.
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Written by Andrew J. Miller |
Thursday, December 28, 2023
We rely on the Spirit to apply to us all the blessings of Jesus. Jesus accomplishes redemption and the Spirit applies it to us. Christ’s death purchased life, and that life is manifested in us by the power of the Spirit, who is a person, who will do what He wills, not just a power like “the force” from Star Wars. We can do nothing apart from the Holy Spirit, applying to us the blessings won by Christ.

One astonishing yet unappreciated truth of Christianity is that salvation in Jesus Christ contains not just future heavenly life but also present transformation by the Spirit. God changes the believer to be more like Himself.

It’s a good thing, too, because day after day we bring misery on ourselves by our sin. Taking a page from our first parents, we shift the blame for the problems of our world. Like Adam blaming God and Eve in Genesis 3:12, we point the finger and try to exonerate ourselves. We blame our circumstances for our unhappiness. While certainly the problems posed by circumstances and others are significant and not to be downplayed, the Bible reminds us that our sin is the greatest contributor to our own misery. Poor politicians or policies, severe poverty, bad health, an unhealthy marriage—these are all true difficulties that should be addressed as appropriate. Yet, as 17th century persecuted Scottish minister Robert Fleming wrote, “In the worst of times, there is still more cause to complain of an evil heart than of an evil world.” Or as Martin Luther said, “I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, self.”
The Bible confirms this: we can’t blame others (James 4:1-4), or God himself—he tells his people of his generosity and desire to bless: “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. But My people would not heed My voice, And Israel would have none of Me” (Psalm 81:10-11).
This means that sanctification—God putting our sin to death and making us love what he loves—is of tremendous benefit to us! As our gracious Triune God sanctifies us little by little, we treasure him above all, and are less troubled by our circumstances. “A man that has God for his portion is [unequalled]…he is the rarest and the happiest man in the world…Nothing can make that man miserable that has God for his portion…” As we grow in sanctification, we grow in joy and peace. Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 90 asks and answers: “What is the rising-to-life of the new self?
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