They Who Endure to the End

A Primer on Perseverance

Everett Berry

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781498239684, 9781498239707
• eBook ISBN: 9781498239691
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Is it possible for a true believer in Christ to apostatize? If so, how? Also, how can professing believers know if they are truly born again? What assurance can they have that they will never renounce their faith? These questions have been asked for centuries as Christians have wrestled with what Scripture says about these matters. The search for answers has instilled strong disagreements among Christian traditions. In this book, we navigate the terrain of this debate by examining the pertinent biblical data, surveying the history of major views that have been advocated by various denominations, and offering a synthesis of all this material in the hopes that readers can see how Scripture assures believers of their security in Christ.

Chapter 1

Perseverance in the Old Testament

The OT is where we begin our inquiry into the subjects of apostasy and perseverance because this is where the story line of Scripture is born.1 The OT opens with the Genesis account of creation and the tragic fall of humanity. Then it chronicles how God promised to heal this fallen world by initially forming a nation, the people of Israel, through whom a redeemer would come to bring salvation to all peoples. And it is the recounting of these events that serves as the theological ground zero for all biblical doctrines. Every major Christian belief is rooted in the themes, events, and hopes of the OT narrative. We do confess, however, that trying to encapsulate everything the OT contributes to the topics under investigation is daunting. This is why we will only focus on certain themes that we feel are the most pressing.

Specifically, there are three that provide an optimal amount of insight. One is what it means to be part of God’s people. How the OT defines the people of God necessarily entails questions about who is “in” and who is “out,” how one can become a part of God’s people, or how one can possibly part ways from the group. Second, the very phrase “people of God” emerges from the context of a set of covenants that the Israelites received from the Lord at various stages of their history. Collectively these sacred agreements helped form the theological matrix of Israel’s religious convictions, including their views of sin, righteousness, and yes, apostasy. So understanding the nature of these covenants can shed significant light on what it means in the OT for one to turn away from or rebel against the Lord. Finally, a third factor warranting attention is how individuals personally experienced salvation prior to the coming of Christ and the new work of the Spirit.

Together these features can help us conceptualize how the OT approaches apostasy and perseverance. But before we begin examining this material, one important qualifier should be mentioned. Believers during the OT era understood their experience of God’s mercy in ways that were unique to that specific period. This is not to imply that there are multiple ways of receiving salvation. Scripture is clear that one can only obtain peace with God through faithful trust in whatever provisions he puts in place and/or promises he extends. Even so, the outworking of this truth varied depending on the amount of revelation that had been disclosed or redemptive acts that the Lord had performed up to a given point in biblical history. For instance, the ancient Israelites who came out of Egypt understood their national deliverance and standing before God in terms of the divine promises received by Abraham, the legal instructions given by Moses for the Passover, and their eyewitness accounts of God’s judgment upon their oppressors through the great plagues and the Red Sea event. However, centuries later, some NT writers who looked back on these events through typological and christological lenses were able to flesh out an understanding of a new exodus from the satanic tyranny of sin and death.2 They reflected on events like the Passover or the Red Sea miracle and saw significant connections since Christ had accomplished a greater victory.3

These kinds of developments and parallels are critical to note because they apply to all theological topics. They are part of what we typically call progressive revelation. No doctrine is fully treated in any one biblical text. Clusters of texts introduce various subjects in rudimentary form, gradually taking on more texture as redemptive history unfolds. Then they take on even richer layers of meaning after the coming of Christ and the highly anticipated ministry of the Spirit. As it pertains to concepts like perseverance and apostasy, NT teaching on these subjects does not contradict what the OT proposes. Yet later revelation can say more than what earlier revelation disclosed. This means we must show caution in our investigation of OT views of apostasy and perseverance because, as I. Howard Marshall observes, “Any conclusions which may be drawn from the OT about the relation of the community of God must accordingly be applied with caution to the position of the individual under the New Covenant.”4 Consequently, we acknowledge that the OT does provide instruction on how covenant faithfulness and apostates were perceived by the Israelites.5 And it also helps set the stage for our subsequent discussions about how the NT treats these matters as well. What needs to be conceded then is that while OT and NT views of perseverance have many points that overlap, there are some areas where the NT adds further input.

1. The Creation of Humanity and the First Act of Apostasy

With these preliminary observations in place, some initial remarks need to be made regarding Adam’s sin since it introduced an apostate-like act to creation. Even though Christian traditions disagree on whether genuine believers can lose their salvation through disobedience or apostasy, none deny that the Genesis account of Adam’s fall from a state of innocence is the place where sin entered the human race.6 Not only that, in a qualified sense it is not off the mark to say that the first turning away from the Lord occurred in the creation story. This tragedy comes on the heels of the first two chapters of Genesis, where we see a clear emphasis placed upon humankind as the crown jewel of creation. The account in Genesis 1 omits any detailed discussion about the Lord creating angels, the planets, the galaxies, or any extensive list of species of animals. Instead, it summarizes the creation week, which culminates with the making of human beings, Adam and Eve. This first couple is created in God’s “image and likeness” (Gen 1:26–27), meaning at the very least that they served as delegated vice regents on earth since they were given a stewardship to exercise dominion over it (cf. Gen 1:28; 2:19–20).7 Part of their task included a command to spread the divine image by procreation (Gen 1:28).8 Similarly, Genesis 2 emphasizes the uniqueness of Adam and Eve within the rest of creation as well.

1.1 Adam Defies God’s Authority

Now it is critical at this point to observe that Adam and Eve stood in moral harmony with the Lord. They were innocent creatures delegated to reign over his creation. But these privileges entailed certain stipulations. Alongside their responsibilities and privileges were further instructions to care for the earth, or the garden, in which they were placed (Gen 2:15), and they were given a prohibition not to eat from one tree in the garden that Genesis calls “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:16–17a).9 They were told that if they ate from this tree, the consequence would be death (Gen 2:17b).10 From here, though, we know that Adam and Eve did not heed the Lord’s warning. They chose to misuse their position as stewards over the earth, thereby fracturing the goodness of Genesis 1 and 2. Their demise began when Eve was deceived by Satan who took the form of a serpent (cf. Gen 3:1a, 15; Rom 16:20; Rev 12:9; 20:2). He tempted her to question the Lord’s motives for exc...

Table of contents

• They Who Endure to the End
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Perseverance in the Old Testament
• Chapter 2: Perseverance in the Gospels
• Chapter 3: Perseverance in the Letters of Paul
• Chapter 4: Perseverance in Acts, the General Epistles, and Revelation
• Chapter 5: Perseverance in the Post-Apostolic Church
• Chapter 6: Augustine, Pelagianism, and Perseverance
• Chapter 7: The Reformation, Early Protestants, and Perseverance
• Chapter 8: Perseverance in the Classical Arminian and Wesleyan Traditions
• Chapter 9: Perseverance and the Modern Lordship Salvation Debate
• Chapter 10: Final Thoughts on the Doctrine of Perseverance
• Bibliography