SOME SOURCES ON THE PRESERVATION/PERSEVERENCE OF THE SAINTS

SOME SOURCES ON THE PRESERVATION/PERSEVERENCE OF THE SAINTS

Regarding Preservation/Perseverance: What it is and what it isn’t

What Scripture teaches on the final perseverance may be summarized in these two statements:

1. He that perseveres in faith does so only through God’s gracious preservation; the believer’s perseverance is a work of divine grace and omnipotence.

2. He that falls from faith does so through his own fault; the cause of apostasy is in every case rejection of God’s Word and resistance to the operation of the Holy Spirit in the Word.

This doctrine the Christian Church must maintain and defend on two fronts: against Calvinism and against synergism.^[1]

Christ – the cause of our preservation

David Hollazius said, “Christ rose again in order to manifest the victory which he had obtained over death and the devil, Acts 2:24; and to offer and apply to all men the fruits of his passion and death.” These fruits are: “The confirmation of our faith concerning Christ’s full satisfaction, 1 Cor. 15:17; the application of the benefits obtained by the death of Christ, our justification, Rom. 4:25; the sealing of our hope concerning our preservation for salvation, 1 Pet. 1:3; our being raised again to life eternal, John 11:25; 14:19; 2 Cor. 4:14; 1 Thess. 4:14, and our renewal, Rom. 6:4; 2 Cor. 5:15.”^[2]

Humans are only instruments

5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. - 1 Corinthians 3:5–10 ^[3]

Preservation is something Christ prays for

The Spirit dwelling in all baptized believers in Christ also intercedes for them when they do not know how or what to pray (Rom 8:26–27). Paul, after the manner of Jesus, repeatedly interceded for the unsaved Jews of his day (Rom 9:1–5; 10:1) and constantly offered prayers for the preservation of the saints in faith and in good works (e.g., 1 Thess 1:2; 2:13; 2 Tim 1:3).^[4]

Preservation of the Saints as an act of God’s Love

Love’s second characteristic is to be kind (1 Cor 13:4). Again it is God who sets the example by showing unfailing kindness in the creation, preservation, and redemption of his people.^b His kindness to them should bear fruit in their lives (Gal 5:22; Col 3:12).^[5]

Preservation is God’s Will for the believer

His purpose ordained how He would bring me thereto and preserve me therein. Also, that He wished to secure my salvation so well and certainly that since, through the weakness and wickedness of our flesh, it could easily be lost from our hands, or through craft and might of the devil and the world be torn or removed therefrom, in His eternal purpose, which cannot fail or be overthrown, He ordained it, and placed it for preservation in the almighty hand of our Saviour Jesus Christ, from which no one can pluck us (John 10:28).”^[6]

The Fallen Angels contrasted with the Saints of God

As a result, Jesus—who is God⁶³—has “kept [them] for the judgment of the great day with eternal fetters under hellish darkness” (εἰς κρίσιν μεγάλης ἡμέρας δεσμοῖς ἀϊδίοις ὑπὸ ζόφον τετήρηκεν). Jude employs the verb “keep” (τηρέω) in this verse and throughout the book in a masterfully impactful way (Jude 1, 6 [twice], 13, 21). He repeats it within this verse. First, the angels did not “keep” their own preeminent status, and so their actions have turned back upon themselves. The punishment matches their crime: now Jesus has “kept” them for judgment. The perfect tense of τετήρηκεν, “he has kept,” underlines the certainty of this past event whose effect continues in the present time. This hellish keeping is the drastic antithesis of the gracious preservation of the “beloved in God the Father,” who are “kept [τετηρημένοις] for Jesus Christ” (Jude 1), and who, on the basis of the Father’s love and Christ’s keeping, are encouraged to “keep yourselves in the love of God” (Jude 21).^[7]

God’s ability to preserve us as an extension of His omnipotence

Although Jude’s reference to God’s ability pertains to his omnipotence, it is his power pressed into service of his mercy.¹⁷ Therefore, Jude 24 continues with two descriptions of his ability to save for eternity. First, he is able φυλάξαι ὑμᾶς ἀπταίστους, “to preserve you as unstumbling.” Jude has already declared that the beloved are “kept for Jesus Christ” (Jude 1), that is, they are being kept in grace by God for the day when Christ returns for them.^18[8]

Preservation from the evil path

2:12–15 Prov 2:12 begins the first of three sections in the chapter describing the redemptive purpose of wisdom: preservation from this evil path. The evil path is populated by those who have rejected wisdom and adopted the dark ways of sin (2:13–15), in contrast to 2:3–5, where the son is urged to seek wisdom and its enlightenment with understanding and knowledge.^[9]

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^[1] Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, electronic ed., vol. 3 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953), 89.

^[2] Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Verified from the Original Sources, trans. Charles A. Hay and Henry E. Jacobs, Second English Edition, Revised according to the Sixth German Edition (Philadelphia, PA: Lutheran Publication Society, 1889), 407.

^[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), 1 Co 3:5–10.

^[4] R. Reed Lessing, Amos, Concordia Commentary (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2009), 450.

^b Mt 20:15; Lk 6:35; Rom 2:4; 11:22; Eph 2:7; Titus 3:4; 1 Pet 2:3

^[5] Gregory J. Lockwood, 1 Corinthians, Concordia Commentary (Saint Louis: Concordia Pub. House, 2000), 464.

^[6] E. T. Horn and A. G. Voigt, Annotations on the Epistles of Paul to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, ed. Henry Eyster Jacobs, vol. IX, The Lutheran Commentary (New York: The Christian Literature Co., 1896), 15.

⁶³ The implied subject of τετήρηκεν, “he has kept,” is the same as the stated subject of the verbs “saved” and “destroyed” in Jude 5, namely, “Jesus.” See the third textual note on Jude 6. The high Christology of Jude 5 supports the affirmation that Jesus is God. See the commentary on Jude 5, which cites Peter’s reference to “our God and Savior Jesus Christ” in 2 Pet 1:1 and Peter’s doxology in 2 Pet 3:18b, which is addressed to “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 3:18a). Some interpreters consider the “angel” in Rev 20:1–3 who holds the key to the abyss and who binds the devil with a great chain to be an example of angelomorphic Christology, that is, to represent Christ, since Christ holds the keys to death and hell (Rev 1:18). If so, then the binding and chaining of Satan in Rev 20:1–3 is a parallel to the binding and fettering of the fallen angels here in Jude 6, and in both passages it is Christ who does the binding (cf. Mt 12:29).

^[7] Curtis P. Giese, 2 Peter and Jude, ed. Dean O. Wenthe and Curtis P. Giese, Concordia Commentary (Saint Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2012), 267–268.

¹⁷ Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistles of St. Peter, St. John and St. Jude, 650.

¹⁸ The Greek verbs translated as “keep” (Jude 1) and “preserve” (Jude 24) are different verbs with slightly different meanings, yet they overlap. Both verbs are in contexts that teach the doctrine of God’s preservation of his beloved in Christ. Jude 1 employs τηρέω, which indicates preservation in watchful care. Jude 24 includes φυλάσσω, which more intensely indicates an act of guarding and preserving. See BDAG, s.vv. τηρέω and φυλάσσω; Hillyer, 1 and 2 Peter, Jude, 267.

^[8] Curtis P. Giese, 2 Peter and Jude, ed. Dean O. Wenthe and Curtis P. Giese, Concordia Commentary (Saint Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2012), 360.

^[9] Andrew E. Steinmann, Proverbs, Concordia Commentary (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2009), 95.