DOCTRINES OF GRACE: OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS.
PERSEVERANCE: A BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY.
Of all the Doctrines of Grace, it would seem that the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints would be universally embraced by all Christians. Not only is it clearly taught in Scripture but it provides for the Christian a firm foundation for life and assurance. In actuality, however, this doctrine is fiercely opposed by many believers. This surprises no less a theologian than Lorraine Boettner:
“It seems that man, poor, wretched, and impotent as he is, would welcome a doctrine which secures for him the possessions of eternal happiness despite all attacks from without and all evil tendencies from within. But it is not so. He refuses it, and argues against it.”[1]
As with all the Doctrines of Grace, the reason for the push-back lies in the misconception that this doctrine seems to remove all the responsibility for the Christian to live a holy life. The thinking goes like this; if God brings every last one of his children to the finish line, then why run at all? That is, God’s promise that He will lose not one of His sheep eliminates all need of His sheep for pressing forward.
This objection, as logical as it appears on the surface, fails to take into account what the doctrine of perseverance really says. It builds a straw man which is heretical and therefore easy to denounce. Those who oppose perseverance ascribe the following syllogism to those that defend it.
· Premise: Whosoever believes in Jesus Christ apart from works has eternal life.
· God gives us this faith which is like an insurance policy that forever guarantees entrance to heaven.
· Conclusion: Therefore though works may be desired they are completely unnecessary for eternal life.
· Those who believe may live any way they like and still obtain eternal life.
If this is what Perseverance of the Saints teaches then it surely would be false and unworthy of further treatment. But we find everywhere in the Bible the teaching that the saints of God will persevere to the end and do so even though their end to victory is guaranteed. As we discussed in the previous chapter, simply knowing that one will be successful never eliminates human striving. Let us remember that at conversion one is given the gift of faith and faith always produces fruit in one’s life, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.[2] That is to say, fruit in one’s life is in some way inextricably bound to faith. On the other hand Jesus taught that the reason any branch does not bear fruit is because there is no faith and it is soon thrown into the fire.[3] The verses that most clearly denounce the idea that a believer can live a fruitless life are found in the book of James. The half-brother of our Lord asks this question,
“What does it profit my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works. Can faith save him?.... Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works’ (James 2:14; 17-18).
The apostle is clear; one who professes faith but produces no fruit (works) has a dead faith, a faith that does not save. No truly reformed person would disagree with this statement. And let us not forget that they word ‘persevere’ itself always implies some measure of human effort. The Reformation has always taught that the saint of God will persevere to the end which includes effort, or as Calvinistic author Newton puts it, “Many dangers, toils and snares.” In other words the result of one being saved is always a striving, working, and struggling. When the Reformers and others talked about a faith that perseveres they meant a faith that is experiential and visible, not merely a faith that is notional.[4] The reformed view of the Perseverance of the Saints has always said faith always produces action.
WHAT OF PASSAGES THAT INDICATE THAT BELIEVERS MAY FALL AWAY?
Arminians and some Lutherans appeal to biblical history to support their conviction that believers in Christ can fall away from the faith. When one considers the stories of Cain, King Saul, Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-24), Hymenaeus and Alexander (1 Tim 1:19-20) and others, one is struck with the fact that there are people who display some element of faith and yet go astray. The reality is that if true saints can fall away from the faith irrevocably the entire system of called the Doctrines of Grace falls to pieces. The goal of this section is not to resolve the issue once for all, but to present a hermeneutical principle that can be applied to passages that seem to disprove the doctrine of perseverance. What is at stake here is huge. If it can be shown that believers can fall away from the faith, then no one in the body of Christ can be entirely secure in his or her faith. Sproul raises the same point,
“This question of whether a person can lose his salvation is not an abstract question. It touches us at the very core of our Christian lives, not only with regard to our concerns for our own perseverance, but also with regard to our concern for our family and friends, particularly those who seemed, for all outward appearances, to have made a genuine profession of faith. We thought their profession was credible, we embraced them as brothers or sisters, only to find out that they repudiated that faith.” [5]
The case of Judas discussed in the previous chapter, is paradigmatic. Called as one of the twelve, Judas spent three years following Jesus, ministering alongside Him, preaching for Him, working miracles in His name and suffering with Him. Yet deep in the recesses of his soul there lay a root of bitterness that eventually influenced Judas to sell out the Savior for a few silver coins ending in his tragic suicide. Should these incidents surprise us? Did not the Lord predict that many who professed His name would betray Him? Who can deny that there have been men and women who once confessed Christ’s name who would afterwards fall away? The author himself has sadly watched several friends, whom after having exhibited a credible Christian testimony eventually “went back and walked with Him no more” (Jn. 6:66).
Should our conclusion therefore be that this doctrine is faulty? Indeed not. Rather let us cling to the truth that those who belong to Jesus can never fall away. The issue here is not ‘do people who claim Jesus fall away?’ But ‘what is the nature of saving faith that will persevere to the end?’ Having said this, it behooves me to exegete some of the biblical texts that seem to contradict this doctrine looking at them from this general perspective. The classic text on falling away is found in Hebrews chapter 6 verses 4-9. Allow me to quote it in the full.
“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and produces vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned. But, beloved, we are convinced of better things regarding you, and things that accompany salvation, even though we are speaking in this way.”
There is little question that this text presents perhaps the greatest hindrance to believing the reformed doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints. It has perplexed commentators and scholars for ages. The reason is obvious; the author seems to go to great lengths in describing a true Christian who falls away from the faith and is unable to return. Is that what it is saying? Let’s begin by looking at the context of this passage. The author is writing to a group of Jews who once declared themselves to be believers and are now in danger of falling back into an Old Covenant legal mindset and forsaking the grace of God. He begins in chapter 5 and verse 12 by chastising them for not progressing in the faith. In 6:1-3 the author shows a desire to teach them more advanced doctrines but he can act on this desire only if the Spirit of God moves the Hebrew Christians forward in spiritual understanding. The writer then asks himself what if the hearers did not grow and the Holy Spirit ceased to work in them? His answer is shocking. He says in essence that those who fall away can never be renewed again. So who are these people? The author describes them in verses four through eight as being:
· once enlightened
· tasters of the heavenly gift
· partakers of the Holy Spirit
· tasters of the good word of God
· tasters of the powers of the age to come
· those who have previously repented
Here we have quite an imposing list that any believer could identify with. On first glance this list seems to describe a true believer. If it does, then the writer is presenting the possibility that a true believer could fall away and never return. This is frightening text no matter now one looks at it.
But is this what the text is saying? Can a believer lose his salvation and be forever rejected by God? Over the course of church history three possible views have emerged concerning this text.
Possibility #1. This text describes a true believer who has lost his salvation.
In some ways this is the easiest interpretation. The person described appears to be a believer and it is clear that if he falls away then he can never return. This is the view of the Lutheran commentator Lenski and Arminian theologians.[6] But this interpretation has two major problems. First, as we said earlier, it simply does not fit the narrative of the rest of Scripture. We have labored to show in the previous chapter that a true believer cannot lose his salvation, that his salvation lies in the omnipotent hands of Christ, and that he was chosen irrevocably by the will of God. There is a hermeneutical principle that says we are to interpret difficult passages by clear ones. For example Philippians 1:6 says, “Knowing this very thing, that He that began a good work in you will perform it to the day of Christ Jesus.” It is hard to make that text say anything else but what it says. It is a clear text. On the other hand, the text at hand is not all that clear and over the years has raised a number of interpretive difficulties.
A second major objection is that the entire text is couched in section where the author really doesn’t believe his audience has fallen away at all. Note that verse 9 says, “But beloved we are confident of better things of you and the things that accompany salvation though we speak in this matter.” The author seems to raise the theoretical possibility of apostasy but does not believe these saints have gone down that path. So reader must ask, “Why does the author raise the possibility while at the same time reject the fact itself?” This leads us to believe that there is another reason he speaks the way he does. Because of this puzzling paradox and the fact that this view further contradicts the entire witness of Scripture it should be rejected.
Possibility #2. These verses describe those who look like true believers but are not.
This is the majority interpretation in the reformed world. The advocates of this position assert that men can look very much like believers and exhibit the fruit of faith but are really not saved at all. They turn to other passages like 2 Peter 2:20-22, Matthew 7:21-23, and 1 Timothy 4:1 and argue that the Bible is filled with examples of those who joined the external assembly but were not really in the company of the elect. They are described as dead branches, trees without fruit, clouds without water, and dogs that have returned to their vomit. The appealing part of this interpretation is that it preserves the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints for it claims that the people described in Hebrews chapter 6 are simply unbelievers. This view comports with the so-called thorny ground hearer in the Parable of the Sower; those who externally bear the evidence of Christian profession but whose profession is eventually choked out. Jesus Himself warned that there would be tares that would look exactly like the wheat yet at the end of time would be burnt up in judgment.[7] Indeed many including the great commentator John Brown hold to this view.
“The persons here referred to are not mere nominal professors—they have nothing to fall away from but an empty name; neither are they backsliding Christians. They are men who have really had their minds and affections to a very considerable degree exercised about and interested in Christianity; but who, never having been ‘renewed in the spirit of their mind’ when exposed to temptation of a peculiar kind, make complete shipwreck of the faith and a good conscience.” [8]
The problem with this interpretation is that the text of Hebrews 6 seems to describe a true Christian. The language used is found in other verses that describe a saved person. For example, this person “has partaken of the Holy Spirit.” Who but the Christian has experienced the third person of the sacred Trinity? It also says he has been “once enlightened” having previously repented of sins. The word enlightened is found in Ephesians 1:18 where it clearly refers to the saints “whose eyes have been enlightened.” The word is also found in 2 Timothy 1:10 where the apostle claims that grace has brought “life and immortality to light through the gospel.” And in Hebrews 10:32 the same word is used for those who have been saved or enlightened. This hypothetical person has also “tasted of the heavenly gift.” It is hard to imagine that the ‘heavenly gift’ means anything other than the enjoyment of the gift of salvation. This would only describe a believer. And lastly the text describes this person as having “tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.” The word ‘taste’ describes both the intimate experience with God’s goodness (Ps 34:8) and the hope of the eternal age. All of these characteristics speak of true intimacy with God.
Those who say this list does not describe a Christian argue that there is nothing here said about faith or repentance. And because faith alone saves a soul, these scholars argue that this text cannot describe a true believer. In addition, such proponents further assert that the characteristics listed here are strictly emotional and very subjective, things like tasting of the heavenly gift and partaking of the Holy Spirit. In other words, these marks of conversion are unverifiable, subjective aspects of one’s emotional life that prove nothing. [9]
In addition, those who believe this passage describes a non-Christian possessing only the externals of religion, point out that the author is contrasting them to his audience about whom he sees the “things that accompany salvation” and about whom he is confident of “better things.” This could indicate that the author is thinking in salvation categories and is making a distinction between these spurious believers and his audience. In other words, the author could be saying, “I don’t think you Hebrew Christians are the people I am talking about but such people do exist.”
All in all, though this view supports the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints, it is very hard to say the description of these people in verses 4-6 do not describe a saved soul. In addition, this view takes all the teeth out of the text. If the description does not describe the audience (who are certainly believers), then why does the author bring it up in the first place? What is his point? It is this question that drives us to consider a third option.
Possibility #3. The primary purpose of this passage, and perhaps others like it, is that the author warns his audience of the real possibility of apostasy with an eye toward using this warning as a means to prevent the very possibility described.
The assumption here is that all professors of faith have within themselves the possibility of apostasy. That is, they have a sin principle within them that left to itself would scuttle their ship of faith. If one looks at the Book of Hebrews, one sees that the ethos of the author throughout the book is a genuine fear that his audience might depart from their faith if they continue in the same direction. He is genuinely concerned that they will not “go on to perfection” (6:1). Many rightly ask, “Why would an apostle assume the possibility of apostasy if he believed that saints could not truly fall from the faith?” This is the question that must here be answered.
The answer is that God accomplishes our sanctification by use of means. The continuance of our salvation is a true battle between God’s keeping-power verses the deconstructive tendency of our sinful natures aided by the machinations of the devil. In other words salvation is a real battle fought between the will of God and the will of the devil. Consider how this is played out in Job. Looking at salvation this way helps us to understand what happens in our own lives. Have not we all had periods of dullness and declension whereby we thought we might fall away from the Lord forever? And can’t every true saint of God point to a time when he was suddenly stopped from this downward slide by divine intervention? Sometimes the intervention is a providential event (consider Jonah), sometimes a trial, sometimes a sudden impression, sometimes a word coming from a completely unexpected source. Who dare limit the many ways God intervenes to protect His child? As Spurgeon would often say, “Omnipotence has its servants everywhere.” Thus, God is quite able to use warning passages in His word to keep the elect from falling away. This text seems to be part of that genre. The author genuinely warns his hearers knowing that this very warning will be used to keep them from going apostate.
In recent years theologians such as Thomas Schreiner and R.C. Sproul have adopted this position. In analyzing this view another theologian puts it this way,
“The warnings are intended to serve as a means of salvation for God’s elect by helping them imagine with their mind’s eye the horror of apostasy and, as a result, never choose such a course.”[10]
In this book Boice and Ryken say succinctly, “We need the warning passages from God in order to persevere.”[11]
The beauty of this view is that it maintains the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints but the focus is not on work of man to prevent apostasy (or allow it) but on that monergistic work of God Himself. This once again puts the responsibility for our salvation squarely on the shoulders of God. At the end of the day it is God who expends His mighty power to keep His saints from falling which often includes some draconian measures to ensure their perseverance.
The beauty of this view is that it admits the horror of indwelling sin and the possibility of falling away because of that sin. It further gives all the glory to God’s covenant love and His power in keeping the elect. It also gives meaning to all those warning passages in the Bible. And lastly, it emphasizes God’s continual use of means to keep His elect in a place of safety. This is exactly what Jesus prayed for in John 17:11,
“I come to you, Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they might be one as we are one” (Jn. 17:11).
So what ultimately keeps the saints from going apostate? Their faith. So the Apostle Peter says,
“Who (the saints) are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5).
Of all people, Peter would experientially know that his perseverance rested on the keeping power of Jesus Christ. Just before his sin of denial the Lord had prayed for him, “I have prayed for you, that your faith fails not.”[12]
Could Peter have run from the Lord at that moment of weakness? In himself, yes. But Christ was praying for him even in the midst of his rebellion. Thus we see that the saint cannot apostatize because Jesus will do whatever is necessary to keep His disciple ‘safe and secure from all alarm.’ Christ ever prays that the saint’s faith fail not. And He uses the means of warning and a host of other things to ensure that His child shall finish the race.
Seeing Hebrews 6 in this way opens up a doorway that allows us to see other verses that treat apostasy in the same light. Later on in the same book of Hebrews the author again presents this frightening picture of those who might fall away.
“For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES. Anyone who has ignored the Law of Moses is put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, ‘VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY.’ And again, ‘THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE.’ It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:26-31).
The audience here is the same as we see in chapter 6. Again the author seems to believe these saints have the potential of trampling underfoot the blood of Jesus Christ and falling from grace. He warns his audience that if they continue down the road of turning from the sufficient sacrifice of Jesus Christ they will fall away permanently. The author’s purpose once again is to warn them of their potential apostasy in order that they may turn around. As with chapter 6 he reminds them of God’s promises. He asks them to ‘recall the former days,’ the days in which they exhibited great zeal for the Lord in suffering (vs 32). God’s purpose in this timely warning was to call back these drifting sheep from the cliff of apostasy so that they would not “cast away their confidence which has great reward” (vs 35). And just as in chapter 6 where the author does not believe his audience will go apostate, so he has the same confidence of them here. “But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul” (vs 39).
Another text that seems to teach the apostasy of Christians is found in the Second book of Peter. Here the apostle is writing to warn true believers to be wary of apostates.
“If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: ‘A dog returns to its vomit,’ and, ‘A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud’” (2 Peter 2:20-22).
The issue here is that Peter seems to describe these apostates as “knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Despite this knowledge they clearly fall away from the faith. Doesn’t this teach that those who know Jesus can go apostate? But here Peter is not writing to those who may be inching toward apostasy, but he is writing to Christians to warn them about those who have gone apostate. They are described as having some knowledge of the Lord and Savior. This refers not to a saving knowledge of the Savior but a public profession that had put them into the visible Christian community. They ‘knew about’ the Savior yet they did not know Him in the full salvific sense.[13] To be specific, the entire point of this chapter is to warn the people of God about those who ‘will secretly bring in destructive heresies’ (2:1). This has nothing to do with Christians who suddenly go apostate.
The same may be said for the saints at Galatia. Again, they have imbibed an error similar to that of the Hebrews. The churches in Galatia are beginning to deny some key gospel truths, especially the nature of the gospel and its ongoing work in their sanctification (see Gal 3:2,5). In place of the Spirit’s work by faith the churches were being influenced by the Judaizers who told them they must be circumcised and keep the law in order to validate their Christian faith. So bad was this move toward apostasy that Paul thought his labors to them had been fruitless. He goes so far as to say he feared they had “fallen from grace” (see Gal 4:11; 5:4). But again, Paul’s purpose is to warn these straying believers back to the truth. Later on the apostle speaks as if they would come out of their spiritual doldrums. He says to them, “I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that you will have no other mind; but he who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is.” Despite the bad state of these churches Paul optimistically ends the epistle with this note of blessing,
“And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God” (6:16).
God in His goodness gives us warnings by the hand of faithful teachers which will be heeded by the heirs of grace and so halt their descent into apostasy.
OTHER TEXTS TEACH THAT FAKE BELIEVERS DO FALL AWAY.
A second category of texts are those that clearly depict men falling away who have made a profession of faith. The Holy Spirit is not using these texts to call potential apostates back to the faith, but rather He is teaching us that there is a ‘faith’ that falls short of the faith that saves. Such texts do not threaten the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints for the simple reason they are not speaking of true believers. For example, in the Parable of the Sower Jesus specifically compares the different kinds of soil of those who listen to the gospel. Some actually respond to the word but not in a saving way. This is true of the thorny ground hearer who responds to the message and shows some semblance of life but over time his faith falls short of bearing fruit (Mt 13:7,22). The fact is that the Bible teaches that there are many persons who may understand the husk of the gospel message and believe it for self-serving reasons but they never see the deep implications of their own sin and the perfect remedy of the Savior. In other words, they do not exercise saving faith. Only true believers actually understand the gospel message in a saving way (see Mt 13:23). Another such text is First Timothy 4:1 which says that in the latter days some will “depart from the faith.” This is not a text designed to state that some believers have fallen away but is a prophetic text that predicts the spurious professions of faith that will characterize the end days. One of those marks will be a shallow faith that produces no fruit and therefore does not persevere. We note also John chapter 6 where the apostle gives us a lengthy historical parable of those who follow Jesus for reasons that are divorced from His office as the Savior of sinners. They followed him for money or material benefit (see 6:26), just as Judas followed him, and thus their following Jesus fell short of a saving interest in Him. Although these people walked with Jesus for a while there was no true repentance, no dependent faith, no humble need for forgiveness of sins. Predictably when the heat of the gospel and its implications is laid upon them they walk away (Jn 6:66).
No doubt these texts and more can be used to undermine the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints. It is imperative, therefore, that Christians understand the purpose of every text in its context and who the audience is. We should always ask, “Is this text describing a person with a defective faith or is it aimed at warning a true believer?” Both families of texts present a riveting commentary on the nature of saving faith. So in order to understand the doctrine of perseverance clearly we must digress a bit and grapple with the issue of the kind of faith that saves a soul. Or, to say it another way, what is the nature of a faith that perseveres?
WHAT FAITH SAVES?
Only the saint that has truly believed the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ will persevere. The church has been grappling with the nature of true faith from her earliest days. In order for one to know if he will persevere to the end it would behoove him to have a basic understanding of the faith that saves. We all know that justification by faith alone was the key doctrine of the Reformation that set people free from the suffocating legalism of Rome. The doctrine brought comfort to sinners for it took salvation out of the hands of manipulative church authorities and put it squarely into the hands of the Lord. Luther’s doctrines spread like wildfire because they removed personal achievement, sacraments and works from the salvation equation. God and God alone was the author of salvation apart from the works of the flesh. What saved people was faith alone as demonstrated in the salvation of the Philippian jailor (see Acts 16:31-32). The reformed tradition including the Dutch church that codified the Doctrines of Grace has always believed that a true understanding of faith is the key to understanding perseverance. Saving faith is a mystery, simple yet profound; something that can be exercised by a child, yet a subject of great complexity for theologians. What then is saving faith? We start with the simple definition of the Westminster Confession of Faith.
“Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification; yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.” [14]
Notice that the Westminster Divines describe faith as that which receives and rests in Christ alone; nothing more nothing less. Faith has to do with the direction of the heart, a looking away from one’s own solutions to what God accomplished for sinners at Calvary. Notice the Divines were careful to omit any kind of duty or feeling as the grounds of saving faith. Faith is simply a receiving the free offer of God. One receives because one is needy and helpless and the gift is the only thing that can fill that need. To say anything more about faith than that which receives is to say too much. Faith does not do; it is not a work; it receives. It is the open mouth that takes in the food.
However, the Divines were quick to add that the faith that saves and perseveres is accompanied by “other saving graces.” In other words when a sinner truly receives the gift of God out of a profound need of all that Christ offers, that faith will always begin to work in that person a life of gratitude and service. Luther, the great champion of ‘faith alone’ added, “Salvation is by faith alone but not a faith that is alone.” This makes faith not only the receiving agent at the time of conversion, but it is the continual receiving agent throughout the sinner’s life. The point here is that faith is the agent that sustains one’s perseverance. Thus, to add other components to faith is to add additional requirements that vitiate the very nature of faith. This means the believer who perseveres is the person who continually looks to the same solution that he looked to the day he was converted. Thus, the great enemy to faith, and consequently the Christian life, is any attempt to add works or human effort to the ongoing reality of one’s trust in the merits of Jesus Christ. A true faith, therefore, is an emptiness that continually looks longingly to One who can fill. Biblical texts that teach this are almost innumerable. Consider Psalm 123:1-2,
“Unto You I lift up my eyes, O You who dwell in the heavens.
Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters,
As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,
So our eyes look to the Lord our God, until He has mercy on us.”
THE GREATEST THREAT TO THE DOCTRINE OF PERSEVERANCE
One would initially think that the greatest aid to one’s perseverance in the faith would be a rigorous life of self-discipline laden with many convictions. Such a view seems to be the common view in the broader evangelical movement. Most evangelicals strongly affirm that justification is by faith alone. But when it comes to sanctification, or living the Christian life, there is an ever-so-subtle shift in people’s minds that we must maintain our justification by law, works or duty. That is, the way the Christian life proceeds rests on some mixture of faith and works. It is a subtle distinction that carries with it a world of import. Any system that espouses a view that the believer is responsible to carry forth the work of redemption is a form of legalism. This has become an overwrought word that has lost much of its meaning. The common denominator of all legalistic systems is this subtle and subconscious idea that I ‘must do’ such and such in order to persevere in the faith. What is thought to be a great aid to Christian perseverance becomes, however, its greatest inhibitor. That is, the very idea that works seem to promote sanctification actually works just the opposite. The reason for this is subtle and somewhat counterintuitive. Once any obligation is laid upon saint to maintain his status as a fully justified believer this immediately places that person back under the curse of the law. This leads to a life of bondage as then one’s life consists in trying to do what it cannot fully do. This leads to despair and a Christian demeanor that slogs through life trying to please a God who continually frowns at repeated failures. Worse still is the reality that the law so far from removing sin actually heightens it. [15] In his fine book on sanctification, Walter Marshall says this,
“One great mystery is that the holy frame and disposition, by which our souls are furnished and enabled for immediate practice of the law, must be obtained by receiving it out of Christ’s fullness, as a thing already prepared and brought to an existence for us in Christ and treasured up in Him; and that as we are justified by a righteousness wrought out in Christ and imputed to us, so we are sanctified by such a holy frame and qualifications as are first wrought out and completed in Christ for us, and then imparted to us.”[16]
This 17th century author needs to be heard once again in our day. Whenever some duty is added to our Christian lives we have subtly denied salvation by ‘faith alone.’ This has nothing to do with the question ‘does faith produce works.’ Rather it has everything to do with protecting the very kind of faith that connects the sinner to Christ so that works are performed. Faith is therefore, the pure naked grasping of Christ that always leads to a thankful heart. To summarize, perseverance either flows through the corridors of humble reception of the gift of God or it comes by a constant striving of the will toward self-betterment. The Bible clearly teaches the former is true and saving faith. Paul’s words stand true,
“This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?”
WHAT ABOUT LORDSHIP SALVATION?
Today we have a variety of views of faith being taught, even in Reformed circles, that have some tinge of semi-Pelagianism in it. One such error that comes to us in a mild form is the doctrine known as Lordship Salvation. The chief proponent of this view is John MacArthur, prolific author and pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley California. MacArthur is perhaps the greatest living voice for Calvinistic theology in our day and there is much to be admired in his ministry. But on the point of saving faith he veers slightly off center. In 1988, to combat an encroaching influence of the error of easy-believism [17] that had taken a foothold among some professors at Dallas Theological Seminary, MacArthur wrote his controversial book The Gospel According to Jesus. [18] In it he asserted that saving faith was not a flat notional belief (which is true) but true faith must include in it the commitment to make Jesus “Lord of one’s life.” In another book he expanded on this thought,
‘The lordship controversy is a disagreement over the nature of true faith. Those who want to eliminate Christ’s lordship from the gospel see faith as simple trust in a set of truths about Christ. Faith as they describe it is merely a personal appropriation of the promise of eternal life. Scripture describes faith as more than that – it is a wholehearted trust is Christ personally (e.g., Gal: 2:16; Phil. 3:9). Not merely faith about him, faith in Him. Note the difference: If I say I believe some promise you have made, I am saying far less than if I say I trust you. Believing in a person necessarily involves some degree of commitment. Trusting Christ means placing oneself in his custody for both life and death. It means we rely on his counsel, trust in His goodness, and entrust ourselves for time and eternity to His guardianship. Real faith, saving faith, is all of me (mind, emotions, and will), embracing all of him.” [19]
In another place he says,
“A faith that is void of submission is a merely intellectual faith….. Those who adopt such a view must then scale back the definition of faith so that believing is something that even depraved sinners are capable of.” [20]
MacArthur is to be applauded in pushing back against a faith that leads to no change of life and eschews all need of repentance. Faith is more than assenting to some abstract truths that sees no need of the object. His voice needed to be heard at an hour when evangelicalism was drifting to a view of faith that was no more than intellectual assent. However in his zeal to preserve the nature of saving faith it seems as if MacArthur may have gone a bit too far. While it is important to protect faith from becoming nothing more than a flat assent to facts it is equally important to protect the purity of faith by not adding moral components to it. When Dr. MacArthur asserted that saving faith must include a desire of the poor sinner to make Christ the Lord of his life, he was appealing to that great salvation-verse found in Romans chapter 10. The verse in question says that salvation consists with confessing with one’s mouth “that Jesus is Lord” (10:9). The question is what does Paul really mean by the phrase “Jesus is Lord”? Is he saying that the sinner must immediately bow the knee to Jesus Christ in all areas of life as Lord and Master of all? Or is he saying that the sinner must acknowledge that Jesus is the Lord, that is, the Son of God, true God of true God, the only King of the universe, the mighty Savior? Well, if Paul means that at the moment of faith the sinner understands and confesses all the implications of Jesus’ Lordship, then you have added a weight to faith that is not required by the general teaching of Scripture. When someone is saved by the Spirit, what happens in the mind of the believer? Paul answers this question in 1 Corinthians 12:3,
“Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
The issue with Paul is not the sinners vow to submit to Jesus in all things, but the sinner’s conception of who Jesus really is. Is He God incarnate, or is he a mere charlatan? What Paul is saying in both texts is that one is saved when one confesses the true identity of Jesus as the sufficient Savior who is the God-man sent down from heaven to save sinners. This is exactly what John says in his first epistle.
“Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him” (1 John 5:1),
Knowing who Jesus is and trusting in one’s new-found understanding of Him is the essence of faith. This is exactly Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi, “That thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” To be sure, in time this confession would inevitably lead to Peter’s growth in obedience. But we must never let go of the truth that at the moment of conversion the poor sinner simply grabs ahold of Jesus as his only hope. The lordship of Jesus is a good thing, but only in its place as a growing result of faith and not as the quality of faith itself.
Let me give an illustration. One might enter a doorway of a fixer upper knowing there is all kinds of work to be done in the house. Now no one would say entering the door is the same as fixing up the house. But in order to fix up the house one must enter the door. And, when one enters the door, so begins the process of fixing up the house. Both events are related but not the same. Likewise, sinners come to Christ because they are needy sinners. The works will eventually follow.
Another variant on this idea of adding moral elements to faith comes from the pen of John Piper, former Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis and founder and director of Desiring God Ministries. Again, one must not diminish the positive impact Piper has had on Reformed Theology. But here again he subscribes to a faith that is more robust than Scripture allows. He finds the definition of faith by the Princeton great, Charles Hodge, to be lacking in one area. He says,
“But I want to say a bit more than [Charles] Hodge does. I don’t want to say merely that faith in promises produces ‘confidence, joy and hope,’ but that an essential element in the faith itself is confidence and joy and hope. It is not false to say that faith produces these things. But that does not contradict the other truth: that confidence and joy and hope are part of the warp and woof of faith…. [T]he essence of saving faith is a spiritual apprehension or tasting of spiritual beauty, which is delight.” [21]
Note carefully that Piper says “an essential element in the faith itself is confidence, joy and hope.” But one asks, “Are not confidence joy and hope a fruit of faith, not faith itself?” By adding these things Piper adds a qualitative component to faith that none of the reformers would have added. Like the Lordship salvation view, there is a subtlety here that cannot be overlooked. What these positions infer is that to be saved you must have a faith that is packed with moral virtue. This lies in direct opposition to the Bible’s view of faith which is the resting of a needy sinner on the fullness of Christ or the looking at the bronze serpent high and lifted up.
The point here is that perseverance is sustained by the ongoing trust in Jesus Christ and that alone. Poor sinners look to the crucified Lamb and see in Him the only hope of salvation. As the Jews in the wilderness looked to the bronze serpent and were healed of the poisonous snakes, so sinners today must be urged to look to the Savior placarded before their eyes as the only way to healing their soul’s diseases. They are not to look for confidence, joy or hope, for that only distracts them from what heals them. Unfortunately in much preaching today there are many other qualities added to faith which impede broken sinners from coming naked to the cross for they feel they cannot fulfill the added requirements. To discuss them here would take us beyond the scope of this book. [22]
And yet there is an irony to all of this. Often the very reason that teachers give for adding additional stipulations to true faith is to provide for believers tests of their faith in order to help them know if they are ‘real’ or not. But in truth, adding certain stipulations to faith actually serves to drive them away because they feel they are not worthy enough to have such a faith or will not be able to keep up the high demands of faith laid upon them. These tests which are so often used by well-intended ministers serve as a barrier to so many weak and needy souls. The beauty of the Bible message is that it invites all men to come empty-handed, humbly, trustingly. It’s a message that the guiltiest and weakest sinner can receive. And so the questions Christians must ask themselves is not how strong their faith is, but whether they have faith at all. ‘Do I believe that Jesus is the Son of God?’ ‘Am I a sinner in desperate need of forgiveness?’ ‘Did Jesus do all that was necessary on the cross to pay the full penalty for my sin?’ If one can say ‘yes’ to these questions, though their faith may be weak and faltering, they are nevertheless true believers redeemed by Christ’s blood. The Perseverance of the Saints advocates that if one exercises simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ then one is most certainly saved and will persevere to the end.
PERSEVERANCE DEPENDS ON THE STRENGTH OF ONE’S FAITH.
It is often said that a Christian will not persevere unless he or she has a robust faith. Behind this belief is the idea that strong faith is the grounds of perseverance. But is this a proper view of perseverance? The question must be asked, “Does perseverance rest on factors that reside in man, like the quality of faith?” And the reformed answer is a resounding no. The Bible clearly teaches that perseverance rests on just one thing, the completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Hebrews 12:1-2 makes this clear. The author urges the hearers to run with endurance the race that is set before them. And what enables them to do so? Verse 2 answers, “Looking under Jesus is the author and finisher of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross and despised the shame.” What could be clearer? The way the Hebrew Christians will endure is not by the strength of their faith but in exercising any faith which the author describes as “the substance of things hoped for.” As with every aspect of salvation, perseverance rests outside the believer and always focuses on “things not seen.” We persevere only when we trust the One who persevered outside of us and for us. That there must be some trusting in order to persevere is true, however, the trusting may be very weak as with the woman with the twelve-year issue of blood (Mt 9:20-22) or it may be much stronger as with Abraham who firmly believed in the birth of the promised son (Rom 4:19). Though one faith might exceed another in strength, the perseverance that results is the same for all kinds of faith. That is because finishing the race rests not on the strength of our legs but on the divine hand that upholds us along the way. Thus, anyone who trusts Christ must finish the race at last.
That does not mean we as believers should settle for a weak faith. Faith which continually doubts does not affect the finish line, but it does affect one’s certainty that he or she will reach the finish line. Those, whose hands of faith are constantly shaking, may experience great fits of questioning their interest in the Savior. But perseverance and doubting one’s perseverance are two radically different things. True, as to the quality of the Christian life, the doubting believer is put at a very strong disadvantage in terms of a settled conscience, spiritual stability and usefulness. Yet, it is faith alone that saves not the strength of faith.
DOES PERSEVERANCE MEAN I NEED NOT DO GOOD WORKS?
One of the great challenges to the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints is the notion that it can be construed to encourage Christians to treat their lives like a vehicle on autopilot. Good works might be a nice bonus for Christian rewards but since God preserves saints no matter what they do, there is little need to pursue them.
To answer how the Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints answers that question it would be wise for us to once again consider the grounds of one’s perseverance and its fruit.
As we have already stated, the Bible teaches that the saints will persevere to the end. But how is that perseverance nourished? The answer is by faith. So long as one believes, one will ultimately reach glory. So why is faith the root cause of perseverance? To answer that question is to solve the problem. When one believes, God by the divine activity of the Spirit attaches the believer to the person of Jesus Christ. This doctrine is called Union with Christ. Many scholars consider this to be the greatest contribution to theology by the Genevan Reformer. [23] In one of his treatises he says,
“We believe this communication to be mystical, and incomprehensible to human reason, and Spiritual, since it is effected by the Holy Spirit [by whom] he joins us to Christ our Head, not in an imaginary way, but most powerfully and truly, so that we become flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, and from his vivifying flesh he transfuses eternal life into us.” [24]
The first two chapters of Ephesians makes it clear that faith attaches the sinner to every spiritual benefit in Christ, including our holy standing, forgiveness of sins, adoption into the divine family, unity with other believers, and the sealing work of the Spirit, the Guarantor of all these benefits. So real is this union that Paul can tell the believers that they have died with Christ, are buried and raised with Him, and are presently seated in the heavenlies by divine decree and by imputation. [25]
In other words the believer perseveres not because of anything in him but because God has vitally united him to His Son. And once a sinner is united to the Savior there begins an inexorable transformation into the likeness of the One to whom he is attached. This includes the performance of good works. In other words good works are not something the saved man must do. Better said, good works are something the saved man will do. Why? Because like a Siamese twin he shares a common life with his Savior. An illustration here is helpful. A fetus lives as it shares in the life-giving blood of the mother through the placenta. The fetus is not the same person as the mother and shares no organs (or blood) with her. But the fetus only lives and grows because it partakes in the mother’s life. Christians persevere because they are spiritual fetuses attached to the life-giving person of Jesus Christ.
It would remiss for us to ignore two grave errors that arise from a misunderstanding of this concept of Union with Christ. The first is that faith is a mere notional assent to Jesus’ offer of salvation but it doesn’t place the pitiful sinner in the womb of Christ. In this scheme, faith is mere assent to certain facts not organic unity with God. But if faith truly attaches us to Jesus Christ, then works will necessarily emerge. This dunning down of the quality of faith is the legacy of the ‘free grace’ movement seen most clearly in the teachings of the Grace Evangelical Society, led by Bob Wilkin, and influence of former Dallas Seminary professors Zane Hodges and Charles Ryrie. [26] Now let’s clear. By and large these men have a healthy view of the gospel and they believe in the concept of union with Christ. [27] However they also hold to a union that does not necessarily produce change in the sinner’s life. One can be a Christian even if he is engaged in all kinds of debauchery, lasciviousness, and an unrestrained exercise of Christian liberty. But this reformed doctrine says that true faith cannot produce a barren life, for faith attaches the sinner to the life-giving person of Jesus. This is why self-examination in the Christian life is suggested by Paul. He asks the Corinthians to “examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified” (2 Cor 13:5). True faith must produce good works.
On the other end of the spectrum is the increasingly popular position that says works are a necessary requirement in order for one to properly believe. This view has always been widespread in Reformed Theology through the teachings of the Puritans and other Reformed teachers such as John Gerstner, John MacArthur and John Piper. Gerstner, for example, one of the stalwarts of the Christian faith in our day, says this,
“Thus, good works may be said to be a condition for obtaining salvation in that they inevitably accompany genuine faith. Good works, while a necessary complement of true faith, are never the meritorious grounds of justification, of acceptance before God. From the essential truth that no sinner in himself can merit salvation, the antinomian draws the erroneous conclusion that good works need not even accompany faith in the saint. The question is not whether good works are necessary to salvation, but in what way are they necessary. As the inevitable outworking of saving faith, they are necessary for salvation.” [28]
Gerstner is certainly correct. However his teaching can be easily interpreted to mean that Christians are ultimately judged by Christ for their works. John MacArthur a paragon of orthodox and conservative Christianity leaves this same door open as he espouses the notion of Lordship Salvation which we discussed earlier. [29] John Piper, former pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis goes a bit farther by actually saying Christians will be judged at the end for their works. In his article Does God Really Save us by Faith Alone Piper posits that faith alone is not enough to save as it needs to be vindicated by good works at the final judgment. In essence his article says,
· “In justification, faith receives a finished work of Christ performed outside of us and counted as ours — imputed to us.
· In sanctification, faith receives an ongoing power of Christ that works inside us for practical holiness.
In final salvation at the last judgment, faith is confirmed by the sanctifying fruit it has borne, and we are saved through that fruit and that faith. As Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2:13, ‘God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.’” [30]
Notice that Piper says sinners are saved not only by faith but by the fruit of faith. We cannot judge the motives of this Bible scholar, but what we can say is that this theology can easily lead Protestant Christianity back to Rome. After all, if salvation really depends on the measure of one’s fruit at the judgment, then who can be assured of anything? If good works are the basis of our being justified at the end, then how much good works are required of us? This drives the believer back to an endless striving to please God with no assurance he has ever done enough.
Another view that lays heavy emphasis on the fruit of faith is that of N.T. Wright, the British voice who has popularized the disparate movement called the New Perspectives on Paul. Without getting into all the details, Wright’s paradigm of salvation rests on the concept of Covenantal Nomism. This doctrine espouses a view that says that sinners are brought into covenantal union with God by grace alone, but after that the believer must maintain his good standing in the covenant by his works. James Dunn who highly influenced Wright’s view on this matter says,
“Covenantal Nomism is the view that one’s place in God’s plan is established on the basis of the covenant and that the covenant requires as the proper response of man his obedience to its commandments, while providing means of atonement for transgression … Obedience maintains one’s position in the covenant, but it does not earn God’s grace as such … Righteousness in Judaism is a term which implies the maintenance of status among the group of the elect” [31]
All these diverse views have one thing in common. They subtly or explicitly attack the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints by taking the responsibility of one’s salvation out of the hands of God and placing it back into the tenuous clutches of the human will.
Learning the great Reformation Catechisms or Confessions would serve to bring us back to sanity on this issue. Listen to the beautiful language of the Heidelberg Catechism.
Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A. That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and redeemed me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me, that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him (italics mine).
CONCLUSION
The doctrine of the Perseverance Of the Saints is the most God-centered, satisfying, affirming, truth in the Bible. No other religion offers such an encouragement upon which to rest one’s weary head because no other religion has a God who so loves His own and is powerful enough to keep them to the end. But as we have seen, its glory can be its weakness. So wonderful is this truth that it can be readily abused in many different directions. When a sinner first comes to believe this truth it seems to him as ‘apples of gold in settings of silver.’ It gives him a most comfortable bed to rest on when all the winds of doubt and error assault him. It promises him eternal life, and gives him the freedom to go out and serve a gracious God. Nothing, no nothing, has a greater effect on the saint than the promise that he will persevere to the end because of the work of Christ. This doctrine, we have argued, never excuses the Christian from vigorous activity in his life of faith. Because God saves and attaches the sinner to the Savior, in what we call Union with Christ, that person will work out his salvation by the power of God. The Book Hebrews puts the two disparate elements of this doctrine together in a noble way. It says,
“Therefore, since we also have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let’s rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking only at Jesus, the originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
The Christian is in a race for His soul. He is to run and lay everything aside that might hinder his course. But that activity takes place only because the race he runs has already been finished by another. This means the Christian runs with the unassailable conviction that he will get to the finish line. This is what makes the Christian life a beautiful mystery, a life pained with strain yet blessed with rest. There is no doctrine like it on the face of the planet. It is the honey in the honeycomb to every follower of the Lamb. So the hymn writer exults,
“No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home — Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.” [32]
And with that we rest our case. Amen.
[1] Boettner Lorraine; The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. Presbyterian and Reformed. Phillipsburg Pa., 1932. Pg 201
[2] This is the clear teaching of the Parable of the Sower; see Matthew 13:23. True believers must bear fruit.
[3] See John 15:2.
[4] An analysis of the nature of saving faith is beyond the scope of this book. For a detailed treatment of this topic, see Machen, J Gresham, What is Faith?
[5] See Ligonier website, entry from March 23,2020. https://www.ligonier.org/blog/can-christian-lose-their-salvation/
[6] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistle of James (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1966) 179-187
[7] See Matthew 13:24-30
[8] Brown, John. The Epistle to the Hebrews. Banner of Truth, Edinburgh, 1976. Pg 290.
[9] See MacArthur, New Testament Commentary on Hebrews, Moody, 1983. pg 146-47.
[10] Derek Brown, ‘Making Sense of Hebrews 6’. See https://fromthestudy.com/2014/12/08/making-sense-of-hebrews-6/
[11] Boice J.M and Ryken, P, The Doctrines of Grace, Crossway Books, Wheaton Il, 2002. Pg 173
[12] See Luke 22:31
[13] Jesus taught the same thing in Mt 7:15-2. False prophets are known by their heretical teachings. Heresy of false prophets is the fruit that Jesus is talking about, not moral failure.
[14] Westminster Confession. XI,3
[15] See 1 Corinthians 15:56
[16] The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, Marshall, Walter, accessed from Monergysm website, https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/GospelMystery.pdf. Page 115, Section 3.1
[17] This has been discussed before in a previous chapter. It basically asserts a surface notional faith about Jesus is all that is required for one to be saved.
[18] We must be clear here; we are interacting with the initial edition of the book in 1988. MacArthur has since listened to critiques and has updated some of the fuzzy statements made concerning faith and justification.
[19] MacArthur, John. Faith Works: the Gospel According to the Apostles. 1993 W Publishing Group. Pg. 30.
[20] Master’s Seminary Journal. TMSJ 4/1 (Spring 1993) 5-24
[21] Piper, John. Faith in Future Grace. Multnomah Press, Sisters Or. 1995. pg 205.
[22] This is found in the movement New Perspectives on Paul advocate a concept of Covenantal Nomism whereby one is saved by grace but maintained by keeping covenant promises. This has been advocated by N.T. Wright and others. See https://ntwrightpage.com/2016/04/05/redemption-from-the-new-perspective/
[23] See; Gates, Lee. The Inexhaustible Fountain of All Good Things: Union with Christ in Calvin on Ephesians. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/the-inexhaustible-fountain-of-all-good-things-union-with-christ-in-calvin-o/
[24] Calvin, John. Theological Treatises, ed. J.K.S. Reid (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006), pg 171.
[25] See Eph 1:4,7, 11, 13; 2:5-6
[26] See their website at https://faithalone.org/
[27] See Ryrie’s view. https://ryrielibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Article_New-Life-in-Christ_OCR.pdf or Balancing the Christian Life, Moody press, 1969 chapter 5 ‘United with Christ.’
[28] Gerstner, John. Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth. Wolgemuth and Hyatt Pubs, Brentwood TN, 1991, pg 210
[29] This book written in 2008 was a response to the radical Free Grace teachings of Hodges, Ryrie and others. It was actually an intermural dispute among American Dispensationalists.
[30] See Desiring God website, 9/25/2017; https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/does-god-really-save-us-by-faith-alone
[31] Sanders, E.P., Paul, 75, 420, 544, quoted in J. Dunn, ‘The New Perspective on Paul’ in Jesus, Paul and the Law, 186
[32] In Christ Alone, Getty and Townsend.