What Does it Mean to Persevere in Salvation?
“The world cares little about those who merely love Jesus, but will readily cut you in half for living according to His doctrine.”
“If you are not a student of doctrine, you are not a lover of Jesus, you are a liar.”
I heard it again this morning: “They don’t know anything about doctrine, they just love Jesus.” Sigh. I have a confession to make. These types of Protestant truisms often verbalized from habit suck the wind out of my sails. What is it that is so discouraging about being a Baptist? Confusion. We think doctrine is really, really important, and of course our doctrine comes from the Bible, but “love” somehow trumps the nasty “D” word “doctrine.” A pity that it can’t be spelled with four letters. At least Muslims are not confused about their doctrine as displayed in their penchant for beheading people. A good Baptist wouldn’t dream of beheading anyone, we are just morally confused. At least Catholics know the Pope is the “Holy Father” and make no bones about it. Baptists hiss at such a notion, knowing it’s errant, but are completely ignorant about what is true.
American Christianity is in a biblical definition of words crisis. No religious follower can throw around words without really understanding the meanings like a Protestant. “Gospel,” “faith,” “salvation,” “grace,” “perseverance,” etc., are words we use often, but we really don’t know what they mean. No one can say “amen” while clueless like a Baptist. Dear Baptist pastor, don’t be encouraged when you hear “amen” from your congregants on Sunday morning; let’s be honest, they really have no clue what you are talking about. While claiming to be the sultans of salvation, most Baptists don’t even know its correct biblical definition.
“Nonsense! We know what that word means! It means we are saved from our sins by faith alone because of what Jesus did!”
Ok, so what do you do with Paul writing that we need to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling? It’s not a contradiction; Paul is talking about salvation in regard to redemption, not justification. But, in order to know what that verse means, you need to know doctrine. So, let me rephrase the truism at hand:
“They don’t have a clue about anything the Bible says, they just love Jesus.”
Well, bless their little hearts, but Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Jesus’ mandate to the church was to “make disciples” (learners), teaching them to observe “ALL that I have commanded.” If you don’t know your Bible, you can’t love Jesus. If you don’t know your Bible, you don’t know doctrine.
Doctrine, law, commandments, and “truth,” are biblically synonymous. The primary characteristic of a saved person is love for the truth (2Thess 2:10). The saved person loves doctrine, law, the commandments, and truth (2Tim 4:2-4, Rom 8:1-8 Psalms 119). There is NO love for Jesus apart from His truth. “Why do you call me Lord and do not what I say?” A person who loves Jesus is a learner of doctrine. A person who loves Jesus is a student of doctrine. If you are not a student of doctrine, you are not a lover of Jesus, you are a liar.
How bad is it? I had three Baptist elders from a conservative Baptist church sit in my living room, and one proudly boasted, “I’m an elder, not a theologian.” God help us. This is beyond horrible. Till this day, I do not regret standing up and screaming at him, “THEN GET OUT OF THE MINISTRY!”
This brings us to the word “perseverance” in regard to “suffering.” Primarily, in the Bible, these two words regard the suffering we will endure for living according to truthful doctrine. The world wages a relentless onslaught against truth, and we are called on to persevere against that onslaught. The world cares little about those who merely love Jesus, but will readily cut you in half for living according to His doctrine. If you want to know what that can look like, see Hebrews chapter 11.
There is a salvation left for the Christian; it is a salvation from this mortal body, what Paul called the body of death in regard to its mortality. This mortality must put on immortality. We call that “redemption,” the other salvation (Rom 7:24, 25 [the word “wretched” refers to perseverance in the Greek]). Something that is redeemed has already been purchased, ie., we are already purchased and therefore justified. We still look forward to our redemption when Christ comes back to claim what He has already purchased on the cross. We are not our own, we “were bought with a price.” Christ purchased us from the world slave master.
Our present salvation (sanctification looking for the blessed hope of redemption) is for reward (Heb 6:10), justification is a gift. The Hebrew writer encouraged the Jewish believers to persevere in the truth, looking to Jesus the author (justification) and finisher (redemption) of our faith. They were told to persevere and put their suffering for the truth in perspective; they had not yet “resisted unto blood” like Jesus had. Look, I understand, in most cases, there are no doctrinally sound churches anywhere near where you live, but those of you who still attend such churches so your children will have friends—you might consider such. Jesus stood for truth unto death while you bemoan loosing “friends” over the truth. The Jews written to had already lost everything they owned, so the Hebrew writer encouraged them by noting that they still had their lives.
“Loving” Jesus apart from loving doctrine is just part of the worldly onslaught against the gospel, and is an excuse not to persevere for the sake of truth. “By much suffering we must enter into the kingdom,” and that suffering refers to “those who live godly in Christ WILL suffer persecution.” I know, I know, we are “only” talking about loss of reward here, but what about our real love for Jesus? Where is your passion to hear, “well done faithful servant” from the one who left the glories of heaven to purchase us from the world?
And remember, loving Jesus apart from doctrine is in fact a doctrine. Everyone lives by some doctrine—it might as well be one that leads to eternal life.
How deep is your real love?
paul
Is Calvinism the Same Kind of False Gospel that Plagued the Hebrews?
Originally published December 6, 2013
Calvinism is the “golden chain of salvation.” Justification by faith alone, one of the five solas, means that we are justified by faith alone, but Calvin taught that justification is a PROCESS that extends from when we were saved until final justification at the resurrection where the sons of God will be “made manifest.” This is opposed to seeing justification as a finished work, a onetime factual declaration. We are practically just because we are regenerated by the Holy Spirit via the new birth which is also a onetime final work. A birth is a onetime event.
However, if you see justification as a PROCESS from salvation to glorification, the Christian life must be lived by…what? Right, faith alone. This is just another dirty little secret behind the Reformed bumper sticker. Justification by faith alone also means sanctification by faith alone. And since justification is not a onetime finished work, we can never be worthy of not needing justification; hence, total depravity also pertains to the saints—another devil in the detail of a Reformed bumper sticker.
Furthermore, if justification is a process, we need to stay in that process till the end, right? How? Well, the same way we have always been justified, by faith and repentance alone for justification. If we are in the justification process, we need to live by the same repentance and faith that saved us—alone. This is how Calvin stated it:
Moreover, the message of free reconciliation with God is not promulgated for one or two days, but is declared to be perpetual in the Church (2 Cor. 5:18, 19). Hence believers have not even to the end of life any other righteousness than that which is there described. Christ ever remains a Mediator to reconcile the Father to us, and there is a perpetual efficacy in his death—viz. ablution, satisfaction, expiation;
Hence, it stands to reason that new sins separate us from justification, and the perpetual need for Christ’s mediation is needed:
…by new sins we continually separate ourselves, as far as we can, from the grace of God… Thus it is, that all the saints have need of the daily forgiveness of sins; for this alone keeps us in the family of God.
Calvinists call this “deep repentance.” So, the Christian life, according to Calvinism, focuses on a “lifestyle of repentance and faith” (Paul David Tripp).
Now consider Hebrews 6:1-6. The Hebrew writer seems to be introducing this same idea of revisiting the doctrine of our original salvation rather than moving on to something else:
Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, 2 Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. 3 And this will we do, if God permit.
The Hebrew writer says to not lay again the “foundation” of faith and repentance. This is in direct contradiction to Calvinism and its “lifestyle of faith and repentance” within the PROCESS of justification. But what the Hebrew writer says after that is even more interesting:
4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
Note: the Hebrew writer is saying that it is impossible to return to the same repentance that saved us. Again, this is in direct contradiction to Calvinism. Also, Calvinism teaches that when one re-repents (mortification), they experience “vivification.” The specific Reformed theological term is mortification and vivification. Vivification can certainly be classified as a “heavenly gift… and the powers of the world to come.” New Calvinists refer to it as a “treasure trove of joy” (John Piper). It is “living out our baptism” (Michael Horton). But the Hebrew writer is clearly saying: that is impossible if one falls into a state where the same repentance that saved us is needed again. This is a contradiction to mortification and vivification.
And lastly, even if it were possible: “seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” Remember, Calvin said that the death of Christ continues to be a mediation and perpetual ablution (washing).
Is Calvinism a return to the same heresy that plagued the Hebrews? It sure looks like it.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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