P is for Preservation of the Saints

Jesus loses none of His sheep but that's not an excuse for cheap grace

The “old time religion” dispenses assurance of salvation like candy at a Christmas parade. Everyone who comes forward at an emotional invitation and repeats a “sinner’s prayer” (two practices not found in the Bible) is assured that they are “saved” and told never to doubt it. Often small children are manipulated into a “decision,” baptized and then told that they are forever saved, even if they show no evidence of new life.

False assurance then makes such people more difficult to reach with the gospel. Some of them will, likely, be those who saunter up to the judgment seat boasting of their religion, being told by the Lord:

“away from Me, I never knew you” (Mt. 7:23).

Not everyone who claims to be a Christian is saved.

Some professed believers in Jesus fall away. Judas was lost; he fell away. Jesus spoke of those who do not continue to “abide in” Him (John 15:1-2, 6). The “branches” that don’t bear fruit are cut off and thrown into the fire. Hence, some are in some kind of relationship to Him but they do not persevere. We are warned not to have an “evil, unbelieving heart” that will cause us to fall away (Hebrews 3:12-14.) God’s word does not make idle threats. It warns us of the real danger that people can experience some enlightenment and “taste” the Holy Spirit but still end up being damned (Hebrews 6:4-6.) (But notice that the author is confident that those believers will not experience that.) One of the most sobering warnings was given by the Lord Jesus Himself directly to a “church”; He warns the Laodiceans that He is on the verge of “spewing them” out of His mouth if they do not repent (Revelation 3:16.) They are in serious danger of being cast out, of falling away.

But then, Jesus says He will “lose nothing” of what God has given Him; everyone the Father has given the Son will be raised up on resurrection day (John 6:39). Jesus says that His “sheep” receive eternal life, “they shall never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27-29.) “No one” would include me; even I am not capable of snatching myself out of God’s hand. He holds us and preserves us even against our own inclination to stray.

“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:28)

The Apostle Paul begins with God’s intimate foreknowledge of His select people and then proceeds down the chain of events of God’s salvation (in Romans 8:29-30); all of those whom God foreknew, in eternity past, are already spoken of as if they have been “glorified” (as if accomplished) because that glorification is as certain as if it were already done – since it rests on God’s gracious promise. It’s called “the golden chain” because it’s unbroken from foreknowledge to final glorification. No one is lost. God’s people are “destined . . . to obtain salvation” (1 Thessalonians 5:9.) Destinies, by definition, are unchangeable. The Apostle Peter says that we Christians are guarded by “God’s power” for that final salvation (1 Peter 1:5.) The preservation of true Christians is assured.

So, some are assured and others are warned against falling away.

Those whom God has predestined will be preserved – without a doubt. But there are people who seem to all human perception, even their own self-awareness, to be genuine Christians but in the end they are not. The Apostle John writes of those who “went out from us” (from the Church) “but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19). In other words, there were people who appeared, even to the wise Apostle, to be a true part of the church but they fell away; only after they fell away do we realize that they were never truly part of the Body of Christ in the first place. Falling away is a sure sign of a non-conversion.

This is why Jesus said, “he who endures to the end” will be saved (Matthew 24:13.) Those who don’t endure, no matter how much of a “taste” they got earlier, are those who were not truly saved to begin with. Those who do not lead a life of faith with its inevitable obedience show that their first act of faith was not genuine. The saints – that is, the true believers – are preserved. The false believers are not. Grace preserves the saints so that the true saints persevere.

Originally published in Impact magazine (Singapore).

John B. Carpenter, Ph.D., is pastor of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church, in Danville, VA. and the author of Seven Pillars of a Biblical Church (Wipf and Stock, 2022).