Perseverance of the Saints - Affirmations and Denials
A colleague and myself were tasked to come up with a set up affirmations and denials regarding the doctrine of perseverance today. This is a draft of what we came up with and I would be interested to get your input.
Perseverance of the Saints
A. We affirm that true believers will persevere in the faith to the end of their earthly lives. (Matt 10:22, Heb 3:14, Matt 24:12-13, Gal 6:9, Col 1:21-23)
We deny that those who are true Christians can fall away permanently and end up in hell.
B. We affirm that professing believers who do not persevere to the end of their earthly lives were not true believers. (1 John 2:19, Matt 7:22-24, Luke 18:9-14)We deny that those who fall away and stay away were ever genuine believers. (1 John 2:19)
C. We affirm that God is the One Who preserves Christians. (John 6:35-40, John 10:27-40, Phil 1:6, Jude 24-25, 1 Peter 1:3-5)We deny that Christians preserve themselves in their own power. (Eph 2:8-9, Phil 2:13)
D. We affirm that there are biblical passages that appear to contradict this teaching by warning against apostasy. (Heb 2:4, Heb 6:4-9, Heb 10:26-29, Heb 12:4, Matt 10: 32-33, 1 Cor. 15:1-2, 2 Peter 2:1)We deny that these passages actually contradict this teaching. Rather, there are exegetical explanations for these passages that do not contradict the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.
E. We affirm that these warning passages are legitimate warnings against apostasy that should be taken seriously by all believers. These warnings are prospective and are designed to elicit faith that perseveres to the end. (Phil 2:12, 2 Cor 13:5, 2 Peter 1:10)We deny that these warning passages are not applicable to believers and can, therefore, be ignored. (Acts 20:27)
F. We affirm that the elect are saved through perseverance, not apart from it. (John 15, 2 Peter 1:10)We deny that the cliché, “once saved, always saved,” is sufficient to adequately describe this doctrine.
Used with permission http://upwardaffections.blogspot.com/
1 comment:
CK,
Don't you think that this statement / article should include a point about sin and the believer i.e. affirming that a believer can and does sin but that the sin, great or small, will never pluck the believer from the Father's hand? I am sure you and Greg can word it much better, but I think you know what I mean.
MT
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