The Westminster Confession acknowledges a believer may fall into sin.[iii]  However, perseverance is woven together with other doctrines in the gospel.  Jesus did not merely die to pay the debt of our sin or to give us eternal life, no, the gospel is a promise of real change … actual sanctification.  We are being renewed in our inner man day by day.

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. John 10:29

I have benefitted greatly from the teaching ministry of the late R.C. Sproul.  Years ago, God used Dr. Sproul’s teaching to open my eyes to the surpassing greatness of the gospel.  The gospel grew in “size” and beauty as I began to embrace Reformed Theology.  I remember listening to Dr. Sproul teaching on John 10:29 – a “universal negative”.  No one, taught Dr. Sproul, has the power or ability to take a believer from the hand of the Father.  He continued:  “was I a someone?”  If so, “I was in the category of the “no-one” … even I couldn’t take myself out of His hand!  And so my eyes were further open to the power, majesty, and GRACE of God.  I soon was introduced to the wonderful summary of Christian Doctrine, one of the three forms of unity from the Reformation:  the Westminster Confession of Faith.  Now I had a well developed statement of the doctrine of Perseverance:

“They whom God hath accepted in His Beloved, effectually called and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally, nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.”[i]

Over the years, I have continued to grow in my appreciation for the comfort and practical use of this doctrine.  Although knowing that you are secure in God’s hand is comforting, it can never be used as justification for living in sin.  The gospel is not a patchwork of ideas or benefits given to the believer, it is a beautifully woven tapestry in which each constituent doctrine is inter-twined with others making one cohesive beautiful whole.  Speaking of Perseverance, Alan Cairns writes:

Thus it is an aspect of the Spirit’s sanctifying grace; it is perseverance in holiness.  It is what is popularly known as the eternal security of the believer.  But to avoid the idea that a person who once made a profession of faith but has since lived in sin with no marks of holiness about his life, can comfort himself in being eternal-ly secure, the Reformed statement of the doctrine emphasizes the certainty of perseverance in holiness if we have truly believed – not the certainty of salvation if we once professed to believe.  Possessors of eternal life are secure; mere pro-fessors have neither life nor security.[ii]

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