What Is the Perseverance of the Saints?
The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints affirms that God protects and preserves Christians—His saints (“holy ones”)—for eternity and causes their faith to persevere to the end when He calls them home. He has reserved every Christian’s salvation for them in heaven according to His great mercy and by His almighty power and grace. They receive an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and will never fade away—not by their own efforts or ability to live sin-free, but as a gift from their Savior (1 Peter 1:3-9). Such an inheritance can never be lost nor taken away. God secures it in heaven forever.
God will not fail to preserve His children, however imperfectly we obey Him as we battle our old sin nature and the temptations of Satan and this world (Romans 5:8-9). Nothing, not even our sinfulness, can separate believers from His love (Romans 8:38-39). We suffer God’s displeasure when we sin, but He’ll never cast us out or erase our name from the Book of Life (1 John 5:18).
From beginning to end, salvation is a work only the Lord can do—and He will do it. He who cannot lie and never fails made this promise of our eternal salvation long before time began (Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:13-20).
Is This a Biblical Concept?
While the term perseverance of the saints doesn’t appear in the Bible, God explicitly teaches this doctrine throughout Scripture. We’ll look at several examples in this article. When opposition to this doctrine began to form, the respected theologian Augustine responded. Around 428 or 429 A.D, he wrote in his Treatise on the Gift of Perseverance that perseverance isn’t a work of man, but a gift given by God to His children to empower them to persevere in faithfulness to Christ to the end of their life.
What Does the Bible Say about the Perseverance of the Saints?
If we were to examine all the biblical support for this doctrine, we’d fill a book. In this article, we’ll look at twelve passages that either directly or indirectly teach this doctrine.
1. John 10:27–30 —If we want to know what the Bible says about this vital doctrine, we can find no better place to start than with Jesus’ own words: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 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. I and the Father are one” (John 10:27–30 NASB95, emphasis mine).
Each of Jesus’ statements about His sheep (true Christians) is final—they’re neither provisional nor conditional statements. What (and who) the Father gives to the Son, no one can take away—or prevent Him from keeping. No one. Likewise, Christ doesn’t offer an option that He hopes will last. He gives life that is eternal. This life isn’t based on the believer but on Him. Christ promised that His sheep will never perish, and He delivers what He promises. His every word proves true. He’s a shield to all who take refuge in Him (Proverbs 30:5).
To suggest that Christ is unable to keep forever those God has given Him is to claim mankind’s free will is greater than Christ’s power to keep someone secure in Him. That He and His Father are actually not “greater than all.” If a person can break free and rip from Christ what God has given Him (the salvation of Christians) we must then believe that no matter how much Christ desires to save His sheep, He’s powerless to protect and keep them secure. What kind of Savior is this?
