The Doctrine of Saints’ Perseverance - Part Two

Extract

The Doctrine of Saints’ Perseverance – Part Two
A. W. Pink

3. Its Nature
4. Its Marvel

3. Its Nature

We purpose dealing with this theme, and particularly with that aspect of it which is now to be before us, in rather a different manner than that which was followed by most of the Calvinistic divines in the past; or rather, we propose to throw most of our emphasis upon another angle of it than what they did. Their principal object was to establish this truth, by rebutting the error of Arminians, who insist that those who have been redeemed by Christ and regenerated by the Holy Spirit may nevertheless totally and finally apostatize from the Faith, and so eternally perish. Our chief aim will rather be to counteract the crude manner in which this doctrine has been only too often handled in more recent times and the evil use to which an adulterous generation has put it. While Arminianism has by no means disappeared from Christendom, yet it is the more recent inroads of Antinomianism (the repudiation of the Divine Law and the turning of God’s grace into lasciviousness) which have wrought the most damage in our own lifetime.

It is not sufficiently realized by many of the Lord’s own people that far more harm than good is likely to be done by immature “Gospellers,” who have more zeal than knowledge, and who expect to reap a harvest (secure “results”) before the ground is ploughed and harrowed. Many an ignorant evangelist has given his hearers the impression that once they “accept Christ as their personal Saviour” they need have no concern about the future, and thousands have been lulled into a fatal sleep by the soothing lullaby “once saved, always saved.” To imagine that if I commit my soul and its eternal interests into the hands of the Lord …