The last letter in TULIP is P. It stands for Perseverance of the Saints. Perseverance of the saints means that all those who have been elected by God, redeemed by Christ, regenerated by the Spirit and thus truly have faith in Jesus Christ will be kept by God forever.
Now, there are a few things that we need to understand. When the Calvinist speaks of perseverance of the saints, he does not mean that all those who merely APPEAR to have faith will be kept by God and therefore will persevere to the end. It is obvious that that could not be the case. For there are many people who profess to be believers but then later fall away. Instead, the Calvinst means that all those who have TRUE faith in Christ will be kept by God forever and will persevere. There are many people who trust in their own works for their salvation; perhaps trust in something like joining the church, walking the aisle, being baptised, etc. These people are trusting in their own goodness or merits, instead of Jesus' blood and do not have true faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore, later on they may get discouraged and decide to "not be a Christian anymore." This does not prove that they were saved and then lost their salvation, but simply that they deserted the Christian religion because they were never to be counted among born again people who genuinely have faith in Christ in the first place. The Apostle John explained this in the clearest of language in 1 John chapter two. Speaking of some who had renounced the Christian religion and had become anti-Christ, he said..."they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made mainifest, that none of them were of us." (1 John 2:19) So we see that those who join in with Christians and appear to be true believers and yet later fall away were never really a part of God's people in the first place.
The second thing which we need to set clear in our minds, is that the doctrine of Perseverence of the Saints in no way teaches that it is okay to live a lazy and rebellious Christian life. It does not mean that we can "live however we want to, because we are going to heaven anyway". Jesus said in John 14:15, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." Since the Christian is born again, he loves Jesus and so he just naturally wants to keep His commandments. The change of heart that the Holy Spirit makes in regeneration, as well as the indwelling presense of the Spirit in the believer, ensures that the believer will continue to love Christ. Of course, the amount of love for Christ varies with the individual... a more mature Christian no doubt has a deeper love for Christ. Nevertheless, all of God's children have a love for their Savior. Thus, we strive each and every day to please Him. We strive each and every day to keep His commandments! We do not do this to get saved, or even to keep our salvation, because that would turn salvation by grace into salvation by works. Rather, we keep His commandments out of love and graditude for the One who shed His precious blood for us! Therefore, those who believe in Perseverance of the Saints do not say that you can live however you want, they say, "Do you love Christ? Then keep His commandments!" Even though we Christians have a great love for our Lord, and strive to obey and please Him, we are human so we do mess up sometimes. No man on earth is sinless. But God WILL keep us. He will see to it that all those He elected, died for, and regenerated will be glorified.
Here are several verses which prove the doctrine of Perserverance of the Saints. Jesus says in John 6:39-40, "This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." Here we are told that the Father's will for the Son is that the Son lose none of those that were chosen and given to Him. So in order for an elect person to be lost, the Son would have to disobey the Father's will! It would be a sin for the Son to disobey the Father's will. That being so, the only way a believer could be lost is for the Son of God to sin. Needless to say, that will never happen. In John 10:27-29 Jesus says about the elect sheep, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. (Note: It is the nature of sheep to follow the Divine Shepherd. If anyone fails to follow the Shepherd, that person was never really a sheep) And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone 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 My Father's hand." It is sometimes argued that although nothing can take a believer out of the Father's hand, a person might take himself out of the Father's hand. However, the verse does not say that the believer is holding tightly to the Father's hand...it says that the Father is holding tightly to the believer. To illustrate, whenever an earthy father is holding his child's hand while crossing a busy highway, he holds tightly onto the child's hand. Even if the child releases his grip the father does not release his. He does not leave the safety of the child up to the child. He does not merely hold out a stick and tell the child to hold on to the other end of it and just leave it up to the child's decision as to whether to let go and wander into traffic or not. In the same way, God is a good Father and He holds us tightly in His hand. We will never be able to get loose from His grip and perish because He promises that we "shall never perish". How could He make that promise if it were possible for us to get loose from His grip and perish? It is not possible. In John 17:24-26 Jesus said, "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me..." It is Christ's DESIRE for the ones whom God has given Him to be with Him and behold His glory. Christ is the sovereign God. He will get what He desires. Romans 8:35-39 says, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulations, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: 'For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.' Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Sometimes it is argued that Satan may be successful in separating the believer from God and His love. However, Satan is a created thing, and the promise is that no created thing will be successful in separating us. It is also argued from time to time that even though the believer is safe from adversaries outside of himself, he is not safe from destroying himself. However, we need to remember that even the believer himself is a created thing, and the promise is that no created thing will ever separate us. Philippians 1:6 says ..."Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." God is not a God who fails to complete the tasks He begins. He is never defeated in anything He sets out to do. If He has really begun a good work in an individual, He will be successful in completing it. We can be confident of that! 1 Corinthians 1:8 says, "(Jesus Christ) will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 says, "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it." Here Paul assured the believers of his day that God will perserve the believer in a blameless (justified) state. 2 Thess. 3:3 says, "But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one." Since it is God's will that the Son lose none of those that were given to Him, you can be sure that He will successfully guard us from the attempts of Satan. 2 Timothy 1:12 says, "For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day." Sometimes people say that God would definiately like to make our ultimate salvation a certainty but that He is not able to because that would interfere with our so-called free will. But the Bible teaches that He is able. Jude 25 reaffirms this...it says, "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultess before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever, Amen." It will do no good to argue that that verse merely claims that God is able to keep us from stumbling if we continue to do our part, for obviously, if we stop doing our part we have already stumbled. There are several doctrines which prove Perseverance of the Saints. The first one I will deal with is Predestination. The Bible teaches that God predestines certain people to be saved. Ephesians 1:5 says that "He predestined us to be adopted as sons..." To be adopted as a son is to be saved. God also predestines us to be conformed to the image of Christ. Now, everyone whom God predestines to be saved and conformed to Christ's image will eventually be glorified in heaven. Romans 8:30 says, "Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified." Here we see that predestination is an unbroken golden chain. Paul says that the ones who get predestined are the ones who get called. The ones who get called are the ones who get justified. The ones who get justified are the ones who get glorified. If you get the first part of salvation you get it all. It is just like a chain. It is like taking a chain and labeling the first link "A." and the second link "B." and the third "C." and so on. You could then say that... "whoever gets link "A." these also get link "B." Whoever gets link "B." these also get link "C." Whoever gets link "C." these also get link "D." If you pull on the first link of a chain the other links must follow. In the same way then Paul says, "Whom He predestined, these He also called, whom He called these He also justified; whom He justified these He also glorified." We see then that all those who get the first part of salvation get the last. All those whom God predestined to be saved will be glorified in the end. And how could it be otherwise? How could the Sovereign God predestine a thing to occur and it not occur? The next doctrine is that Salvation is by Grace. In Ephesians 2:8 Paul said, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yoursleves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." If you'll notice here, it says that it is a "gift of God, not of works LEST ANYONE SHOULD BOAST." Some people believe that a believer can lose his salvation. They believe that that the only reason some people are able to keep their salvation whereas others are not able is because some are simply able to endure. Perhaps one person has more strength than another, or maybe he doesn't lose his determination, or whatever. One of the problems with this, however, is that this idea leaves room for boasting. Maybe Christ did die for both men, maybe the Spirit did regenerate both, but one went to heaven while the other didn't, because he had the strength to endure. So when he gets to heaven, he'll have a lot to boast about. With the Calvinistic understanding, however, there is no room for boasting. God chose us before the foundation of the world, not because of anything we did...then Jesus Christ died on the cross, and His blood covered all our sins...then the Spirit brought us out of our spiritual death and into life; and God is holding us in His hand and guarding us from the evil one. He is keeping us forever. Our total salvation is of God and His grace. He elected us, He bought us, He regenerated us, and He will keep us forever. Therefore, we have nothing to boast about, and we will give God all the praise. The Calvinist gives God all the glory for his salvation. The Arminian is logically compelled to accept a part of the glory for himself. Surely any understanding of salvation which leaves room for man to boast and divides the glory for salvation between God and the sinner cannot be the biblical understanding of salvation. Another thing which proves that the believer is eternally secure, is the fact that scripture says that our life is ETERNAL or EVERLASTING. Consider John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." It says WHOEVER believes in Him should not perish, but have EVERLASTING life. If there is the possibility that some who believe in Him will later on lose their salvation, then how could Christ have made this promise? He said they will have EVERLASTING life. Now if I promise that you will have everlasting life but you "lose it" after ten years, did you have everlasting life? No. You had ten-year life. That ought to be obvious. Christ promises that all believers will have everlasting life. For the Son of God to make such a promise, He must know that it will come to pass! If the Son of God makes a promise like that, He will do everything to make sure it occures, including putting us in the Father's hand. And the Father is greater than all, so no one can snatch us out of His hand.
Another thing which proves the doctrine of Persevence of the Saints, is that when Christ died on the cross, He purchased the church. Acts 20:28 says, "Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood." Jesus PURCHASED those people He died for. The church is Jesus Christ's possesion. We are HIS. How then can we ever belong to another? How then can we ever lose our salvation and not belong to Christ anymore? Who would ever succeed in taking something away from the Creator of heaven and earth unless that was a part of God's plan? But we know that God does not plan for any believer to be lost.
Therefore we know that all those who truly have faith in Jesus Christ will be kept by God forever and will never loose their salvation.
Here is one objection which some people may have. Many quote Hebrews 6:1 through 9 and say that this passage disproves the doctrine of the believer's eternal security. The passage says (I have highlighted the verses which they quote. I am going to quote more than those few verses, however, so we can see the context), "Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, or laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessings from God; but if it bears throrns and briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner." We need to understand that this passage is found in the book of Hebrews. In other words, it is Jewish people who have joined Christian churches that are being addressed. Many of the Jews in the Apostle's time were alive when Jesus was still upon the earth and had literally seen the miracles Christ performed by the power of the Holy Spirit with their own eyes. Later on, many of those Jews joined Christian churches and claimed to be converted. No doubt most of them were genuinely converted. Perhaps some were not. However, when the Romans began persecuting Christians, some of those Jews began to consider going back to Judaism. They could have avoided persecution in that way. It is with that situation in mind that the writer wrote the passage in question. Notice what the Apostle says to this group. First he says that he is not going to waste any more time repeating what he has already taught. There comes a point when you realize that if someone has previously heard the truth but still isn't listening, they never will. So the Apostle explained that if a person was once enlightened to know about the Christian religion (to be enlightened is not conversion or the new birth) and if they tasted of the heavenly gift (to merely taste is not to eat and be nourished) and if they had become partakers of the Holy Spirit (partakers in the sense that they were patakers of the presence of the Holy Spirit since they were among those who actually saw Christ perform miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit) and if they tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the age to come (again, to taste is not sufficient) then it will be impossible, if they go back to Judaism, to renew them to the repentance that they had professed to have experienced when they joined the Christian movement. Now it may be hard to believe, but when the Apostle mentions all these experiences such as tasting of the word of God and being enlightened and even partaking of the Holy Spirit in some sense of the word, he is not talking about things that necessarily accompany salvation! He is not saying that they obtained salvation and lost it. He is saying that they experienced many things which showed them the truth but he is not saying that they experienced anything that necessarily accompanied salvation. The proof of this is found in verse 9. The Apostle says, "But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner." Here the Apostle explains that he has just been speaking in a hypothetical manner. He was saying that if they were enlightened and yet later returned to Judaism it would prove that they were unsaved and it would be impossible for them to return to the faith they had claimed to have. However, he says, I do not really think that that is true in your case. In your case I am convinced of better things. In your case I am convinced that you possess things that accompany salvation!" You see, that proves that the enlightement and the tasting and even the partaking of the Holy Spirit in some sense of the word did not necessarily accompany genuine salvation! It was possible for those living in Christ's day to hear Him preach and to taste of His good word, and to be a partaker, along with others, of the presense of the Holy Spirit and His works, as He performed miracles through Christ right before their eyes, and be impressed enough to join the Christian movement and claim repentance, and yet never possess regeneration or true faith or justification or any other thing that necessarily accompanies salvation. So this passage does not prove that a person who is regenerated and possesses genuine faith and justification can later lose salvation. It only proves that those in Jesus' day could be greatly enlightened and even become partakers of the presence of the Holy Spirit as He worked miracles among the people through Christ and yet fall short of regeneration and justification and later abandon their claim to be Christians. This is simply a warning that a person could know a great deal and even see miracles and profess to be a Christian and yet later could fall into open denial of the Christian faith and prove to be an unconverted hypocrite.
Conclusion:
Now after reading this discussion on what Calvinists believe, you should know why I chose the name "Give God All The Praise" for my homepage. We truly are saved, "by grace, through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, lest anyone should boast". We have no reason to boast about anything. For we serve the gracious God who chose us before the foundation of the world, the gracious God who shed His precious blood which covered our sins. We serve the gracious God who changed our hearts so that we will willingly serve Him for all of eternity, the gracious God who gave us the faith we need. Dear reader, we serve the gracious God who holds us in His hand now and forever. To Him be all glory and praise.
"Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see."
If you have any questions about Calvinism, then email me here at RachelRuth@juno.com. =^D
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