Chapter 17 discusses the Perseverance of the Saints.
Can Believers in Christ, Born again Christians, those adopted into God’s family fall away? Or is it true that once you’re saved, you’re always saved? We can learn three things from today’s confession:
1. True believers cannot fall from grace
2. They will persevere
3. This is only by the grace of God.
God has made a covenant with his people and it is God who will uphold and guarantee it. Those who have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, those who have been elected and adopted into God’s family will necessarily be kept by God.
Phil 1:6 being confident of this, he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
John 3:36 He who believes in the Son has everlasting life.
So what about Christians who fall away or backslide? Jesus told a parable in Luke 15 about how God will seek after the lost. If you had 100 sheep and one went astray. You would leave the 99 to find the 1. And in a similar way God will not let true believers fall away, God himself guarantees the salvation of his people for eternity.
We are again reminded of the promises God has made to us. We can be assured of this because of the Father’s love, the effectiveness of Jesus work for our salvation, and the continued presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Chapter 17 – The Perseverance of the Saints
1. Those whom God has 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 in it to the end and be eternally saved.
2. The perseverance of the saints does not depend upon their own free will, but on the unchangeableness of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father; on the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ; on the continuing presence of the Spirit and the seed of God within them; and on the nature of the covenant of grace. These are grounds of the certainty and infallibility of their perseverance.
–Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 17, Sections 1-2
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