Paul’s supremely encouraging words in Phil 1:6 (ESV), “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ,” ought to be a refuge for weary souls. Nevertheless, one may rightly wonder what the relationship is between this corporate word of encouragement and its application to individual believers. With this reflection, I hope to lay out a thought or two on the relationship between apostasy, i.e. falling away, and perseverance. To begin, it must be noted that the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints applies strictly to the elect while the words of Scripture are more generally presented. Remember that Paul used the second person plural in Phil 1:6 with respect to his confidence, his sense of security, in God’s commitment to bring his people to the finish line. This means that Paul’s words were written in reference to the visible church; he was making a point in aggregate rather than to each individual without exception. To say it another way, he was not making a universally applicable statement without exception that everyone who makes a credible profession of faith has eternal security.
In the Scriptures, apostasy, the abandonment of the faith, is a known category. The early church faced this issue almost immediately when Ananias and Sapphira acted contrary to their prior confession of faith (cf. Acts 5:1-11). Hebrews 6 speaks of those who have benefitted from participation in the church but then fell away. The apostle John notes the phenomenon of apostates in his first letter when he writes, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19 ESV). It is safe to say that when Paul wrote his letters to the churches in Philippi, Corinth, Galatia, Thessalonica, Ephesus, Colossae, and Rome, he was not under the impression that those churches were exclusively composed of God’s elect. And yet, he still writes such unqualified words of encouragement as Phil 1:6.
How, then, do we reconcile perseverance with apostasy? The beginning of an answer is that there is a distinction between the visible and invisible church, which teaches us that not everyone who is in the visible church is part of the Good Shepherd’s sheepfold. Paul addresses the church corporately with a judgment of charity, but he would fully recognize that goats or even wolves may have heard his words in the church services in Philippi. As for the passages in Scripture that warn against falling away, they serve a dual purpose. For those who are in the church but not elect, these texts leave them without excuse at the day of Christ Jesus. For those who are in the church and elect, these texts act as a spur to abide in Christ until he comes again. This is why the book of Proverbs begins with an extended discussion of the two paths and the two places of wisdom and folly (cf. Proverbs 1-9). It is not enough to positively present wisdom; the horror of folly’s house also needs to be described in order to rightly frame the beauty of the house of wisdom. The warning passages serve as preservative texts.
In the end, the emphasis in Scripture falls on the more positive side of things. A judgment of charity is rendered at the corporate level, which helps individuals in the church to avoid unhealthy levels of introspection about their own eternal security. Moreover, because perseverance flows from God and his unchanging character, the Scriptures point us away from our own infirmity towards the infinite wisdom and power of God as the source of our security. Bavinck writes, “Whatever apostasy occurs in Christianity, it may never prompt us to question the unchanging faithfulness of God, the certainty of his counsel, the endearing character of his covenant, or the trustworthiness of his promises. One should sooner abandon all creatures than fail to trust his word. And that word in its totality is one immensely rich promise to the heirs of the kingdom.” Bavinck goes on to affirm that the perseverance of the saints is part of the warp and woof of Scripture’s testimony: “It is not just a handful of texts that teach the perseverance of the saints: the entire gospel sustains and confirms it.”[1] Returning to the beginning of this reflection, Paul’s words in Phil 1:6 still ought to be supremely encouraging as a source of refuge for the weary soul, for his words reflect the fullness of the gospel’s impact on those who believe.
[1] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 4:269.
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