We return to the seventeenth chapter of the 1689 Baptist Confession, where we continue our study of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.
The Confession states:
Those whom God has accepted in the Beloved, effectually called and sanctified by his Spirit, and given the precious faith of his elect, can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace. They shall certainly persevere in it to the end and be eternally saved. This is because the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. Therefore, he continues to beget and nourish in them faith, repentance, love, joy, hope, and all the graces of the Spirit that lead to immortality.
Several years ago, my wife and I purchased a play kitchen set as a Christmas present for our daughter. Unfortunately, I made two mistakes. The first was waiting until late on Christmas Eve to assemble it. The second mistake was buying it from IKEA.
Anyone who has ever purchased furniture from IKEA knows the challenge. The company provides all the parts, and you can see in theory what the finished product is meant to be. Yet the instruction manual is notoriously difficult to follow with nothing but crude sketches without words or labels. I remember staring at those pages, wondering, Is this picture supposed to represent this piece or that one? Which screw am I supposed to use here? Out of the twelve in the box, which fits?
It is like trying to bake a cake from a recipe that only lists the ingredients, without specifying the mixing order, baking time, or oven temperature. You may have everything necessary for the task, but you are left asking, How do I get from Point A to Point B? How do I turn these ingredients into a cake, or these parts into a kitchen set?
The Confession brings us to a similar point in its teaching on perseverance. Up to now, we have learned the essential components: God accepts us in the Beloved—that is, in Christ—effectually calls us, sanctifies us, and grants us the faith of his elect. Without these, no one perseveres.
These may be compared to the parts in the box or the ingredients in a recipe. But how do we get from our union with Christ, our effectual calling and sanctification, to the outcome of eternal salvation? How do those who are accepted, called, sanctified, and given faith “certainly persevere … to the end and [are] eternally saved”?
The state of grace
Last time we saw a hint of the answer. The Confession states, “[The saints] can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace. They shall certainly persevere in it to the end and be eternally saved.” In other words, the Christian life both begins and continues by the grace of God.
Paul makes this point forcefully in Galatians 3. The churches of Galatia had fallen under the influence of false teachers who insisted that faith in Christ alone was insufficient—that certain works of the law were also necessary for salvation. Paul answers with a resounding no. In the opening chapter, he writes:
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. (Galatians 1:6-7)
Notice the connection. To distort the gospel of Christ is to abandon the grace of Christ. The gospel is the good news that salvation is a free gift of God’s unmerited favor. We cannot earn it. We do not deserve it. Yet God gives it freely in Christ. That is the best possible news for fallen sinners who could never secure salvation on their own.
Paul returns to this theme in chapter 3:
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Galatians 3:1-3)
J. B. Phillips paraphrases it even more bluntly:
O you dear idiots of Galatia, who saw Jesus Christ the crucified so plainly, who has been casting a spell over you? I will ask you one simple question: did you receive the Spirit of God by trying to keep the Law or by believing the message of the Gospel? Surely you can’t be so idiotic as to think that a man begins his spiritual life in the Spirit and then completes it by reverting to outward observances?
Phillips captures the force of Paul’s rebuke. If we are utterly unable to save ourselves and depend entirely upon God’s grace, why would we imagine that our perseverance could rest on our own efforts? And why would we think God would allow such a scheme?
In Jeremiah 32, God promises his people under the new covenant, “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me” (Jer 32:40).
The Lord declares, in effect, “I will not turn from them, and they will not turn from me. I will not allow it.” To suggest, then, that one of God’s redeemed people might finally be lost is to impugn the very character of God or to call him unfaithful, powerless, or even untruthful.
The same assurance appears in Hebrews 13:
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21)
Through the blood of Christ, God has entered into an eternal covenant with his elect. That covenant includes his ongoing work of equipping his people with everything necessary to persevere in faith. Jesus himself said, “The one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mt 10:22). Endurance is required, but the Christian will endure because God is faithful, because he keeps his promises, and because his grace sustains us to the end.
We begin the Christian life by God’s grace, and we continue in the Christian life by that same grace.
But this raises a further question. What does this look like in practice? How does God equip his people for perseverance? We know the essential ingredients, but how does the “cake” come together? How does God bring his people from being accepted in the Beloved all the way to final and eternal salvation?
Without repentence
Once again, notice where the Confession directs our attention. It does not rest on the saints who persevere but on God who preserves. It says, “This is because the gifts and callings of God are without repentance.”
Modern editions often render the word “repentance” as “irrevocable.” The change avoids misunderstanding, since in Scripture the word repentance usually refers to turning away from sin. Here, however, the framers were using the older English sense of “regret.” The point is not that God repents of sin, which he cannot do, but that he never regrets, reverses, or revokes what he has purposed. His gifts and callings are unchangeable.
Charles Spurgeon put it this way:
Whatever gifts the Lord gives, he never repents of having given them so as to take them back again; and whatever calling He makes of any man, He never retracts it. … There is no playing fast and loose in divine mercy; His gifts and calling are without repentance.
In short, God’s gifts and calling are irrevocable. He does not take them back.
The Confession here is drawing directly from Romans 11:29, which in the King James Version says, “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” To see this in its context, consider Romans 11:25-32:
Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,
“The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. (Romans 11:25-32)
Paul’s larger argument stretches back to Romans 9. There, he explains God’s sovereign election of his people:
For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. (Romans 9:15-16)
He then addresses Israel’s unbelief, followed by God’s mercy toward the Gentiles. In chapter 11, Paul warns Gentile believers against arrogance. They must not imagine themselves superior to Israel, as though God had rejected his covenant people once and for all. Their unbelief, Paul says, is both partial and temporary. There is a remnant of believing Jews even in his day, and Paul anticipates a greater turning of Jewish people to Christ in the future (Ro 11:5). Why? Because God’s covenant promises remain in force: “As regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Ro 11:28-29).
If God makes a promise, he will not, and indeed cannot, break it. To do so would contradict his very nature. God is unchangeable, or immutable. The Confession already established this truth in its second chapter:
[God] is a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions. He is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute. He works all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory.
God cannot change, nor can anyone force him to change. His will is immutable and his character unshakable. Our perseverance, then, rests not in our own ability but in his unchanging nature. Christians will persevere because God cannot and will not revoke what he has purposed in Christ.
James Montgomery Boice explains immutability this way:
[Immutability] means that, being perfect, God cannot and does not change. In order to change, a moral being must change in either of two ways. Either he must change for the better or he must change for the worse. God cannot get better, because that would mean that He was less than perfect earlier, in which case He would not have been God. But God cannot get worse either, because in that case He would become imperfect, which He cannot be. God is and must remain perfect in all His attributes.
Scripture affirms this repeatedly. “For I the LORD do not change” (Mal. 3:6). Hebrews 6 likewise highlights the “unchangeable character of his purpose”:
So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things [God and his purpose], in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. (Hebrews 6:17-18)
The promise of salvation would mean little if God were fickle or changeable. But because he is immutable, his covenant stands secure. If he has saved a sinner, that sinner will be saved. If someone objects, “Yes, but only if the believer continues in the faith,” Paul’s answer in Romans 11 remains decisive: “The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Ro 11:29). God will not take away what is necessary for salvation. He will not let his children totally or finally fall away.
The gifts and callings of God
So then, what are these “gifts and callings of God” that can never be revoked? Quite simply, they are everything God has provided to bring us to salvation in Christ. As the Confession summarizes:
Those whom God has accepted in the Beloved, effectually called and sanctified by his Spirit, and given the precious faith of his elect … can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace, because the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable.
In other words, the very graces by which we were first brought into union with Christ are the same graces by which we are kept in him. Paul asks the Galatians, “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:3). The answer is obvious: of course not. The work of God does not begin in the Spirit only to falter and fail in the weakness of the flesh. The Spirit who gives new life also sustains new life.
This is why the familiar phrase “once saved, always saved” needs fuller expression. We may rightly say, “Once chosen, always chosen. Once accepted, always accepted. Once called, always called. Once sanctified, always sanctified.” The Christian is always saved because God never changes. He never undoes what he has done, nor does he leave unfinished what he has begun.
As one commentator has written:
It is not a grace that invites a sinner to a hypothetical salvation, but a grace that delivers from certain death. “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Col. 1:13). And this translation is not tentative or conditional—it is definitive. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. He who raises the dead does not return them to the grave. He who draws effectually will lose none. “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).
Here, then, is the sure foundation of the perseverance of the saints: not our strength, not our resolve, not even the measure of our faith, but the immutability of God himself. The saints will persevere because the unchanging God has decreed it.
Beget and nourish
The Confession continues, “Therefore, he continues to beget and nourish in them faith, repentance, love, joy, hope, and all the graces of the Spirit that lead to immortality.”
Here, the how of perseverance comes into view. We have already seen the why, which is that God is unchanging, so his saving purposes cannot fail. Now we see the how: the unchanging God actively sustains his people in the life of grace.
Notice the logic in the word therefore. Because God is immutable and his will and purpose cannot change, he continually begets and nourishes in the saints those graces necessary for eternal life. The Founders’ edition of the Confession makes the point even more plainly: “Therefore, he still brings about and nourishes in them faith, repentance, love, joy, hope, and all the graces of the Spirit that lead to immortality.”
The framers’ choice of verbs is significant. To beget is to bring forth, to give birth, or to initiate. James uses the same language: “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures” (Jas 1:18). The King James Version translates it, “Of his own will begat he us.” God sovereignly gives new birth.
To nourish means to feed, strengthen, or sustain—to provide the ongoing supply needed for growth. Think of a newborn child. First comes birth, then nourishment throughout life. In the same way, God not only brings forth faith, repentance, love, and hope in his people, but he also sustains and strengthens those graces throughout their lives.
This truth explains why the saints cannot totally or finally fall away. If perseverance rested on us, we would inevitably falter. But God himself nourishes the graces he first implanted. To suggest otherwise would compromise his very character, as though he could begin a saving work only to abandon it midway.
The apostle Paul expressed the same confidence in Philippians 1:6: “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Likewise, Hebrews 12:2 describes Jesus as “the founder and perfecter of our faith.” From beginning to end, the Christian life is God’s work. He begets new life, and he nourishes it unto maturity. He is both the initiator and the sustainer, ensuring that his people reach their eternal inheritance.
All the graces of the Spirit
The Confession lists five specific graces, though it is careful to add the phrase, “and all the graces of the Spirit that lead to immortality.” In other words, this is not an exhaustive list but a representative one.
We see the same principle in Galatians 5:22-23: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control.”
Here, Paul names graces that the Confession does not, such as peace, patience, kindness, and gentleness, while the Confession includes hope and repentance, which Paul does not mention in that passage. (However, repentance is implied in Galatians 5:24.) Taken together, these lists remind us that perseverance depends on the whole work of God’s Spirit in us, not a narrow set of virtues.
Still, the five highlighted by the Confession give us a helpful framework for understanding how God preserves his people.
Faith
Faith is trust in God and reliance on Christ for salvation. This is the gift that first unites us to Christ, and it is the grace God continually sustains in us. Even when feelings waver or obedience falters, God keeps alive that underlying confidence in Christ.
Consider Peter. He denied Christ in a moment of weakness, but he was also the first to confess, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). When others abandoned Jesus, Peter declared, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed” (Jn 6:68-69). And though Peter denied Jesus, he wept bitterly and repented. Jesus had assured him beforehand, “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Lk 22:32). Peter stumbled grievously, but Jesus would not allow his faith to fail.
Repentance
Repentance is the heart’s turning from sin toward God. Like faith, it too is a gift. Acts 11:18 says that “to the Gentiles … God has granted repentance that leads to life.” Romans 2:4 adds that it is “God’s kindness” that leads us to repentance. This grace does not simply appear at conversion and vanish. God continually nourishes it, convicting us of sin, humbling our hearts, and renewing in us the desire to forsake sin.
Love
The two great commandments are to love God and to love others. And this love is itself a work of God’s Spirit: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Ro 5:5). “Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1Jn 4:7).
Once again, Peter serves as an example. After his denial, Jesus asked him three times, “Do you love me?” (John 21:15-17). With each answer, Peter’s love was rekindled and strengthened. Jesus was not doubting Peter’s affection but reminding him of it. Peter later sealed that love by dying for Christ. God preserved not only Peter’s faith but also his love.
Joy
Of all the graces, joy may seem the most surprising. Yet Scripture emphasizes it repeatedly. Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing … so that you may abound in hope.” Joy and hope are tied together. Without joy in God, hope in his promises withers.
Importantly, joy is not something we must generate for ourselves. Jesus told his disciples, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (Jn 15:11). God himself works joy into our hearts. Far from being a mere “extra,” joy is a vital grace that sustains perseverance.
David understood this well. After his sin, he prayed, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation” (Ps 51:12). Joy may ebb and flow with our circumstances, but God will never allow it to vanish entirely. He renews it because he desires not only our obedience but also our delight in him.
Hope
Finally, hope is the confident expectation that God will fulfill his promises. Peter blesses God who “has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ … to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1Pe 1:3-4). From the moment of new birth, God implants this hope, and by it he preserves his people to the end.
These graces and “all the graces of the Spirit” lead, as the Confession says, “to immortality.” In other words, they carry us steadily toward eternal life. Proverbs 4:18 captures the image beautifully: “The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.”
The immutable God who began his work in us will not stop short of its consummation. The “full day” is surely coming, not because we are strong enough to endure, but because the unchanging God is faithful. He will supply every grace necessary for his saints to persevere.