Guaranteed Spiritual Preservation

D. Scott Meadows

“No temptation has overtaken you except something common to mankind; and God is faithful, [a]so He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13).

The Confession of the Evangelical Church in Germany (1614) declares, Whomever God has chosen for eternal life He protects, so that they do not become entangled in damnable error or tenacious unbelief and unrepentance. For it is written: “Were it possible, even the elect would be misled into error” (Matt. 24:24). With which words Christ gives us a clear understanding that it is not possible. This is the reason the elect will not be lost. “They are protected by the power of God through faith for salvation” (1 Peter 1:5). Those truly saved now are guaranteed spiritual preservation by many passages of Holy Scripture. This is the blessed truth of 1 Corinthians 10:13.

God faithfully keeps His people saved.

In a passage warning us of apostasy and ruin (1 Cor 10.1-15), Paul simultaneously cautions and encourages a church of Christian believers. “Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (12). False security and sinning without restraint are to be avoided at all costs, for that would be disastrous. But true Christians need not despair because Providence shall keep us from perdition, that is, from utter and final ruin (Heb 10.39).

I. All Alike Are Tempted (10a)

The first part of the verse is stated negatively to stress that there is absolutely no exception to this rule. It has been paraphrased, “Every test that you have experienced is the kind that normally comes to people.” Your temptations are not unique. The world, the flesh, and the devil have been plying their evil trade for a long time and there is nothing really new under the sun. Why is this encouraging? Because even when the forces of evil have “thrown the kitchen sink” at God’s people, we have been able to resist and endure them all unto salvation by the grace of God.

There is a sign at the “Narrows” in the Garden of the Gods, just outside Colorado Springs, where the road disappears into a narrow crack in a rock cliff—so narrow that it looks as though you couldn’t drive a VW through it. But just as you are about to turn around, you spot the sign that says “Yes, you can—millions of others have” (copied).

God has always delivered His elect from apostasy in temptations to lust after evil things (1 Cor 10.6), to commit idolatry (7), to fornication (8), to tempting Christ (9), to murmuring (10), and to every other temptation. That should encourage us to believe that He can and will deliver us also, as we keep trusting Him and walking by faith. “Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace” (Rom 6.14).

Sometimes saints do succumb to temptation and sin. Each of us “daily breaks [the commandments of God] in thought, word, and deed” (TBC-1693 #87). But saints either remain innocent in each temptation or else repent after sinning, and so “iniquity shall not be [our] ruin” (Ezek 18.30).

II. God Is Faithful to You, His Covenant People (10b)

“God is faithful.” The confidence real Christians have of ultimate salvation is founded upon God, not ourselves. It is not self-confidence but God-confidence because He is “the faithful God” (Deut 7.9). As we worship Him, we sing, “great is thy faithfulness” (Lam 3.23).

Essentially, this means He is trustworthy to keep His promises, promises which take the form of a covenant revealed in His Word. This covenant is at its most basic level “a declaration of God’s sovereign pleasure concerning the benefits He will bestow on us” (Nehemiah Coxe, 1681). The New Covenant promises a new heart, the gift of the Spirit, and habitual obedience to God (Ezek 36.25-27). These preserve us spiritually in Christ. The 1689 LBCF (17.1) scripturally and triumphantly declares,

Those whom God hath accepted in the beloved [i.e., Christ], effectually called and sanctified by his Spirit, and given the precious faith of his elect unto, can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved, seeing the gifts and callings of God are without repentance [i.e., He does not renege on them].

III. God Will Preserve You from Perdition (10c)

God preserves His people in two ways. First, He moderates our temptations, limiting their intensity to what we can handle with His help. Jesus saved His disciples this way as He entered the crucible of His greatest sufferings. When the soldiers came to arrest Him in Gethsemane, knowing the moral weakness of His disciples, He said, “Let these go their way.” John adds by way of explanation, “That the saying might be fulfilled, which he spake, Of them which thou [God] gavest me [Christ] have I lost none” (John 18.9). Thus Christ kept His disciples from a temptation that would have been too great for them, and therefore, from apostasy. The doctrine of providence, whereby God governs all His creatures and all their actions at all times, is assumed and implied in this divine preservation. Only the God of such Providence could be praised as not allowing us to be tempted in all times and situations above what we are able to endure and resist.

Second, when we are tempted, God always provides a way out so we can endure it. Sometimes He shortens the time of the trial so that just before we were about to fall away from Him, it is ended. “For the elect’s sake those days [of great tribulation] shall be shortened” (Matt 24.22). Other times, He strengthens us by sermons, godly counsel, unexpected blessings, and other providential encouragements. “God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus” (2 Cor 7.6). “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished” (2 Pet 2.9).

The Last Day, the day of final judgment, will gloriously demonstrate the guaranteed spiritual preservation of every one of God’s elect. “They shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the LORD” (Jer 23.4 ESV). Jesus said, “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day” (John 6.39). Ω