Can Christians lose their salvation? How should we think about our loved ones who used to profess faith in Christ but no longer believe? Today, R.C. Sproul examines the biblical teaching of the perseverance of the saints. This week, we’re celebrating 30 years of Renewing Your Mind. With your donation of any amount, you can receive R.C. Sproul’s book Everyone’s a Theologian, plus lifetime digital access to 5 complete teaching series and digital study guides from Dr. Sproul: Chosen by God, Dust to Glory, The Holiness of God (original and expanded editions), Knowing Scripture, and What Is Reformed Theology?: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3619/resource-collection Never contacted Ligonier before? Request your free copy of R.C. Sproul’s booklet introducing the Bible’s message of salvation, The Great Rescue: https://renewingyourmind.org/rescue Meet Today’s Teacher: R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was known for his ability to winsomely and clearly communicate deep, practical truths from God’s Word. He was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Do you remember the warning of Jesus, Simon, Simon, Satan would have you and sift you like wheat? But I have prayed for you, so that when you turn, strengthen the brothers. Now, he fell, but he returned. He was restored. And so his fall was for a season. And that's why we say that true Christians can have radical and serious falls, but never total and final falls from grace.
Once saved, always saved. Have you heard that expression before? Is that true? Is God actually saving people? Or is He attempting to save people, but some just don't make it? These are important questions. And for 30 years, R.C.
Sproul and Renewing Your Mind have been answering questions like these to help you better know who God is and to better know His Word so that your mind is renewed and your life is transformed to the praise and glory of God. As we close out our special 30th anniversary celebration week, today you'll hear a message from Dr. Sproul's classic series, What is Reformed Theology?
on the perseverance of the saints. Here's Dr. Sproul.
We come now to our session in this series on the nature of Reformed theology, and I just want to read a brief entry from the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is a historic doctrinal standard of Reformed theology dating back to 17th century England, where we have this reference to the doctrine of effectual calling.
It reads as follows, "...all those whom God has predestined unto life, and those only He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time effectually to call by His Word and Spirit out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature."
to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone and giving unto them a heart of flesh, renewing their wills and by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace."
Now, I make this reference once again to the efficacy of the grace of regeneration as a bridge, a transition to the final point of the acrostic tulip, which brings us to the P in tulip and tulip. Now, I'm sure you'll be delighted to know I'm not going to change this letter. And the letter stands for the perseverance of the saints.
However, even though I'm not changing the letter, I'm going to make a change in the word. I also think that that little catchphrase, perseverance of the saints, is true. dangerously misleading because, again, it suggests that the persevering is something that we do perhaps in and of ourselves.
Now, I believe, of course, that saints do persevere in faith and that those who have been effectually called by God and have been reborn by the power of the Holy Spirit endure to the end. so that they do persevere.
But they persevere not simply because they are so diligent in their making use of the mercies of God, but the only reason we can give why any of us continues on in the faith even till the last day is not because we have persevered so much as it is because we have been preserved. And so I prefer the term the preservation, the preservation of the saints.
because this process by which we are kept in a state of grace is something that is accomplished by God. We read this statement from the Confession about God's effectively calling us to faith, that regeneration we call the divine initiative. And it refers to the first step in our transformation, just as we enter into this world through the process of biological birth.
Rebirth does not refer to the whole of the new Christian life, but rebirth refers to the beginning of it, the very first step, the step that is accomplished by God's initiative when He quickens our souls from spiritual death to spiritual life. And so we call this divine initiative the beginning point. And it's a beginning that is performed, again, as I say, by God.
Now, what does Paul write to the Philippians? He says that he who has begun a good work in you will perfect it to the end. Therein is the promise of God that what God starts in our souls, he intends to finish.
And so the old axiom in Reformed theology about the perseverance of the saints is this, if you have it, that is, if you have genuine faith and are in a state of saving grace, if you have it, you will never lose it. And if you lose it, You never had it. Now, we know that there are many, many people who make professions of faith who then turn away and repudiate or recant their profession of faith.
As John writes in the New Testament, there were those who left the company of the disciples. And John says of them, those who went out from us were never really with us. Now, they were with them in terms of outward appearances before they departed, before they left the cadre of Jesus' disciples.
They had made an outward profession of faith, and Jesus makes it clear that that's possible to do even when you don't possess what it is you're professing. Remember, Jesus says, this people honors me with their lips. but their hearts are far from me.
And he even warns at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that at the last day of judgment, many will come to him saying, Lord, Lord, didn't we do this in your name? Didn't we do that in your name? And he will send them away saying, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. Not that I knew you for a season and then you went sour and betrayed me. No, no.
You never were part of my invisible body of the invisible church. The same kind of comments are made by Christ with respect to Judas, who is called the son of perdition from the beginning. And in his high priestly prayer, Jesus prays that those whom the Father has given him will never be lost and that no one will ever snatch them out of his hand.
And he thanks the Father that all that the Father gave to him came to him. and not one of them had been lost.
And we could enumerate for the next several minutes a host of similar passages in the New Testament where that assurance is stated by the apostles that the people who are dwelling in Christ have a future, a future inheritance that has been established from the foundation of the world, and that someday we will hear that
The fathers say, come, my beloved, inherit the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. But again, the point I want to stress is that this enduring in the faith is not something that rests upon our strength. Even after we're regenerated, we still lapse into sin, and not only into sin, but into serious sin.
And we say that it is possible for a Christian to be engaged in a very serious fall. We talk about backsliding. We talk about moral lapses and so on. I can't think of any sin other than blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that a truly converted Christian is not capable of committing.
When we look, for example, at the model of David in the Old Testament, where David was surely a man after God's own heart, he was certainly a regenerate man. He had the Spirit of God in him. He had a profound, passionate love for the things of God, and yet this man
not only committed adultery, but he also was involved in a conspiracy to have his lover's husband killed in war, which was a conspiracy really to murder. Now, that's serious, serious business. And we see the serious level of repentance to which David was brought as a result of the words of the prophet Nathan to him.
But the point is that David fell, and he fell seriously as the apostle warns us against having a puffed-up view of our own spiritual strength by which he says, "'Let him who thinketh he stands take heed, lest he fall.'" And we fall, and we fall away from grace. Not that we fall out entirely, but we do fall away into very serious activities.
None more serious than that of the Apostle Peter, who publicly, with cursing, even after being forewarned, rejected Jesus Christ, swearing that he never knew him, a public betrayal of Christ. He committed treason against his Lord. Do you remember that before that occasion, when he was being warned of this eventuality, you know, Peter said this would never happen.
He would never behave in such a manner. And do you remember the warning of Jesus, Simon, Simon, Simon? Satan would have you and sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you so that when you turn, strengthen the brothers. Now, he fell, but he returned. He was restored. And so his fall was for a season.
And that's why we say that true Christians can have radical and serious falls, but never total and final falls from grace. Even in the church, when people profess faith and become involved in very serious and egregious sins, sins so serious that they are involved in church discipline. And even with the process of church discipline, it goes through several stages, the final stage of which is what?
Excommunication.
And I think that it's possible—we know that it is possible for a person who is truly regenerate, a true Christian, to be so caught up in sin that that person is called to the church, is involved in discipline, they're suspended from the sacraments, they still don't repent, all the way to the end of the list, which is excommunication, where they are shut off from the fellowship of the body of Christ and are to be treated as unbelievers, to be declared as unbelievers by the church.
But even that act of excommunication is done with the hope that the person is a true believer who is now engaged in a very persistent state of sin and that this final discipline of being cut off from fellowship in the body of Christ will be that which the Spirit of God uses to bring them to repentance.
And we see that example found in the New Testament in the Corinthian situation with the incestuous man. You recall how The church was doing nothing about disciplining this man who was living a scandalous life until the apostle had to rebuke them and admonish them and command them to excommunicate him. Well, what happened when he was excommunicated?
He repented, and he applies for readmission to the church, and now the church won't let him back. And so Paul had to go back again and say, now look, the whole purpose of that excommunication was to provoke him to repentance. Now that he's repented, let him back. even as Christ welcomed Peter back into the fold after his treacherous act of treason.
So again, the sin of the Christian can be radical and serious, but never total and final. So how do we judge people who have made a profession of faith in our presence, perhaps, and then we've seen them later repudiate it? Well, the first thing you do is you make a judgment of charity because you don't know the real state of their souls. That's the one disadvantage we have.
I can't read anybody's heart. You can't read my heart, and I can't read your heart. We're called to be discerning and wise and look at each other's actions and evaluate and discern accordingly. But even by the best of your actions, I don't know what your soul is, and you can't know what is in my soul."
And so we are called to be exceptionally forbearing with one another and to have that charity that covers a multitude of sins among ourselves in the fellowship of the church. But God does read the heart. And when God says that a certain person never was in a true state of faith, we can rest assured that that person never was in a true state of faith.
But what about if we happen to encounter somebody who is in the midst of a serious protracted fall where they have repudiated the faith publicly? Can we then know that they're not Christians? No, because we don't know tomorrow. We don't know if they're still like David was before Nathan came to him.
If anybody would have been by that bonfire when Peter says, I never knew the man, they certainly wouldn't have made the judgment that Peter was a Christian, because they were catching him while he was in the midst of this serious protracted fall. But we can still hope with people who have left us that it's temporary. and that they'll be back.
And we just have to acknowledge that one of two things can be the case. One, either their initial profession was not authentic and not genuine, it was an empty profession of faith and that they never were believers, or that their faith profession was genuine and they'll be back. But we leave that to God at this point.
But what the New Testament teaches us is that it is the Holy Spirit, again, who alone raises us from the dead, and he raises us unto eternal life. The whole purpose of God's election is to bring his people safely to heaven. so that what he starts, he promises to finish.
And he not only just initiates the Christian life, but the Holy Spirit as the sanctifier, the convictor, and the helper is there to help in our preservation. Now, two important terms are told with respect to the work of the Spirit in the Christian's life that are related to this idea of the preservation. One is that we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, and the second is
We are given the earnest of the Spirit. Let's take the second one first. The term earnest of the Spirit is drawn from the commercial language of biblical days. And the only thing I can think of that's a parallel in our own day would be what we call earnest money when somebody is going to purchase a home.
That when you make the initial contract, you give a little bit of money as pin money or as a down payment, which is a promise that that you intend to get your loan and close the deal and pay the rest of the balance due. And to show that you're in earnest, you give this down payment. Now, I know that there are people who have paid earnest money who failed to follow through.
Maybe they weren't earnest in the first place, or maybe circumstances came along that made it impossible for them to go the rest of the way. But beloved, when God the Holy Spirit is given to you by the Father as an earnest. When the Spirit Himself who is indwelling you is the Father's earnest for your future, do you really doubt that the Father is going to bring the final payment?
we possess not a handful of dollars, but the indwelling Holy Spirit of God Himself as God's promise to finish the job. And not only does He give us the earnest of the Spirit, but He seals us in the Holy Ghost. When God writes our names in the Lamb's Book of Life, he doesn't do it with an eraser handy, that he does it for eternity and that he seals us in the beloved for all time.
Now, finally, one of the reasons why we have confidence in our future is not only because of the ministry of the Holy Ghost that I've just mentioned quickly in passing, but most importantly, because of the ongoing work of Jesus.
Sometimes I think we have the tendency to think that when Jesus came and lived his life of perfect obedience and fulfilled all the demands of the law that we have failed to fulfill, and then by his passive obedience paid the price for our sins with his perfect atonement, that he's done everything that we ever need him to do for us.
But we forget that when he ascended into heaven and was seated at the right hand of God and enthroned as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, he was not just going for his royal realm, but he also entered into heaven as our great high priest. And the chief function of our high priest, as he tells us, is to intercede for us daily for the Father. Jesus prays for me, for my ultimate salvation.
Not only did he pray for his disciples in John 17, that they would never be snatched out of God's hand, but he prays for us, that we would be preserved. Now again, look at Judas and Peter. Both betrayed Christ. One was a believer, the other one wasn't. Both of their actions were repugnant in the extreme, total betrayal of Christ. Both were predicted by Christ.
And when he told Judas what he would do, he ended those comments by saying to Judas, what you have to do, do quickly. And he dismissed him. But when he made the same type of prediction about the behavior of Peter, as we've already mentioned, Satan would have you as sifty like weed and so on. Do you remember what he said?
But Simon, I have prayed for you so that when you turn, not if you turn, so that when you turn, strengthen the brothers. My confidence in my preservation is not in my ability to persevere. But my confidence rests in the power of Christ to sustain me with His grace and by the power of His intercession for us that He is going to bring us safely through.
My confidence is not in my ability to persevere, but in the power of Christ to sustain me. Amen. What a great truth to end this 30th anniversary week. We have two special guests joining me in the studio, but before I introduce them, today is the final day to request six teaching series, their study guides, and Dr. Sproul's book, Everyone's a Theologian,
when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, or when you call the team at 800-435-4343. Your gift will help keep Renewing Your Mind on the airwaves and on devices around the world while also accelerating the building of a new studio and the spread of this teaching in other places and on more platforms.
So please prayerfully consider giving a 30th anniversary gift to help broadcast truth for the next 30 years. Well, we do have two special guests in the studio, Mrs. Vesta Sproul and her and Dr. Sproul's daughter, Sherry Sproul-Dorodiak. And we're so grateful that you both could stop by the studio today to talk about renewing your mind. So thank you for both being with us. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Well, Mr. Sproul, when Renewing Your Mind began three decades ago, we heard earlier this week Dr. Sproul reflecting on that time period and him saying he was unsure whether theological instruction would work on the radio because he was so used to teaching in a classroom setting. But it did work, didn't it?
It really did work, and it was a wonderful experience from the beginning in that he had a live audience. Well, first of all, he was the only speaker, so there were a number of years that he just had to keep doing all these lectures. And he would do two days a week, and he'd do, I think it was four or five lectures a day. But there were people there who were homeschooled, and they came every week.
and retired people. And it was just a wonderful group. And they were so eager to learn that that gave him the encouragement he needed. And he and I used to travel a lot. And when you're traveling, it's a new audience each time. And So he'd have to win them and get him to know the audience and the audience to know him.
Well, with this group, and it was the same almost every time, the same group of people, they were just so eager to learn. And it was like a family.
And what has the response been like over the years as you've met with friends of Ligonier?
It's interesting to me in my role at Ligonier, I have a lot of interaction with our donors and I often call them on the phone and they'll say, oh, I was just listening to your dad on renewing your mind. And I get that as much today as I got it 10 and 15 years ago. So it's encouraging to me. And people will say, I start every morning with your dad. And it's just really important in people's lives.
And I think it's really been beneficial.
You know, I hear a lot, too, when we're out for different things that we're doing. People come up to me and say, oh, I always wanted to tell R.C. how much I appreciated him, but you're the next best thing. And I want to tell you, a number of them have cried on my shoulders.
There is such an appreciation for particularly holiness of God, things that people never heard before, that there was a depth and a beauty to who God is that he was able to talk about. And now it's not just him. We have so many others that do wonderful work, too, on renewing your mind.
I think it's remarkable, you're commenting on Dr. Sproul being in the studio with a studio audience recording these messages in the 90s, that some of those messages, like the holiness of God, are going out around the world today, and we read the testimonies of people who this is the first time they've ever heard that, three decades later, and they're just beginning their journey into Reformed theology, the historic Christian faith, they're just discovering Dr. Sproul's teaching for the first time.
It really is remarkable.
It's exciting. It is. And it's being translated. That's what gets me. The places we're able to go now where the gospel is heard. And we're so grateful for it and for the people that support it. It means so much to be growing in this manner and feeling like we're doing the Lord's business.
And as you said, the translation of Renewing Your Mind, we have a Spanish language edition. And those supporters that are helping Renewing Your Mind be on the airwaves and on devices in people's pockets around the world, they're helping fuel, take Ligonier's library, this deep library of teaching, and bring it into the world's top 20 languages.
And I'd like to just add, I'm so appreciative of the people at Ligonier that make all this happen. It's just wonderful. And RC started us on a certain path back in 1971 in Pennsylvania. I'm going to say that we're still on the same path. We've not fallen off, slid off, or even tiptoed off.
He gave us a clear mission. So the team here know what we're about, and our hand is on the plow. And it really is a team effort, as you say, and so many people behind the scenes helping get the Word of God out there through Renewing Our Mind and our other outreaches.
And you know, as we talk to people at conferences and other events, it can be easy to be discouraged sometimes with the state of the world, even the state of the church.
But as we speak to listeners of Renewing Your Mind, as we read comments and reviews they leave on podcast platforms, it is so encouraging to realize there really are people around the world who are hungry for the truth of God's Word. And it reminds us of the reality that Jesus is building His church.
And so we're not doing anything novel with Renewing Your Mind, just faithfully proclaiming the Word of God. And there are Christians around the world hungry for that, and they're responding and they're telling us day after day.
You know, one of the comments that I've received a lot from folks about Renewing Your Mind when I run into them at events is they say, I feel like I knew your dad. And I say, you maybe never met him, but you did know my dad. The man that you heard on Renewing Your Mind and all of his lectures, that's who he was. And I love it that people have that feeling of they knew him because they did.
You're in a unique position because you are R.C. Sproul's daughter. And so what is it like growing up as R.C. 's daughter and being able to hear and see your dad everywhere as he was just so prolific in his recording and writing?
You know, I would say until I hit high school, I thought everybody had a dad like mine. He's all I knew. And I didn't realize until I started to be more engaged in other people's families how really fortunate that I was to have him as my father. He set an incredible example to me. He lived what he taught.
The disadvantage was that teachers and other people put expectations on me that I couldn't possibly reach, but my parents never did. And that was so freeing to know that they loved me. So many times I think about friends whose only...
time to hear the voice of their loved one that's passed on is in a voicemail where I can turn on Renewing Your Mind and hear my dad or go to YouTube and see the sparkle in his eyes. And that has just been an incredible blessing to me.
For me, it's like he's not gone.
That is a remarkable blessing.
Yeah, he's still with us.
You mentioned that you traveled a lot with Dr. Sproul when he would speak. As we were talking about Renewing Your Mind early this week together before this time in the studio, you said that one of the places that you very rarely went was in that studio audience for Renewing Your Mind recordings.
Well, this will sound strange, but we did everything together. But because of this audience, I felt like they needed him to themselves. I just wanted to be out of the way and have them enjoy him and him enjoy them and not have anybody have any concern about me. And it worked wonderfully. I mean, occasionally I went and everyone was welcoming, but I just thought they needed him by himself.
And it really does feel when you listen to Renewing Your Mind that he is talking to you, that he's instructing you. And so we're grateful for all the time that he spent in the studio and just thankful for the incredible legacy that we have of his teaching ministry.
Well, for those that are, say, perhaps first-time listeners to Renewing Your Mind, maybe they're tuning in for the first time today, but then also those that have regularly supported Renewing Your Mind. They've donated, they've listened for decades. What would you say to each of those audiences?
Well, first, I would say to our longtime listeners and supporters, thank you, and thank you for allowing us to get new people to listen so that they can grow and learn like you have.
And to the new people, I just say, welcome, and please keep listening. There's nothing better than knowing who God is.
That's so true. And this is a Renewing Your Mind family, and we're thankful that they're part of this family and can listen every day. Well, Mrs. Sproul, Sherry, thank you so much for being here. We're thankful for these 30 years and looking forward, Lord willing, perhaps to the next 30 years of Renewing Your Mind.
Thank you. It's been a pleasure to be here.
Thank you.