Thursday, July 12, 2007

Kept By The Power Of God...Through Faith

We talked in class this past week of how the NT writers do not see an either/or relationship between the necessity of believers persevering by faith, and of God's sovereignly presevering them by His grace, but rather a both/and relationship in which our endurance is the very manifestation of God's upholding and sustaining us by His power. I Peter 1:3-9 is perhaps the classic example of this:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

Nonetheless, this passage is by no means the only text that speaks of this dynamic (check out the quotes I mentioned earlier, below, by Berkouwer and others which highlight this theme, too; see TRSBU, p. 205, footnote 119)). Once you see it, it becomes impossible not to see it everywhere. For instance, notice how the letter of Jude ends with this dual perspective. In Jude 20-21 we are commanded: "But you, beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life." Yet a mere few verses later, in Jude 24-25, Jude extols the power and grace of God to bring about this very thing in our lives: "Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." So who keeps who? Do we keep ourselves in the path of faith, or does God. For Jude, it is self-evidently both. We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, FOR it is God who is working in us to work and to will for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13; compare I Corinthians 15:10 and Colossians 1:28-29)

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