writes, "It is widely held in modern Christendom that the faith of a genuine Christian cannot fail. But
He Condemns a Hardened Hart
fessed faith in Christ, he is eternally secure (cf. Matt. 10:33: "Whoever shall deny Me . . . I will also deny him"; and 2 Tim. 2:12: "If we deny Him, He also will deny us").
I am committed to the biblical truth that salvation is forever.5 Contemporary Chris tians have come to refer to this as the doctrine of eternal security. Perhaps the Reformers' terminology is more appropriate; they spoke of the perseverance of the saints. The point is not that God guarantees heaven to everyone who professes faith in Christ, but rather that those whose faith is genuine will never totally or finally fall away from Christ. They will persevere in grace unto the very end. Even if they fall into grievous sins or continue in sin for a time, they will never abandon the faith completely. A. W. Pink, writing on this subject, says, "[God] does not deal with [believers] as unaccountable automatons, but as moral agents, just as their natural life is maintained through their use of means and by their avoidance of that which is inimical to their well-being, so it is with the maintenance and preservation of their spiritual lives. God preserves His people in this world through their perseverance."6
True believers will persevere. Professing Chris tians who turn against the Lord only prove that they were never truly saved. As the apostle John wrote, "They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us" (1 John 2:19). No matter how convincing a person's testimony might seem, once that person becomes apostate, he or she demonstrates irrefutably that the testimony was hypocritical and the professed salvation was spurious. God will keep His own. He "is able to keep [them] from stumbling, and to make [them] stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy" (Jude 24).7
5. For a complete discussion of the issue of the believer's security, see John F. MacArthur, Saved without a Doubt (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1992).
6. Arthur W. Pink, Eternal Security (Grand Rapids: Guardian, 1974), 15. 7. Cf. Zane C. Hodges, Th e Gospel Under Siege (Dallas: Redención Viva, 1981), 68 – 69. Hodges writes, "It is widely held in modern Christendom that the faith of a genuine Chris tian cannot fail. But this is not an assertion that can be verifi ed from the New Testament." Th en, on the basis of 2 Tim othy 2:17 – 18, which he calls "a fundamental passage on the defectibility of human faith," Hodges argues that Scripture teaches genuine believers may indeed succumb to apostasy.
Th is passage proves no such thing. Th e apostle Paul was not implying that people whose supposed faith had been overthrown were genuine believers. Th e gnostic heresies of Hymenaeus, whose faith Paul described as shipwrecked (cf. 1 Tim. 1:19 – 20), were the doctrines of unregenerate false teachers. Th ose who forsook the faith for such teachings were not to be considered brethren (cf. 1 John 2:19). Whatever faith they had was only "human faith" — to use Hodges' expression — and that is not saving faith.
Th e next verse, "Nevertheless, the fi rm foundation of God stands, having this seal, 'Th e Lord knows those who are His' " (2 Tim. 2:19), underscores the truth that saving faith, which is wrought by God, cannot fail. We cannot always see whose faith is genuine and whose is a sham, but God knows.