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Concerning the Perseverance of the Saints | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  So think about the absolute passive security of a roller
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  coaster. Oh yeah, right.
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  The harness locks down, the machine basically takes over and
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  you are guaranteed to reach the end of the track.
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  For better or worse, yeah, you are locked in.
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  Yeah, you are not doing anything to get there.
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  Now contrast that with the terrifying, the sweat inducing
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  effort of free solo rock climbing.
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  Oh man, just thinking about that makes my palm sweat.
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  I know, right? Where one slip, just one tiny
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  mistake means death. Today we are examining A
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  theological framework that demands you live right in the
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  tension between those two extremes.
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  Which is a lot harder than it sounds.
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  It really is what happens when a completely guaranteed outcome
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  like the roller coaster demands your absolute hardest effort,
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  like the rock climb. Yeah, that is the big question.
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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. If you are joining us, you are
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  likely looking to understand dense theological concepts
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  without feeling lost in, you know, academic jargon.
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  Which is always the goal here. Right, that is our mission.
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  Today we are taking a deep dive into some dense source material
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  from Jonathan Edwards. A giant in the field.
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  Huge. Specifically, we are looking at
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  his writings on the perseverance of the Saints.
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  We are going to examine how he handles this massive apparent
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  contradiction. It really is a tension that
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  trips up almost everyone who starts reading theology.
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  Oh, for sure. I mean, Edwards takes these two
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  concepts, the absolute divine guarantee of salvation for the
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  believer and the rigorous, ongoing human diligence required
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  to reach the end, right? And he synthesizes them.
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  He shows how these two realities do not cancel each other out,
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  you know? Yeah, which is kind of mind
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  bending it. Is they operate together in a
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  highly specific, logical way. OK, when you read Edwards, you
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  see him building a case that the divine guarantee does not make
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  human effort irrelevant. Right, it is not a free pass to
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  just sit on the couch. Not at all.
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  Rather, the guarantee is the very thing that gives the effort
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  its meaning and its success. Wait, I have to stop you there
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  because to a lot of people this sounds like a massive
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  contradiction. Oh, I totally.
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  We get that. If my salvation is entirely
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  secure, why in the world am I constantly told to work hard to
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  maintain it? Yeah, the classic objection.
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  Right. If the ticket is punched, why
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  the grueling run? Well, Edward starts right out of
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  the gate by asserting there is equal reason to command earnest
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  care for perseverance as there is to command godliness in the
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  first place. Even though the final salvation
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  of the elect is certain. Yes.
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  See, that sounds like he is speaking out of both sides of
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  his mouth. It sounds that way until you
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  look at the mechanics of how God operates, according to Edwards.
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  OK, break that down for me. So God does not just decree the
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  end result, right? He decrees the means to achieve
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  that result. Oh, OK, To use your roller
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  coaster analogy from earlier, yeah, God does not just decree
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  that the cart will reach the station, He decrees that the
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  wheels will grip the track, you know?
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  Oh, I see. That the chain will pull the
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  weight and that gravity will act upon the mass.
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  So the mechanics are part of the guarantee.
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  Yes, if you want the result, you cannot logically discard the
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  means. Right, that makes no sense.
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  Edwards points out that diligence and resoluteness
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  through extreme trials are the very things that provide
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  evidence of true conversion. The fruit, basically.
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  Yeah, well, yes. On the flip side, unstableness
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  and backsliding provide evidence of hypocrisy.
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  Wow. The effort is the visible
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  outworking of the invisible decree.
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  OK, let me see if I can ground this for you, the listener, in a
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  different way. Go for it.
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  Imagine you are terribly sick, OK?
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  And a brilliant doctor gives you a complete, absolute guarantee
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  that he will cure your illness. Best news ever?
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  Right, but the cure requires taking a specific daily pill.
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  OK, The guarantee inherently includes you taking that pill.
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  Yes, it is built in. You would never look at the
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  doctor and say well since the cure is guaranteed, I will just
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  throw these pills in the trash. No, that would be absurd.
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  The guarantee of the outcome is inextricably linked to the means
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  of the cure. Does that capture the point?
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  That is a brilliant way to frame it.
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  The Doctor's guarantee does not nullify the pill, it validates
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  the pill. Right, it gives the pill it's
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  worth. And this brings in a fascinating
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  psychological reality that Edwards notes regarding the
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  spiritual state of believers. What is that?
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  He observes that the people who have the weakest grace and the
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  most languishing faith. The ones struggling the most,
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  yeah. They are the exact people who
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  need the most terrifying warnings about hell and
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  apostasy. Wow, really?
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  Yeah, because their spiritual senses are dulled by thin.
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  So they need a shock to the system.
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  Precisely. But those with vigorous, active
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  faith have far less need of those terrifying motives.
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  Because they are already running.
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  Yes, the fear of hell acts as a tool.
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  So God utilizes the fear of hell as an instrument to stir up the
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  sluggish believer. Yes, he does.
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  That is fascinating. It is like when a person is
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  wandering close to the edge of a Cliff.
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  The warning signs are not there to suggest suggest they're
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  definitely going to fall over. Not at all.
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  The signs are the very instruments that keep them away
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  from the edge. That is right, Edward says, that
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  labor and diligence to persevere are the rational ways to make
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  sure of the truth of grace. OK, God proposes His wrath and
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  future punishment to all sorts of men, including the godly, to
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  motivate universal obedience. Which is a hard pill for modern
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  readers to swallow, Let's be real.
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  Oh, definitely. But because of that dynamic,
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  Edward shifts the entire focus of a person's assurance.
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  Oh so. He argues that it is not the
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  scriptural way to judge the truth of your grace by looking
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  backward at a past event. You mean like looking back at a
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  specific moment you walked an aisle or prayed a specific like
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  prayer or had a massive emotional experience?
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  Yes, that is a huge issue in the church.
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  Today. Oh, absolutely.
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  Edwards calls those The steps of the first work OK, he says
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  focusing your assurance on a memory of the past is
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  fundamentally flawed. Interesting.
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  Instead, he places the focus squarely on the present.
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  So what does that look like? You look at the current exercise
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  and fruits of grace in a holy life, right?
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  Yes, your current diligence, your current taking of the pills
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  so to speak, is the evidence that the doctor's guarantee is
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  actively at working you right now.
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  OK, but, and I have to play Dental's advocate here for a
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  second, three do If human diligence is required, if I have
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  to keep taking the pill, keeping my grip on the Rockwall, does
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  not that mean my final standing rests on my own frail human
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  willpower? I see where you're going.
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  Because frankly, my willpower is terrible on a good day.
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  Same year. It seems like we were just
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  putting the burden back on the individual, which brings back
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  all the insecurity. That is the natural fear, and it
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  is where Edwards view of human strength gets quite sobering.
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  Sobering is a good word for Edwards.
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  He compares the way God relates to humanity under two different
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  arrangements or covenants. OK.
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  The two covenants. He points out that the first
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  covenant, the one God made with Adam, was deficient in one
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  specific way. Which was?
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  It was entrusted to man's own strength and stability.
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  Right. And we know how that it ended.
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  Yeah, Adam was in a perfect environment with a perfect will,
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  no bad habits, no negative influences, and he still fell.
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  Which is wild to think about. And this leads Edwards to a very
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  stark, logical conclusion. Let's hear If the New Covenant
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  left the task of perseverance up to fallen man's strength, man
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  would be 10 times more liable to fail than Adam was.
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  Oh wow. 10 times. Think about the deficit we are
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  starting from. Our sanctification is
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  incomplete. We have internal corruption.
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  We live in a world hostile to faith.
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  Yeah, Adam did not have any of that baggage.
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  Exactly. So if eternal life rested on our
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  own persevering strength, the new covenant would actually be a
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  covenant of works, not a covenant of grace.
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  And it would be vastly inferior to the first arrangement.
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  With Adam completely inferior. Because you're starting from a
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  much weaker position, right? Imagine being given a second
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  chance to pass a difficult physical test.
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  The first time you were fully rested, fully healthy, you had
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  all the answers, and you failed. The second time the instructor
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  says good news, you get another try, but this time you have to
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  do it blindfolded in with a sprained ankle.
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  That is a nightmare. That is not comforting at.
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  All It is a terrifying process and Edwards uses a specific
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  phrase here. He talks about a passive
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  liability to fail. A passive liability, OK.
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  He defines this as an inherent weakness.
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  It is a lack of essential perfection.
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  So just being a creature means you have this liability, yes.
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  Only God is essentially infallible.
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  Any creative being, even prior to any moral defect, has this
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  passive liability. That is heavy.
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  It means they have a tendency to change or fall if not actively
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  continuously sustained by the Creator.
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  So even in the garden, Adam needed that sustaining grace.
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  Yes, Adam had this liability and he fell.
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  Fallen man has his liability compounded by actual inherited
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  corruption. OK, but how does recognizing
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  that liability actually help the believer?
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  What do you mean? Wouldn't that just create
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  paralyzing fear? Understanding that you have this
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  passive weakness seems like it would make a person give up
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  entirely. Well, it creates fear if you
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  think you are the one holding yourself up.
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  I see. But the recognition of that
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  liability is what forces a person to look outside
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  themselves. Because looking inside is a dead
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  end. Right.
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  It shows that God could not entrust the affair of our
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  happiness to a weak foundation a second time, right?
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  The new covenant had to suspend eternal life on a mediator who
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  is the same yesterday, today and forever.
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  The rock Yes. The goal of the first covenant
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  failing was to show humanity that its own foundation was
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  weak, so we would learn to trust in God alone.
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  That makes a lot of sense. God introduced a better covenant
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  committed not to human strength, but to the strength of one who
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  is mighty and stable. So since human strength is a
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  totally unreliable foundation, who actually does the
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  persevering? This leads us to Christ's role,
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  the second Adam, Edward says. Christ came to supply the
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  defects of the first surety, Adam.
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  Yes, Christ acts as a middle person, a media.
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  He undertakes for man to God, satisfying justice and
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  vindicating the majesty of God. Paying the debt.
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  But he also undertakes for God to man, ensuring that the
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  necessary supplies of grace are provided.
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  OK, so it goes both ways. And the key difference here is
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  that Christ did not just hit a reset button.
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  Right, that is crucial. He did not just place believers
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  back into Adam's initial probationary state, where the
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  outcome was still uncertain. That is a massive distinction.
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  It really is if. Christ just cleared the slate.
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  We would be right back in the garden waiting to mess it up.
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  Again, we would absolutely mess it up.
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  We would just be waiting for the next inevitable failure.
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  But Christ successfully persevered through the greatest
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  imaginable trials. The cross.
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  Yes, because of His perfect obedience, he was admitted to
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  the seals of confirmed life. Meaning the resurrection.
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  He was resurrected and exalted, and because believers are united
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  to him, they are brought into that confirmed state.
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  That is amazing. Edwards uses the example of a
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  servant. OK, let's hear it.
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  A master does not justify A servant, meaning declare his
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  work acceptable and grant the reward until the work is
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  completely done. Right, you do not pay the
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  contractor in full when he has only poured the foundation.
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  Exactly. I mean, yes, that is right.
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  You justify him when the house is built and the final
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  inspection is passed. Spot on.
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  So for the believer, having Christ's righteousness imputed
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  to them means they have virtually finished the law.
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  The law is satisfied. The work is already done in the
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  sight of God. Justification is not just having
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  your sins forgiven, it is being a judged to life.
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  It is a positive declaration. Yes, it means being accepted as
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  entitled to the reward of life because of the perfect
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  righteousness of the surety. OK, so Edwards writes something
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  here that I want to spend some time analyzing because I think
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  it is huge. Yeah, let's do it.
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  He says believers participate in the life Christ received after
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  he rose from the dead. Yes.
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  Explain the practical reality of this for the listener.
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  How does sharing in a post resurrection life change the way
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  a person views their daily struggles against sin?
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  Well, it changes the baseline of your reality.
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  Before Christ's resurrection, He was a man of sorrows, acquainted
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  with grief, bearing the weight of the law and the probationary
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  state. He was in the thick of it.
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  He was in the middle of the test, but when he rose, he
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  received the spirit of life without measure.
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  The test was over. The probationary period was
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  over. The victory was won right?
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  When Edwards says a believer participates in that post
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  resurrection life, he means your spiritual life is not an
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  uncertain trial phase existence. You are not waiting to see if
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  you pass the final exam. You are drawing your vitality
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  from a source that has already conquered death and fulfilled
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  every requirement of the law. So your daily struggle against
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  sin is no longer a battle to secure your status?
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  No, you are not fighting to prove you belong.
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  Right. It is the outworking of a
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  victory that has already been secured.
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  Wow. You are fighting as a citizen of
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  heaven, not as a rebel trying to earn a passport.
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  That is a great way to put it. You are dealing with the
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  lingering effects of the war, but the decisive battle is
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  finished. OK, that paints a completely
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  different picture, but it also raises a new question for me.
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  Lay it on me. If Christ did all the work and
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  our status is based on his post resurrection life, how does our
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  ongoing faith fit into the picture?
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  The human element again. Yeah.
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  What bridges the gap between Christ's objective, finished
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  work in history and my subjective experience right now,
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  in this present moment? The bridge is faith itself.
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  OK, but Edwards defines faith in a very specific way here.
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  How does he define it? Faith is the act of the soul
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  committing itself to Christ's keeping.
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  Committing itself. Why?
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  Because the believing soul is profoundly well.
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  It is deeply convinced of its own utter weakness and
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  helplessness, right? It recognizes its absolute
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  inability to keep itself. So faith is not some heroic
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  accomplishment, not at all. It is not summoning up a massive
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  amount of positive energy. No, it is the opposite.
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  It is an act of total desperation.
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  It is throwing yourself onto the protection of another because
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  you know you cannot survive on your own.
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  That is the irony at the heart of this theology.
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  Yeah, it really is. Realizing your own liability to
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  fail. Recognizing your inherent
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  weakness is the very prerequisite for entering into
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  an unbreakable security. That is wild.
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  And Edwards uses some precise legal terminology to explain how
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  this faith connects us to salvation.
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  Oh, Edwards loves his legal terms.
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  He does. He talks about perseverance, not
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  just being a scenic Wan non. Which is Latin, right?
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  Yeah, a Latin term meaning a necessary condition, like having
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  a ticket to get on a train, right?
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  But he says perseverance creates a congruity to salvation.
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  OK, breakdown that word congruity for us.
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  What does it mean in a legal or relational sense?
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  Congruity refers to a state of fittingness or appropriateness.
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  It sits. It means something matches
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  perfectly. God looks at the very first act
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  of true faith, and He sees the entire lifetime of perseverance
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  virtually contained within it. Just in that first act.
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  Yes, it is fitting that a person is saved because their ongoing
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  union with Christ makes them legally his OK, I fall.
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  God accepts the Sinner and that first act of faith as though the
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  entire course of perseverance were already completed, because
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  by divine establishment it will surely follow.
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  And the guarantee of that future reality is what Edwards calls
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  the Earnest. Yes, the earnest.
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  He writes that the Holy Spirit is given as an earnest or
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  inheritance. Think of it like earnest money
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  in real estate. Oh, good analogy.
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  When you put down earnest money on a house, it is not just a
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  fraction of the payment. Right.
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  It is proof you are serious. It is a legal guarantee that the
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  full transaction will be completed.
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  It secures the property OK in man's first estate back in Adam.
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  No benefit was fully made over to him.
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  He didn't have the deed. He had grace, but no sure title
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  to keep it. The property was not secured,
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  but now believers are adopted, they are made joint heirs.
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  The Holy Spirit is given to them as their own possession and
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  earnest of the future inheritance.
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  So they have a sure title, the contract assigned, the earnest
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  money is held in escrow, and the deed is guaranteed.
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  That is incredibly comforting. The Believer state is legally
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  secure in a way that Eden never was.
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  I am going to bring this car to a screeching halt because all of
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  this sounds beautifully secure. The logic is tight, the legal
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  framework is solid, but anyone who was read through the
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  biblical texts knows there are parts that terrify readers.
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  Yeah, the warning passages. There are texts that seem to
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  scream that people absolutely can fall away and lose the
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  secure standing. We have to deal with those.
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  Edwards specifically addresses Ezekiel chapter 18, verse 24.
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  If the righteous shall fall from his righteousness, he shall die.
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  Tough verse. That sounds like a direct
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  contradiction to everything we just discussed.
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  That verse is a stumbling block for many, but Edwards approaches
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  it with a rigorous hermeneutic. A method of interpretation.
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  Right, a specific way of reading the text in its context.
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  He argues that this text does not prove it is possible for a
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  truly righteous person, one with that post resurrection life we
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  just talked about, to fall away. OK, So what is it doing?
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  God is establishing A logical, unalterable connection between
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  two concepts, apostasy and death.
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  So an if then statement does not necessarily mean the if is a
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  practical possibility for this specific person being addressed.
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  That is right. The text often uses if then
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  statements to teach us the necessary connection between two
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  things for very wise ends. OK, give me an example.
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  Edwards compares it to the law. The law says he that does these
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  things shall live by them, right?
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  Does that mean any fallen human can actually keep the law
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  perfectly and earn life? No, nobody can.
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  The purpose of that statement is to show us our total inability
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  and drive us to Christ. Ah OK.
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  In the same way, saying if the righteous fall away, they shall
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  die teaches a certain connection between those two actions.
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  But I have to push back here. Bring it.
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  If God already knows the elect cannot fail, setting up a
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  warning like that just seems like divine theater.
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  I hear that a lot. Why threaten someone with
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  something that is literally impossible for them to
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  experience? Isn't it deceptive for God to
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  set up a warning for something that cannot actually happen?
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  It would be deceptive if God were merely, if he were just
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  playing psychological tricks, right?
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  But Edwards argues that the warnings are not empty threats.
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  What are they? They are the exact decreed
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  instruments God uses to prevent the thing from happening.
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  OK, I am going to need an analogy for that.
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  Let's go back to an analogy. A parent is walking with a child
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  near a busy St. The parent holds the child's
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  hand with an iron grip. The parent knows there is zero
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  chance the child is going into the street.
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  Right, the parent is not going to let go.
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  But the parent still says if you step into traffic you will die.
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  OK, Yeah. The parents warning is the very
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  memes that causes the child to stay on the sidewalk.
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  Oh wow. God's decree that the child will
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  be safe includes the parents warning and the child's obedient
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  response to that warning. The warning does the work of
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  keeping them safe. That makes a lot of sense.
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  The warning is the means, yes. And Edwards also digs into the
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  word righteous in Ezekiel. He does.
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  He points out that righteous in Scripture often refers to
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  external, visible righteousness. Like a cultural religion.
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  Like when the whole nation of Israel is called a holy holy
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  nation, they were not all internally converted.
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  Yes, exactly. The primary audience for
• 20:09
  Ezekiel's warning were people who were legally righteous in
• 20:12
  their outward behavior and trusted in their own
• 20:15
  righteousness. They were ticking the boxes.
• 20:17
  They were turning away from outward conformity to the law.
• 20:21
  Edwards points out that there was an essential difference
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  between those who fall away and those who persevere even before
• 20:28
  the falling away happens. OK, what is the difference?
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  He references the parable of the sower.
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  The seed that fell on Stony ground sprouted quickly, but it
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  withered under the sun because it had no root.
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  They did not lose the root, they never had it to begin with.
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  That is the key. They had visible righteousness,
• 20:45
  but no internal reality. Just a facade.
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  The warnings in Ezekiel were designed to strip away the false
• 20:51
  confidence of listeners who had a backsliding heart, as the
• 20:54
  Prophet calls it. This logic carries over into the
• 20:57
  New Testament texts as well. It does.
• 20:59
  Building on Ezekiel, we have to look at the terrifying warnings
• 21:02
  in the Book of Hebrews. Oh, Hebrews keeps a lot of
• 21:05
  people awake at night. Seriously.
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  Things like if we sin willfully, or it is impossible for those
• 21:13
  who were once enlightened, if they fall away, to renew them
• 21:15
  again unto repentance. Yeah, those are heavy.
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  These are the hypothetical propositions that really scare
• 21:21
  believers. And Edwards handles them with
• 21:23
  one of the most striking comparisons in his entire
• 21:25
  writing. What is he compared to?
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  He looks at the story of the Garden of Eden right after the
• 21:29
  fall. OK, after Adam sinned, God
• 21:33
  pronounced an unalterable decree.
• 21:35
  Adam would die and he would not live forever in his fallen
• 21:39
  state. Right, that was a curse.
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  That was a guaranteed outcome. God had spoken.
• 21:43
  Yet what did God do? He put an Angel with a sword.
• 21:47
  He placed a flaming sword and cherubim at the entrance of the
• 21:50
  garden to keep Adam away from the Tree of Life.
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  Oh, so God connects damnation with living in a loud sin?
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  The warnings in Hebrews are the flaming sword.
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  Yes, Edwards asks. Why put a physical flaming sword
• 22:04
  there if God's unalterable decree had already made it
• 22:07
  impossible for Adam to live forever?
• 22:08
  Right. If it is impossible, why the
• 22:10
  security guard? Because the flaming sword was
• 22:13
  the physical means enforcing an already determined reality.
• 22:17
  God uses means. The mornings in Hebrews are the
• 22:21
  flaming sword keeping the believer away from the edge of
• 22:24
  the Cliff. They enforce the decree.
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  They enforce it. The Apostle Paul understood this
• 22:29
  perfectly. Where do we see that?
• 22:31
  He wrote that he kept his body under subjection lest he should
• 22:34
  be a castaway. Right.
• 22:35
  He beat his body, disciplined it.
• 22:37
  Paul knew his salvation was secure, but he also knew that
• 22:40
  God's means of keeping him secure involved his own rigorous
• 22:44
  self-discipline, fueled by a healthy fear of the consequences
• 22:48
  of sin. See this dynamic so clearly in
• 22:52
  The Life of Judas, which Edwards brings up as a prime example.
• 22:55
  Oh, Judas is the perfect test case.
• 22:56
  Judas had visible faith. He was a distinguished disciple.
• 23:00
  He preached the gospel, healed the sick and cast out demons.
• 23:04
  He had the resume. From the outside, he looked
• 23:06
  exactly like the rest of the 12. But Christ said, have I not
• 23:09
  chosen you? 12 and one of you was a devil?
• 23:12
  And the Gospels. John notes that Jesus knew from
• 23:14
  the beginning who believe not and who should betray him.
• 23:18
  So Jesus was never surprised by Judas.
• 23:20
  Never. Jesus did not have true grace
• 23:22
  and then lose it. He was an apostate who went out
• 23:25
  from them because he was never truly of them.
• 23:27
  He never had the root. The hypothetical warnings apply
• 23:30
  to the visible church. They wake up the true believer
• 23:33
  to diligence, and they expose the false professor when they
• 23:36
  eventually fall away. OK, consider the historical
• 23:39
  account of the Apostle Paul's shipwreck in the book of Acts.
• 23:42
  Oh, Acts 27. It is the perfect illustration
• 23:45
  of this tension between a guaranteed outcome and a
• 23:48
  conditional action. Walk us through it.
• 23:50
  Paul is on a ship in the middle of a massive hurricane.
• 23:53
  It looks hopeless. An Angel appears to him and
• 23:56
  gives him an absolute, unconditional guarantee from
• 23:59
  God. There shall be no loss of any
• 24:01
  man's life among you, but of the ship.
• 24:03
  So God decree, they all live. It is a divine decree.
• 24:07
  Everyone survives. Oh, that is a brilliant
• 24:09
  connection to Edwards. Right, because a few hours later
• 24:13
  the sailors secretly lower a lifeboat and try to abandon the
• 24:16
  ship. They are bailing out.
• 24:18
  Paul sees them, turns to the Roman soldiers and says unless
• 24:22
  these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.
• 24:25
  Wait a minute, God just guarantee that everyone would be
• 24:28
  saved, yes? But the guaranteed outcome
• 24:31
  required the conditional action. The soldiers cut the ropes to
• 24:35
  the lifeboat, the sailor stayed, and everyone lived.
• 24:38
  That is the synthesis in action right there.
• 24:41
  The decree, the end includes the decree of the means.
• 24:44
  So if the outcome is completely guaranteed, and the severe
• 24:49
  warnings are just the guardrails keeping us on the track, what is
• 24:53
  the listener supposed to do with all this?
• 24:55
  That is the practical question. If everything is locked in,
• 24:57
  someone might conclude there is no point in asking God for help.
• 25:01
  Why pray if the end is already written?
• 25:03
  Edwards anticipates that objection naturally.
• 25:06
  Of course he does. He argues that it is entirely
• 25:08
  proper, and in fact necessary, to pray earnestly for things
• 25:12
  that are already promised. Why is that?
• 25:14
  And he looks to the ultimate example, Jesus Christ himself.
• 25:17
  Christ had an absolute guarantee of victory.
• 25:20
  The Father promised him the nations as his inheritance.
• 25:24
  God said of him, He shall not fail nor be discouraged.
• 25:27
  Yet look at how Christ operated during his earthly ministry
• 25:30
  exactly. He used memes, endeavors, labor,
• 25:33
  and earnest prayers that he might persevere.
• 25:35
  Yes, in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed with
• 25:38
  strong crying and tears and wrestled in a bloody sweat,
• 25:42
  asking God for the strength to go through the trial.
• 25:45
  The agony in the garden. It was impossible for him to
• 25:48
  fail, yet he prayed with agonizing intensity.
• 25:51
  Because praying is the ordained way we receive the promised
• 25:54
  strengths. Edwards takes a moment here to
• 25:57
  critique the view that perseverance is left entirely to
• 26:00
  the freedom of man's self determined will.
• 26:03
  The Armenian view, right? He argues that if your will is
• 26:06
  truly self determined, uninfluenced by God's sovereign
• 26:09
  decree, then praying to God to keep us from falling would be
• 26:13
  philosophically absurd. Really.
• 26:15
  Why? Why ask God to uphold your
• 26:18
  goings in His paths if you believe you are the sole
• 26:21
  independent determiner of your own choices?
• 26:24
  Oh I see. You would just be talking to
• 26:25
  yourself essentially. Basically, you would be asking
• 26:28
  God to do something that you believe only you have the
• 26:31
  ability to do. Yes, but because God has
• 26:34
  promised to keep His people, His people have solid ground to
• 26:38
  plead with Him. Because they know he can
• 26:42
  actually do it. The guarantee does not create
• 26:44
  laziness, it creates the foundation for confident,
• 26:48
  desperate prayer. Right.
• 26:50
  You can go to God and say you promised to keep me.
• 26:53
  Do what you promised. So true assurance is not a
• 26:55
  license to sleep. Not at all.
• 26:57
  It is the fuel to run. Knowing the finish line is
• 27:00
  secure allows a person to endure the excruciating pain of the
• 27:04
  race without collapsing into despair.
• 27:07
  Yes, you know the pain is leading somewhere certain.
• 27:09
  That is the grand synthesis, and Edwards presents it is a system
• 27:13
  that demands your utmost exertion while simultaneously
• 27:16
  demanding that you trust entirely in another strength.
• 27:19
  It is brilliant. Let's recap what we have covered
• 27:21
  in this deep dive. Sounds good.
• 27:23
  Edwards paints a landscape where human weakness is fully
• 27:26
  acknowledged. We are creatures with a passive
• 27:29
  liability to fail, compounded by our own fallen nature.
• 27:33
  Right, our baseline is weak. If it were up to us, we would be
• 27:36
  10 times more likely to fall than Adam.
• 27:38
  But that weakness is entirely swallowed up by the unstoppable
• 27:42
  mediation of Christ, the second Adam.
• 27:44
  The surety. He did not just restart the
• 27:47
  test, he finished it. He secured the post resurrection
• 27:50
  life and through faith and act of desperate reliance, we are
• 27:54
  united to him. The commands to persevere, the
• 27:57
  terrifying warnings about falling away, these are all
• 28:00
  real, but they are the very tools, the flaming swords that
• 28:03
  God uses to preserve His people and keep them running toward the
• 28:06
  finish line. It is a.
• 28:07
  Framework that produces both both intense humility and
• 28:10
  unshakable confidence. I want to leave you, the
• 28:13
  listener, with the final thought to ponder as you go about your
• 28:16
  day. Give it to us.
• 28:17
  We started by talking about the difference between a roller
• 28:19
  coaster and a free solo rock climb.
• 28:22
  We have seen that perseverance is neither passive nor solitary.
• 28:25
  But think about this image. If your perseverance is not a
• 28:29
  fragile rope you are holding onto with exhausted hands, but
• 28:33
  rather a vital participation in Christ's already completed
• 28:37
  victory. Oh.
• 28:37
  That is good. How does that shift the way you
• 28:40
  react the next time you face a massive moral or spiritual
• 28:43
  failure? Yeah, that changes everything
• 28:45
  if. You are a branch connected to
• 28:47
  the vine. The life flows from him to you,
• 28:49
  not the other way around. Exactly.
• 28:51
  When the branch feels dry, it does not manufacture its own
• 28:54
  SAP, it rests in the root. Thank you for joining us for
• 28:58
  this deep dive on reformed thinking.
• 29:00
  Keep asking the hard questions, keep pursuing truth, and we will
• 29:03
  see you next time.