They Who Endure to the End: A Primer on Perseverance

By Everett Berry

Is it possible for a true believer in Christ to apostatize? If so, how? Also, how can professing believers know if they are truly born again? What assurance can they have that they will never renounce their faith? These questions have been asked for centuries as Christians have wrestled with what Scripture says about these matters. The search for answers has instilled strong disagreements among Christian traditions. In this book, we navigate the terrain of this debate by examining the pertinent biblical data, surveying the history of major views that have been advocated by various denominations, and offering a synthesis of all this material in the hopes that readers can see how Scripture assures believers of their security in Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Jul 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781498239691

Everett Berry

Everett Berry is Professor of Theology at Criswell College and the editor for the Criswell Theological Review. He is also the co-author of the book They Spoke of Me (2018).

Book preview

Preface

I have expressed interest in the doctrine of perseverance for quite some time. One reason being that it raises some weighty questions with which all believers struggle at one time or another. How do professing believers know if their conversion experiences are genuine? Can someone lose their salvation? Can believers sin to such an extent that they forfeit their salvation? Can an unbroken chain of unrepentant, chronic sin be proof that one is not a true believer? Inquiries like these raise significant concerns and searching for answers can be quite perplexing at times. For instance, I can recall several occasions as a pastor when congregants, guests, and even other pastors would want to discuss these matters. Sometimes these conversations were casual while others occasionally exuded a bit of theological friction. Also, there were encounters when people were not wanting to dialogue about the nuanced complexities of this subject. Rather they were struggling with their own faith and wanted to find some sort of assurance that could ground them amid their various doubts. These same scenarios emerged over the years since I have been a professor as well. I have visited with students who expressed uncertainty about their faith. I have met with some who wanted to know why Christian traditions disagree so strongly over this doctrine. And I have counseled some who almost abandoned their faith. Sadly, I have even met with a few who had already chosen to do so.

In addition to these many concerns that believers face on their spiritual pilgrimages, the doctrine of perseverance has become even more intriguing to me in the last few years because of recent scholarly discussions about the nature of faith, justification, and final judgment. Historically, the mainstay Catholic and Protestant answers to questions about apostasy and the nature of endurance in one’s personal faith are well established. But ongoing developments in Pauline scholarship and studies on the nature of biblical apocalyptic have created new conversations that have persuaded some in evangelical guilds to revisit major biblical concepts including those related to perseverance and apostasy.

These factors are primarily why I want to produce a concise primer on this topic. Yet I must acknowledge that any successful attempt to complete a book requires one to stand on the shoulders of many people, including family, friends, colleagues, and other fellow scholars. This project is no different. I want to express gratitude, first of all, to my beloved wife, Tabitha, as well as our daughter, Elaina, and our son, Brian. There were many evenings where most of my time was consumed with reading books and typing on a laptop. I could not have invested this time without their love and support. I also want to thank Criswell College, which is the institution where I have taught for the past fifteen years. They provided me with a sabbatical that allowed me to do most of my research and writing. Finally, I want to give thanks to several scholars and editors who agreed to review various chapters of this book, including Alan Streett, Andrew Streett, Christopher Graham, David Brooks, Matthew Pinson, Russell Meek, Patrick Schreiner, and Ken Yates. Their input was invaluable to the development of the following chapters. I only hope that now this labor of love can be an encouragement to readers who wrestle with this doctrine and informative to those who want to learn more about it.

Introduction

There are moments in the lives of many people where they truly come to grips with their condition outside of Christ. They begin to consider the demands that he makes upon their lives and eventually one pressing question demands an answer; what must one do to be saved? We see this pattern in various forms throughout the New Testament (hereafter NT). We read about a rich young ruler who thought he was abiding by all the expectations of the law since his youth but still wanted to ask Jesus if there was something else he needed to do to inherit eternal life (cf. Matt 19:16–30; Mark 10:17–31; Luke 18:18–30). We hear of a healed blind man asking Jesus who the Son of Man was so that he might believe in him (John 9:35–36); a dying criminal asking Jesus for mercy before his impending death (Luke 23:39–43); a massive Jewish crowd at Pentecost wanting to know what they should do after hearing Peter’s convicting sermon about the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus as the Christ (Acts 2:37); and a pagan jailer in the city of Philippi desperate for direction from Paul and Silas when he was considering ending his own life (Acts 16:29–30). No matter the circumstances, despite the different backgrounds of the inquirers, their concern remained the same, which was how one could receive God’s salvific mercy.

The fact that this request is repeated so often in biblical accounts lets us know how important it is. Understandably, this is why one’s experience of believing in Christ, or as we would say, being converted (or saved), is so foundational to the Christian faith. It is why key terms such as regeneration, conversion, justification, and sanctification have received such significant attention in the history of the church. They are all connected to the simple yet profound question of how one comes to a saving knowledge of Christ, thereby becoming a citizen of his kingdom. However, another related concern that is just as crucial and has received an equal amount of attention from Christian thinkers over the centuries is whether someone who has experienced conversion can somehow become an unbeliever once again, or more specifically, can true saints forfeit their status in Christ? Do all believers ultimately persevere in their faith or can they, for one reason or another, abandon their faith and become apostates?

No doubt, this has been one of the most hotly disputed conundrums in Christian theology. The reason being that it touches upon so many issues that are all related to one’s understanding of salvation as a whole. Matthew Pinson has summarized this well by stating,

Besides the subject’s long history and integral connection with Christian spirituality, the doctrine of perseverance serves as a handy gauge of one’s theological vantage point. Perseverance touches so many other doctrinal themes—free will, grace, predestination, atonement, justification, sanctification, spirituality. Thus, the way people handle this subject tells a great deal about where they locate themselves on the theological spectrum.¹

This point is well taken. If one thinks that people experience something irreversible when they come to Christ via the inward work of the Spirit and the external expressions of repentance and faith, then that is an outflow of several other distinct doctrinal commitments. But for others who are convinced that people can be born of the Spirit and still somehow lapse back into an unconverted state, this belief is linked to other theological inclinations as well.

On a bit more practical note, we can clarify the perplexity that this subject instills by offering a scenario. Let’s say that a young man confesses faith in Christ at an early age. He becomes part of a church family. He grows in his knowledge of the Lord. He worships, prays, shares his faith, maybe even mentors other young believers periodically. Then at some later point in his life, for whatever reasons, he renounces his faith, becoming an atheist. The looming question now is how does one define his present condition in light of his past. Was he a believer who later apostatized, a false believer who showed his true colors, or the infamous backsliding carnal Christian who is just going through a radical phase of rebellion? Or even more intriguing, what if he were to come back to the faith later in life. Does this mean he was a genuine convert for a while, then an unbeliever when he renounced his faith, and finally a believer once more when he recanted his prior renouncement? Or was he merely an AWOL believer while professing atheism and later became an active one once more?

Finding satisfactory answers here can be challenging, but before one is tempted to dismiss this as a mere hypothetical case, the reality is that these kinds of situations do take place. And even more unsettling is this concern. What is the difference between the faith of a person who will eventually apostatize and your own faith at this moment (if you as a reader profess to be a believer)? How do you know you will never apostatize? How can you presently show without any doubt that your faith is any different experientially from other professing believers who just have not reached the point of becoming an apostate yet? These are the kinds of soul-searching questions that make the subject of perseverance so pertinent to Christian thought. It not only pertains to questions about how one can know if someone else is a believer. It forces one to ask how they can have assurance of their own personal salvation.

What is the Biblical Basis for Asking Questions About Perseverance

It is no secret that Christians over the ages have strongly disagreed on how to resolve matters related to perseverance and apostasy. In fact, I would say that when it comes to the doctrine of salvation, perseverance would be the most controversial subject of all if it did not always take a back seat to the doctrine of election, which always takes first place (even though they are related topics). Be that as it may, the reason there is such polarized disagreement is the same as it is for any other doctrinal dispute. Christian thinkers clash because there is lack of consensus on how certain biblical texts should be interpreted individually (i.e., textually) and then understood collectively as a whole (i.e., intertextually). This dual challenge emerges when discussing this particular issue because of two major themes that emerge within the NT.

One motif that we notice in many passages is what one may call the permanency of salvation. Relevant texts regarding this idea are well known by those familiar with this debate. For example, we read Jesus’ words where he promised that all who believed in him would be changed in such a way that it would last forever. He assured his followers that they would receive eternal life which is qualitative (a new kind of life for the age to come) and quantitative (life without end because the age to come will be eternal, John 3:15–16; 4:13–14; 5:24; 6:35, 51; 11:25–26). This is why Jesus claimed that those who believed in him would never be lost (Luke 22:31–32a; John 6:37–39; 10:27–29). Likewise, Paul on occasion claims that believers have currently received the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that they will receive final salvation in the future (2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; Eph 1:14). He expresses this confidence elsewhere when he periodically assures his readers that God would bring their salvation to completion (1 Cor 1:4–9; Rom 8:29–39; Phil 1:6; 2 Tim 1:12; 4:18). Also in this vein, the idea of permanency appears to be highlighted by the writer of Hebrews who claims that Christ acts as the high priest for all believers because he continually intercedes on their behalf (Heb 4:14–16; 7:25) and cleanses them from all their sins (Heb 9:24–26; also see 1 Pet 1:18–19). In accordance with these promises, other NT writers allude to the idea that God will be protect and preserve believers in their salvation to the end (1 Pet 1:3–5; Jude 24–25).

Admittedly, if we stopped there, it would appear that the debate over perseverance would be quite short. This is not the case, however, because there is another emphasis throughout the NT. We discover just as many texts, if not more, that link believers’ final eschatological salvation to their perseverance in faith. For instance, we read consistent warnings that many will apostatize from the faith (Matt 10:21–22; 24:10–13; 2 Thess 2:3–5; 2 Tim 4:1–3); there are continual admonitions for believers to persevere in their faith (Acts 14:21–22; Col 1:22–23; 2 Cor 13:5; Heb 3:14; 2 Pet 1:10; 2 John 9); and more emphatically, there are some sobering commands to persevere which entail promises of eternal judgment if disobeyed (Rom 11:17–20; 2 Tim 2:11–13; Heb 2:1; 3:6, 12–14; 4:14; 6:1–6; 10:36–39; Rev 2:10–11; 3:5; 22:19). At a more practical level, we often see constant contrasts between the way believers are to live and how the world conducts itself. Believers are to adopt attitudes and lifestyles that are different from the unbelieving world (John 15:1–6; Rom 6:1–2; 1 Cor 6:9–11; Gal 5:19–21; Eph 5:11–13; Rev 22:14–15). Those who fall into sinful patterns are to be confronted so they can be brought to repentance and the purity of the church can be protected (Matt 18:15–20; 1 Cor 5:3–5, 9–13; 2 Thess 3:14–15). Likewise, conduct is treated with the upmost importance because believers are determined to be authentic by how they live their lives for the Lord (Matt 25:31–36; John 13:35; 15:16; Gal 5:6; Jas 2:18; 1 John 2:3–4; 4:20–21). Their conduct also shows that they are prepared for Christ’s return as opposed to those who will not. Those who are oblivious to the Second Advent reveal such ignorance by their reckless living (Matt 24:23–24; 25:1–13; 1 Thess 5:4–6; Heb 9:28; 2 Pet 3:11–13).

Charting the Outline of the Book

Now what becomes emphatically clear when we compare all of these texts is that there are serious exegetical and theological issues warranting attention. Hence, the purpose of this book. We want this volume to serve as a fresh primer on the doctrine of perseverance that hopefully achieves two primary goals. One is to provide a concise synopsis of alternative answers that many Christian interpreters have offered in their attempts to wrestle with this doctrine.² The reason for this is simple. Part of understanding the reasons why someone takes a particular view on issues of apostasy and perseverance is being able to navigate the potential components in the history of Christian thought that may be influencing one’s theological dispositions. No one reads Scripture, interprets select passages, or advocates certain doctrinal positions in a vacuum. Everyone takes a position in light of their acceptance and/or rejection of an assortment of theological commitments. Thus, it is critical to have at least some awareness of the spectrum of positions on this subject so one can understand why various interpreters espouse conflicting viewpoints.

Alongside this task, the other objective of this volume is to engage the corpus of relevant biblical material and make the case that the NT emphasizes two truths about perseverance that must be equally maintained. On the one hand, Scripture does often highlight the security that believers have in their relationship to Christ while on the other, it consistently expresses real warnings of final eschatological judgment for those who do not endure in their faith. We will argue that the tension between these two realities can be alleviated when we recognize that the NT is often trying to do different things when engaging its first-century readers. Sometimes biblical writers stress the theological realities that define who believers are because of their new union with Christ, his kingdom, and his church. This kind of encouragement usually happens when writers want to comfort believers who are already faithfully enduring hardship. Yet these same authors sometimes discuss the fact that a believer’s initial conversion is just a prologue to a larger experience which is still to culminate in their future vindication at the final judgment. This is why frequent warnings are mentioned because those who are now believers are expected to exhibit the reality of the indwelling Spirit through persevering faith. These conversations usually occur in situations where believers are either in rebellion or possibly on the threshold of apostatizing.

In the end, then, the NT offers the promise of security to believers who are looking to Christ and counsels those who are not to repent. So when it comes to the age old question of whether believers can lose their salvation, the main conclusion or thesis of this book will be that the modern way of asking this question can sometimes cause one to lose sight of how the NT approaches the matter. The NT admonishes believers to persevere with promises of eternal life to those who do and warnings of divine judgment to those who do not. Or put another way, while the NT teaches that it is theologically certain that all true believers will inherit all the blessings of the age to come, it is practically uncertain as to whether all professing believers will persevere. This means we must concede to the fact that the NT contains a tension which includes both of these realities.³ Obviously, this thesis needs to be fleshed out in more detail and indeed it will be.

So with these objectives being stated, this book will provide ten chapters that are broken down into three major sections. Chapters 1–4 make up the first segment which assesses the bulk of biblical material pertinent to perseverance and apostasy. Chapter 1 begins with an examination of relevant topics in the OT. Here, the discussion will focus primarily upon the theological implications of what it means to be part of God’s people under the old covenant. There are complexities with such a treatment because as we shall see, being a part of the covenant community (i.e., the people of Israel) did not necessarily mean everyone was an actual believer. Some were not at all whereas others were. Israel was a mixed community. This means that defining the nature of faith, perseverance, and apostasy has to be done carefully because of the covenantal nuances that were intrinsic to the Mosaic economy. Relatedly, attention will be given to the nature of salvation prior to the coming of Christ and the new work of the Spirit. This will require that we address several matters such as the role of blessings and curses in the Mosaic covenantal agreement with Israel; the exact meaning behind the concepts of being cut off from Israel because of disobedience or ceremonial uncleanness; and the function of the Spirit whereby he would temporarily empower individuals, only to sometimes abandon them because of moral failures (e.g., Samson, King Saul).

Subsequently, chapters 2–4 transition to examine how the idea of perseverance emerges in the NT. The analysis provided includes a treatment of how concepts such as faith, discipleship, and eternal life are used throughout the gospels. We will argue that the evangelists describe faith as an act of trust that results in allegiance to Christ and his kingdom, thereby eliminating any distinction between a believer and a follower. We will then cover numerous passages in Paul’s writings as well as the general epistles where believers are admonished to endure in their faith with some of these accounts warning them of impending judgment if they do not. As we engage these passages, we will see that these texts sometimes express confidence that the readers will persevere because of God’s providential enablement while others convey a tone of contingency because the emphasis is placed on the audience’s responsibility to heed the warnings.

From here, chapters 5–9 serve as the second major section of the book. The focus here will be upon how beliefs about perseverance and apostasy developed throughout the history of Christian thought. This survey begins in chapter 5 with a treatment of how early Christian writers addressed the possibility of apostasy. In the latter half of the chapter, we will then look at the third-century Novatian controversy which centered upon the question of whether or not believers who had recanted their faith because of Roman persecution (i.e., the lapsed) should be permitted to return to the fellowship of the church. Chapter 6 moves forward to examine the fifth-century Pelagian controversy because it set the backdrop for the influential Augustine of Hippo to articulate his view of perseverance. The combination of his sacramental views of baptism and justification with his view of election led him to deduce that people could indeed be saints without being part of God’s elect. The reason is that only saints who were given the gift of persevering faith were the elect ones. Therefore, it will be argued that Augustine believed in the perseverance of the elect, but not the saints because not all saints persevere. We will also show how this Augustinian distinction set the theological trajectory for how many Catholics and Protestants would address this doctrine for centuries (even to this very day).

Chapter 7 builds on this contention by leaping forward to the Reformation and surveying several of the perspectives that major Protestant traditions embraced. Specific attention is given to the views of Lutherans, the Reformed tradition, Anglicans, the Anabaptists, and the Catholic response via the Council of Trent to show how they each approached the idea of perseverance. Chapter 8 will shift gears to describe how the theological divide between the Reformed tradition and Arminianism emerged regarding to the concept of apostasy. We will begin with an assessment of James Arminius’ work, thereby setting the backdrop for examining the opinions of his later Dutch successors who drafted the well-known Five Articles of Remonstrance. At this point, we will move to the later great awakenings of the eighteenth and nineteenth to discuss how the classical Arminian view of apostasy morphed somewhat via the theology of John Wesley. Here, we will address his views of conversion and the idea that salvation is amissible. Likewise, it will be shown how both strands of Arminian thought continue to be advocated in an assortment of Protestant traditions today.

Chapter 9 continues this survey by discussing one last subject, which is the development of a mediating position between Reformed and Arminian thought known today as eternal security. Though this idea began to surface in various strands of Free Church traditions, its influence grew significantly in the late twentieth-century rift in the United States popularly known as the Lordship Salvation Debate. The item of most interest in this theological divide was the upsurge caused by Pastor John MacArthur’s book The Gospel according to Jesus and his interactions with two specific opponents, those being Charles Ryrie and Zane Hodges. It will be shown how these arguments for the No Lordship view helped solidify a nominal Arminian view that some evangelicals embrace today known as the Free Grace position.

Finally, with all of this biblical and historical content about perseverance in place, chapter 10 serves as the last section of the book. It will bring our discussion full circle and show how the idea of perseverance relates to other doctrinal matters. We will illustrate this by initially giving attention to how one’s view of perseverance is indicative of one’s theological method, or more specifically, how one believes biblical passages interrelate. Then we will offer some further clarifications to the general thesis, which again is that while the New Testament does emphasize the permanency of a believer’s salvation, it never allows one to foster a presumptuous attitude of disobedience because saving faith is an enduring faith. Moreover, while I have no delusions that this contention will resolve all of centuries of debate on this topic, I do hope this volume can open a few new doors of dialogue between Christian traditions. Perhaps it can even provide a helpful introduction to the subject that curious readers can consult for years to come.

1

Pinson, introduction to Four Views,

7

.

2

This volume will not provide a comprehensive or exhaustive survey of all views of perseverance. For instance, detailed analysis of traditional Catholic or Orthodox views will not be provided. Rather, the lion’s share of attention will be given to Protestant evangelical views.

3

In making this statement, it should be said for transparency’s sake that to a degree, the author is defending a Reformed perspective of soteriology, but without the ecclesiological commitments to covenant theology.

Chapter 1

Perseverance in the Old Testament

The OT is where we begin our inquiry into the subjects of apostasy and perseverance because this is where the story line of Scripture is born.¹ The OT opens with the Genesis account of creation and the tragic fall of humanity. Then it chronicles how God promised to heal this fallen world by initially forming a nation, the people of Israel, through whom a redeemer would come to bring salvation to all peoples. And it is the recounting of these events that serves as the theological ground zero for all biblical doctrines. Every major Christian belief is rooted in the themes, events, and hopes of the OT narrative. We do confess, however, that trying to encapsulate everything the OT contributes to the topics under investigation is daunting. This is why we will only focus on certain themes that we feel are the most pressing.

Specifically, there are three that provide an optimal amount of insight. One is what it means to be part of God’s people. How the OT defines the people of God necessarily entails questions about who is in and who is out, how one can become a part of God’s people, or how one can possibly part ways from the group. Second, the very phrase people of God emerges from the context of a set of covenants that the Israelites received from the Lord at various stages of their history. Collectively these sacred agreements helped form the theological matrix of Israel’s religious convictions, including their views of sin, righteousness, and yes, apostasy. So understanding the nature of these covenants can shed significant light on what it means in the OT for one to turn away from or rebel against the Lord. Finally, a third factor warranting attention is how individuals personally experienced salvation prior to the coming of Christ and the new work of the Spirit.

Together these features can help us conceptualize how the OT approaches apostasy and perseverance. But before we begin examining this material, one important qualifier should be mentioned. Believers during the OT era understood their experience of God’s mercy in ways that were unique to that specific period. This is not to imply that there are multiple ways of receiving salvation. Scripture is clear that one can only obtain peace with God through faithful trust in whatever provisions he puts in place and/or promises he extends. Even so, the outworking of this truth varied depending on the amount of revelation that had been disclosed or redemptive acts that the Lord had performed up to a given point in biblical history. For instance, the ancient Israelites who came out of Egypt understood their national deliverance and standing before God in terms of the divine promises received by Abraham, the legal instructions given by Moses for the Passover, and their eyewitness accounts of God’s judgment upon their oppressors through the great plagues and the Red Sea event. However, centuries later, some NT writers who looked back on these events through typological and christological lenses were able to flesh out an understanding of a new exodus from the satanic tyranny of sin and death.² They reflected on events like the Passover or the Red Sea miracle and saw significant connections since Christ had accomplished a greater victory.³

These kinds of developments and parallels are critical to note because they apply to all theological topics. They are part of what we typically call progressive revelation. No doctrine is fully treated in any one biblical text. Clusters of texts introduce various subjects in rudimentary form, gradually taking on more texture as redemptive history unfolds. Then they take on even richer layers of meaning after the coming of Christ and the highly anticipated ministry of the Spirit. As it pertains to concepts like perseverance and apostasy, NT teaching on these subjects does not contradict what the OT proposes. Yet later revelation can say more than what earlier revelation disclosed. This means we must show caution in our investigation of OT views of apostasy and perseverance because, as I. Howard Marshall observes, Any conclusions which may be drawn from the OT about the relation of the community of God must accordingly be applied with caution to the position of the individual under the New Covenant.⁴ Consequently, we acknowledge that the OT does provide instruction on how covenant faithfulness and apostates were perceived by the Israelites.⁵ And it also helps set the stage for our subsequent discussions about how the NT treats these matters as well. What needs to be conceded then is that while OT and NT views of perseverance have many points that overlap, there are some areas where the NT adds further input.

1. The Creation of Humanity and the First Act of Apostasy

With these preliminary observations in place, some initial remarks need to be made regarding Adam’s sin since it introduced an apostate-like act to creation. Even though Christian traditions disagree on whether genuine believers can lose their salvation through disobedience or apostasy, none deny that the Genesis account of Adam’s fall from a state of innocence is the place where sin entered the human race.⁶ Not only that, in a qualified sense it is not off the mark to say that the first turning away from the Lord occurred in the creation story. This tragedy comes on the heels of the first two chapters of Genesis, where we see a clear emphasis placed upon humankind as the crown jewel of creation. The account in Genesis 1 omits any detailed discussion about the Lord creating angels, the planets, the galaxies, or any extensive list of species of animals. Instead, it summarizes the creation week, which culminates with the making of human beings, Adam and Eve. This first couple is created in God’s image and likeness (Gen 1:26–27), meaning at the very least that they served as delegated vice regents on earth since they were given a stewardship to exercise dominion over it (cf. Gen 1:28; 2:19–20).⁷ Part of their task included a command to spread the divine image by procreation (Gen 1:28).⁸ Similarly, Genesis 2 emphasizes the uniqueness of Adam and Eve within the rest of creation as well.

1.1 Adam Defies God’s Authority

Now it is critical at this point to observe that Adam and Eve stood in moral harmony with the Lord. They were innocent creatures delegated to reign over his creation. But these privileges entailed certain stipulations. Alongside their responsibilities and privileges were further instructions to care for the earth, or the garden, in which they were placed (Gen 2:15), and they were given a prohibition not to eat from one tree in the garden that Genesis calls the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:16–17a).⁹ They were told that if they ate from this tree, the consequence would be death (Gen 2:17b).¹⁰ From here, though, we know that Adam and Eve did not heed the Lord’s warning. They chose to misuse their position as stewards over the earth, thereby fracturing the goodness of Genesis 1 and 2. Their demise began when Eve was deceived by Satan who took the form of a serpent (cf. Gen 3:1a, 15; Rom 16:20; Rev 12:9; 20:2). He tempted her to question the Lord’s motives for excluding access to the one forbidden tree and doubt his warnings about possible death (Gen 3:1b, 4–5).¹¹ The serpent twisted the words of God just enough so she would fall for a lie. He told her that God did not want her to be like him and so, tragically, she ate of the fruit. Then she gave some of the forbidden fruit to Adam.

This act of defiance immediately plunged Adam and Eve into a cycle of spiritual entropy, robbing them of their dignity. They became aware of their exposed vulnerability, which compelled them to collect fig leaves in a pitiful attempt to cover their nakedness (Gen 3:7). The scene gets even worse when the Lord eventually made his presence known.¹² They hid in the garden only to be discovered and confronted (Gen 3:8). Knowing they had nowhere else to run, they shamefully admitted their guilt, albeit with excuses and blame shifting. The Lord subsequently announced certain curses that were to come upon them and creation itself. Their fate then ended in banishment as they were cast out of the Lord’s presence in the garden. One could say they were exiled from the garden that they were originally allowed to tend as well as the divine presence itself.¹³ Subsequently, a spiral of judgment continued as the story of humanity became riddled with death, immorality, deception, violence, and idolatry.¹⁴

1.2 Defining Adam’s Fall as a Qualified Version of Apostasy

Moving forward from here, it must be conceded that labeling Adam’s fall as the first act of apostasy can only be done in a qualified sense. The reason is apostates are usually identified as those who convert to a faith (or at least outwardly others think they do) only to later renounce their confession so they can either return to their previous way of thinking (or living) or perhaps adopt something altogether different that is still antithetical to the faith they are now choosing to deny. So strictly speaking, Adam’s sin was not an explicit act of apostasy because he was not returning to a previous way of sinful living or thinking. Nor did he abandon the Lord altogether and cease to worship him. Likewise, he was not a fallen creature who was redeemed and later became fallen once more. He was created with no need for forgiveness. It was only when he defied God’s authority that he incurred the new experience of a fallen state. His sin was not technically returning to a set of lies that he had affirmed at one time. His lapse was unique in that all he knew was truth until he decided to embrace the serpent’s words, which in reality turned out to be well-camouflaged half-truth.¹⁵

At the same time, Adam’s failure does set a moral trajectory that would lead others to commit acts of apostasy. One could say that his lapse serves as a precursor to an assortment of apostate acts that people would commit. Here Israel is a perfect example. Just as Adam received a qualified type of covenantal agreement, or at least divine instructions that included delegated tasks and warnings of judgment, so would the nation of Israel later receive divine promises that entailed blessings and curses.¹⁶ And similar to Adam who was expelled from his home in the garden of Eden, the severest judgment that the Hebrew people would experience was ejection from their sacred location, the land of promise. Granted, Adam’s situation was unique because the expectations placed upon him had nothing to do with receiving forgiveness, atonement for sin, or geographical restoration while Israel’s covenantal parameters did (as we shall discuss shortly). But we can say that Israel acted as a corporate replica of Adam. They followed in his footsteps by often failing to abide by the Lord’s directives.¹⁷ Thus, Adam’s fall does give us a bit of insight on the subject of apostasy since it began a pattern that his progeny would emulate.

2. Defining the People of God as a Remnant Within a Community

Thankfully the story of Adam’s fall does not end in judgment. God’s acts of condemnation were laced with divine acts of grace as well. While the Lord did declare curses upon humanity and the earth, we read that he also covered the first couple’s shame with animal skins and declared that he would defeat the lying serpent by crushing its head through an agent identified as the seed of a woman (Gen 3:15). This seed is eventually revealed to be Christ himself. Yet his identity as the one who would overthrow the cataclysmic effects of Satan’s activity and sin’s corruptive power cannot be separated from the fact that he would be a progeny of a particular people.¹⁸ One Savior would come through one people to redeem all peoples. The OT comes to identify this group as the sons of Israel or the Israelites who were the physical descendants of Jacob, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham. They are ultimately called the people of God, a phrase deeply grounded in the language of a sacred bond, or covenant. One could say that the bestowal of this phrase carries similar overtones to the announcement of a couple who become husband and wife.

The concept was born out of a promissory agreement that the Lord made with Israel through their mediator Moses after their deliverance from Egyptian bondage in the exodus event. The Lord stated that I will be their God and they will be my people (e.g., Exod 6:6–7; 19:5; Lev 26:9–14; Deut 9:10; 10:4; 18:16). This claim meant the people would become a special possession of the Lord, elected heirs of special blessings and bearers of significant responsibilities.¹⁹ It also included that the Lord, being their God, would tangibly abide in their midst, whether it was through theophanies like a pillar of fire or a cloud during the exodus, through his special presence with the ark of the covenant, or the holy of holies in the tabernacle/temple.²⁰ And because such a weighty agreement was ratified by the Lord himself, he was obligated to keep whatever promises he made with Israel, whether for blessings or judgment.

Now this title, the people of God, has great bearing upon apostasy and perseverance because of how it applies to Israel throughout her history. The label of God’s people can apply generally to the Israelites in a corporate manner as a collective nation or in a restrictive sense to a select remnant of committed Israelite believers.²¹ In the latter case, this remnant is sometimes described as a group that existed within the nation at a given time, one that would be delivered in the near future, or vindicated eschatologically. Consequently, while the covenantal promises made with Israel were directed at the nation as a whole, this did not mean every Israelite would be a direct recipient of its blessings. The nation was a community within a community. There was the general population of Jews who were born in the line of Jacob with each boy receiving the Abrahamic sign of circumcision. Yet as Israel’s history reveals, many of them, often even the majority, did not remain committed to the Lord.

Some were spurious in their commitment to the Lord even though they were externally a part of the nation. We read of the exodus generation, for instance, where every Hebrew obeyed the instructions to escape the impending tenth plague of Egypt through the Passover event and then crossed the Red Sea with Moses. However, many of them died in the wilderness after they failed to enter the promised land due to their unbelief.²² Only Joshua, Caleb (who actually was not an Israelite), their families, the younger generation of children and a designated cluster of others (e.g., the Levites), were permitted to enter.²³ We read of numerous other stories in a similar vein like the accounts in the book of Judges where the nation was in a constant cycle of idolatry, conflict, and restoration. We learn about the highs and lows in Israel’s monarchy where the nation split in two and many of the kings served other deities, or at least practiced a syncretistic piety. Both the northern and southern kingdoms became so corrupt that they were taken away into exile. Still, throughout these dark periods, there