Perseverance Showing Salvation

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I have recently been reading the various versions of The Parable of the Sower, and was struck by Luke's telling of this story found in Luke 8. At the end of the passage, after Jesus has explained what the three 'dead' soils represent, He says that the one good soil will produce fruit.  But there is a subtle truth slipped into His description of the good soil.  In verse 15 Jesus tells us that the good soil produces a crop by persevering.

If we don't read carefully, that concept of perseverance might bring up the idea of salvation by works, making is think that if we really gut it out and stick with Jesus, we will bear fruit and be saved.  But certainly Jesus is not teaching such a notion - we know from reading all over the Gospels that Jesus teaches salvation is by grace alone through His work on the Cross.  But what this parable does tell us is that He expects His followers to produce fruit, and that a fruitless life must make us question for ourselves or (graciously and humbly) for others if a person has truly been made new in Christ.  Thus we conclude that true followers are fruit-bearing followers.

That said, we should also note that the idea of perseverance speaks to a long-lasting faith.  This, for me, was a challenge years ago when I was involved in a great deal of outreach and evangelism.  There is a reality that occurs in the life of the person who truly is born again where the Spirit of God indwells such a person and (according to Paul and Peter in various locations in the Bible) a person with the Spirit will never be lost to God.  As a young evangelist, I was always trying to people to cross that line and make a true profession of faith.  But this parable shows that many appear to have true faith at first, but the mark of a truly regenerate individual is to not only bear fruit but to persevere.  Paul tells Timothy that he has "kept the faith", and so I think it more appropriate to ask not if a person (or if we ourselves) have prayed 'the prayer', but instead if we are persevering and producing fruit, thus showing we are truly His.  Legitimate salvation and conversion is often difficult to judge.

In the end, Jesus wants fruit-bearing disciples who persevere to the end.  If we are truly His, we will persevere not by human effort but by God's grace.

(Click HERE to look at Luke 8).

- tC