Young people, I know from experience that if there is one thing which you have learned during your years of Catechism instruction in the Protestant Reformed Churches, it is the truth that salvation is a work of God alone without any ability or effort on the part of those who are saved. Even those from other churches and denominations know that we stand for the truth of sovereign grace.
This truth of sovereign grace is so very important to us personally because it is such a comforting doctrine. This wonderful truth of sovereign grace means that there is nothing in our salvation which is left for us, weak and miserable sinners, to do. It is all in the hands of Him who created Heaven and Earth. We can be sure that the work which God has begun in us will by His grace be fully done!
To one who has been taught this since he was a child and who believes in the absolute certainty of salvation, the title of this article perhaps sounds a bit suspicious. How can anyone who claims to be Reformed say that “the righteous” are “scarcely saved?” What comfort can there possibly be in such a statement?
This title is taken from the Word of God as we find it in I Peter 4: 18; “And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” Because it is found in the Bible, we know immediately that whatever this text says, it cannot contradict those passages which teach that salvation is sure, Isaiah 45:17 for example; “But Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.”
We certainly believe in the “preservation of the saints,” and God forbid that we should ever teach anything else. It cannot be that our salvation is uncertain in any way. It cannot be because we are “kept by the power of God. . . unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time” (I Peter 1:5). It cannot be because we are “redeemed . . . with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1:19). It cannot be because we are “born again. not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abidech forever” (1:23). We are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; ‘ ‘ ‘that we “should show forth the praises of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvellous light” (2:9) and we know, then, that we are His for time and for eternity.
Nor does Peter say here in chapter 4:18 that any one of that “chosen generation” will ever be lost in the darkness of hell. Though “scarcely”, the people of God are saved. They are “the righteous” after all! They are made righteous through the suffering and death of their Messiah who gave His precious blood as the payment for their sins and earned for them a place in God’s righteous Kingdom.
What, then, does Peter mean when he says “scarcely saved?”
You must understand that Scripture here is not looking at salvation from the viewpoint of God’s power, but of our weakness and frailty. Looking at God, we see that “Israel shall be saved”, but from our own viewpoint in the midst of wicked world, surrounded by enemies, troubled by temptations and weaknesses and sins we see that we are “scarcely saved”.
You see, Peter is telling us once again what the Bible tells us so often (and which we so often forget), that, as Christians, we are “under the cross”. Jesus said; “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily” (Luke 9:23). The cross to which Jesus refers is the load of daily trials which the Christian, young or old, must bear as he staggers on to his eternal home.
These trials include all the troubles which belong to our life in this old world of sin and death. Peter talks, for the most part, in this first epistle about persecution, but we may certainly include sickness and sorrow, pain and fear, death and shame and all the host of troubles which we meet in the course of our life. Yes, we can even include our sins and temptations, with all the anguish of soul that they bring. Do you begin to see, then, that you and I are indeed scarcely saved?
Peter is telling us that these trials are a cross so heavy that we can scarcely drag it to glory. Under its weight we groan; it causes us to stagger and sometimes faint and fall. Indeed, if it were not for daily grace from the helping hand of our heavenly Father, we could not drag that cross along one step.
How often we expect the opposite! We look for an easy road to our heavenly home, but that is certainly not what we are promised. That way to heaven is not smooth and easy. It does not leave any leisure time to spend in the fun-palaces of the world. The Christian must enter upon chat way through a very narrow gate and the way itself, he soon finds, is rough and rocky, dark and steep. Along that way, he pours out the bloody sweat of his soul in bitter repentance and confession of sin and in anguish, cries for help and strength. It is hard to be a Christian.
Yet, that hard way is the only way – only way to glory. We are still sinful and we must learn to be holy as He is holy. We must learn to crucify our sinful nature, and God helps us to do that with the heavy cross that He lays upon our back. God chastises us all along the way in order to save our souls from hell.
How could there be any other way for us? As it was with our Lord Jesus so it must be with us. The servant is not greater than his Lord. Try to imagine once a suffering, cross-bearing Saviour surrounded by a crowd of servants who are dancing and drinking and playing. It doesn’t fit, does it?
“If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”
“In the World ye shall have tribulation.”
Do we dare look for anything else or for another way?
Because God’s way is so hard, we are tempted many times to envy the easy, fun-filled way of the world or even to try to walk with one foot in that way and one in heaven’s way. If God commands the one way then we look at the other with longing eyes. Even Asaph was envious at the foolish when he saw the prosperity of the wicked (Psalm 73:3). That too Peter warns against.
But can we really be envious? Think about it once, “If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” If sin is so hateful to God that His own dear children must be grievously chastised, then what will be the fate of those who are “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God”?
Where will they appear? What shall their end be? “Her house (the house of the pleasures of sin) is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death” (Proverbs 7:27). God sets them in slippery places and all the while singing and dancing they are rushing headlong into Hell’s desolate places where they will be “reserved in chains of darkness for the judgment of the great day”. Horrible, isn’t it?
The treasures of the wicked are along the way, but their end is outer darkness and the worm that never dies. But the treasures of the Kingdom are at the end of the way, through darkness, sorrows and sin to the throne of Him, at whose right hand are “pleasures forevermore”. How wonderful those treasures of heaven must be, if God our Father does not hesitate to lead us through the very valley of the shadow of death to make those treasures ours. And there, too, is our comfort along the way, that He will guide us by His counsel and afterward receive us in glory.
Can we then be envious of the wicked and their prosperity, young people? Seeing where they shall appear, how can we desire to go along with them in their mad pursuit of pleasure? By the grace of God, comparing our end with theirs, we cannot and will not, but will take up our cross and follow Him – to glory.
Does that way seem too hard? Are we afraid of being scarcely saved and of suffering according to the will of God? Then we must “commit the keeping of our souls to Him, in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator”.