The Preserving Power of Persevering Faith

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
1 Peter 1:3-5 (ESV)

C. S. Lewis knew that Christian faith is much more than rational calculation. It is a deeply abiding trust in truths unseen by the human eye and unknown through the exercise of pure reason. Thus, he spoke of faith as “the power to go on believing not in the teeth of reason but in the teeth of lust and terror and jealousy and boredom and indifference. . .”[i] If faith were impotent to protect the believer through trials and temptations—however severe—the Christian life would be nothing more than a mirage, a beautiful façade that provides neither substance nor security. But the faith promised to believers in Holy Scripture is hardly an apparition. God uses preserving faith to enable His children to persevere through every calamity, until they reach the Promised Land.

Preservation is exactly what the believers to whom Peter was writing needed. These scattered pilgrims (1 Peter 1:1) lived under growing persecution in the shadow of Nero’s Rome. Throughout the empire, temples were built and festivals were held to exalt the emperor as a god. All who experienced the benefits of the Pax Romana were required to offer incense to the emperor—a sign of their worship. Those who would neither pay homage to false gods nor join in the “debauchery” of the day (1 Peter 4:4) should not be surprised, according to Peter, at the painful “fiery trial” they were facing (1 Peter 4:12).

With intensifying suffering and persecution as the dark backdrop, Peter opened his letter by praising God for all the blessings his readers possessed, even though many of them had abandoned nearly all earthly possessions as they were dispersed throughout the empire. After all, they have been “born again to a living hope” (v. 3). What was that hope? It was an inheritance that was not subject to decay and could not be spoiled by their persecutors (v. 4). Thus, while harassed for their faith, impoverished, and beaten, they were not poor; they were the possessors of a divine bequest awaiting them in the heavenly city.

But how could they be assured they would receive this inheritance? The breathtaking answer to this question is that the inheritance was reserved (“kept”) for them in heaven, and, by faith they too were being kept by God’s own hand to ensure that they received all He had stored up for them! The same God who secured their eternal possessions guarded its possessors by means of faith. No trial, temptation, persecution, or even death, could rob them of their inheritance. Their salvation was secured by the High King of heaven, the Emperor of the Universe.

Suffering and persecution are powerful tools of the enemies of the faith. They believe that by the use of intimidation and threat of lethal force they can steal Christians’ hope and coerce them to recant. Yet, they severely underestimate the power of God and enduring faith. As Martin Luther reminds in his emboldening hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, “the body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still.” Despite every attempt to spoil the inheritance of Christians, they are “more than conquerors” through persevering faith.