Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 160:638 (Apr 2003)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Matthew S. DeMoss

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BSac 160:638 (Apr 03) p. 241

Book Reviews

by the Faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary

Matthew S. DeMoss

Editor

The Race Set before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance and Assurance. By Thomas R. Shreiner and Ardel B. Caneday. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001. 344 pp. $22.00.

Schreiner and Caneday, of the faculties of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Northwestern College, respectively, discuss four popular views on perseverance and assurance in relation to warnings in the Scriptures. These four are the loss-of-salvation view (Arminianism), the loss-of-rewards view (the position of Dallas Theological Seminary and the Grace Evangelical Society), the tests-of-genuineness view (Reformed theology), and the hypothetical-loss-of-salvation view (held by B. F. Westcott and Homer Kent). Rejecting these views, Schreiner and Caneday then propose a fifth view of perseverance, which they call God’s-means-of-salvation view.

They contend that the biblical warnings and admonitions are “the means God uses to save and preserve his people to the end” (p. 40). Salvation, they argue, is an already-not-yet work of God (p. 44), that is, though believers have eternal life now, they do not yet possess it (p. 66).

This view raises several serious problems. First, it deemphasizes the biblical fact that eternal life is a gift received simply by faith in Jesus Christ. Schreiner and Caneday often refer to eternal life as a prize to strive for and win (e.g., pp. 83, 86). They do quote Romans 6:23 once, but they do so not to say that believers have eternal life the moment they believe but to say that “eternal life is a gift of the coming age” (p. 66). They deny that eternal life for each believer is both a present and a future reality, that is, that eternal life is the possession of a person the moment he or she believes and that eternal life continues the moment one dies.

They also state repeatedly that eternal life is certain only if a believer perseveres to the end. “The promise of eternal life is conditional” (p. 166), and “God’s promise of salvation is conditional” (p. 167). The condition, of course, in their view, is perseverance. “Persevering in godly behavior and sound teaching are [sic] necessary to obtain salvation” (p. 51). Faith must persevere “in order [for a believer] to receive eternal life” (p. 113). Does this not sound like double talk? How can the authors affirm that believers now have eternal life and yet say that if they do not persevere they will not receive eternal life?

Second, the authors say that if a believer does not persevere, he will ...

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