“Whoever endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:13). Here Yeshua speaks regarding “endurance” (ὑπομονή), or the ability to hold fast to your faith despite hardship and suffering… There is a risk – a very real danger – of turning away from God, and therefore we are warned to “continue in the faith” and not to “drift away” from the blessing of our salvation (Col. 1:23; Heb. 2:1-3). It is not sufficient to simply accept the message of the gospel, or to intellectually assent to its truth, because truth is something lived, fought out in our conflicts and in our temptations…
Like our father Jacob, we must wrestle to take hold of the blessing of our truth from heaven. Or to use another analogy, we must be anchored to the truth lest we become shipwrecked in our faith. Drifting occurs slowly and almost imperceptibly, though the end result is as deadly as openly turning away from God in outright apostasy. As C.S. Lewis once wrote, “The safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” The devil seeks to lull you to sleep…
In light of such admonition, we may at first suspect that the battle has to do with our behavior, for example, whether we indulge the lower nature, and yet, as Soren Kierkegaard once said, “the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith,” which I understand to mean that the struggle is first of all one of the heart, as it decides what it values and thereby directs the will in its choices. “According to your faith be it done to you.”
What we fear says a lot about what we really believe, and therefore what we are thinking. True fear is awareness of the sanctity of life – the “fear of the Lord” (יראת יהוה) which is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 9:10). True fear is true because it corresponds to reality by discerning that God is the source of all that is worthy and good. False fear, on the other hand, reveals disordered thinking, by both believing that some finite good is utmost and that losing that good is an existential threat. False fear is grounded in worldly concern and pleasures that immerse the soul in the moment, devoid of consciousness of any deeper connection with the future. “Time and busyness think that eternity is very far away” and this becomes the temptation that your life and eternity are unrelated.
We are distracted by the demands of time to disregard the demands of eternity. In this connection Kierkegaard says: “In superstitious delusion one would rather hope for temporal help than grasp the eternal… It is false wisdom that cheats itself out of the highest comfort, and by means of a mediocre comfort helps itself to even more mediocre comfort – and ultimately into certain regret” (Upbuilding Discourses).
So how can we escape from ourselves? How can we – as fallible, frail, and perverse creatures – “endure to the end” and be saved? How can we understand the imperatives of God when we have no confidence in ourselves, and indeed, we know ourselves in our powerlessness? How can we endure ourselves? (Rom. 7:18). Is this the “ulterior reason” for the commandments, after all — to reveal and convict sin within our hearts? (see Rom. 7:11-25). Is despair over ourselves a gift from God that rouses us to seek for a power greater than ourselves that is able and willing to save us? Is that not the message of the gospel, after all? That God justifies the ungodly by faith? Is this not our remedy found in the “righteousness of God” that is manifest in a source outside of the “law,” that is, the realm of lovingkindness and grace?
The law teaches us something precious – namely, our extreme spiritual poverty and powerlessness in relation to the good, our profound sickness of heart, the reason for our grief, our anguish, and our sorrows, and therefore it teaches our great need for the Savior, who delivers us not just from the verdict of the law, but from the indwelling shame and despair that tempts us to abandon the will to endure… We are saved by the love of God and treasured by him, and by means of his love we endure unto the end.
Yeshua is our Mediator, our Advocate, and our Healer. He is the one who endures to the end so that we will be saved. “He was placed under the law for us, bore our sin, and in his path to the Father rendered to his Father entire, perfect obedience from his holy birth to his death in the stead of us poor sinners, and this covered up our disobedience, which inheres in our nature, so that our disobedience is not reckoned to us for our damnation but is forgiven – by sheer grace for Christ’s sake alone” (Book of Concord). The biggest problem we have is the sickness of eternal death, and therefore the deepest need we have, even if we are not conscious of it, is that of eternal life. The message of the gospel is that we are healed of eternal death and given eternal life in the blessing of Yeshua.
Yeshua’s salvation for us doesn’t just open heaven for us in the end, but is alive and present for us now – He is with us always, even to the end of our days – which is to say he shares his victory and strength with us in this very hour, and indeed, forever.
The way of faith keeps focused on eternity, seeking the things that are above” (Col. 3:1-4). There is an inward weight of glory that is worked within our hearts as “we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). Drifting away into “this world” and temporality is to fall into the realm of despair and lose sight of the miracle of salvation. Therefore, because of the relentless propensity toward our “fallenness,” we must turn to God in daily repentance. It is his daily bread that enables us to endure to the end…
We pray: “Give us this day our daily bread; forgive us our sins…” (Matt. 6:11-12). We are both forgiven people who need forgiveness, yet we are under constant temptation to look away, to drift, and to forget our great need to accept God’s forgiveness. When we forget our need, however, we fall into pride and therefore must be disciplined and humbled. The “law of sin and death” is the scourge that leads us to surrender to God’s power to save us from ourselves. The “law of the spirit of life,” on the other hand, is the law of faith, affirming that it is “not by might, nor by power, but by God’s Spirit” that we are set free from our inner corruption and brokenness. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.”
We are being educated for eternity, and the life of faith is a long lesson in obedience — learning to suffer God’s will, to accept whatever happens, and to endure in hope. Practically speaking this means “laying aside” your desires and surrendering yourself — all that is within you — in trust of God’s plan for your life, even (and especially) in the most difficult moments… Indeed, in light of the end of life what we really need is perseverance, or what the New Testament calls hupomone (ὑπομονή), a word that means “dwelling [μένω] under [ὑπο]” God’s Presence while being tested. The life of faith is a form of suffering that calls for patience and wisdom as we learn to endure our own frailty and to trust God for what is best… We do not learn obedience apart from the test of faith, and therefore obedience cannot be taught apart from the struggle to believe. We wrestle to surrender, with groans and sighs we utter: “not my will, but thy will be done.” As Kierkegaard said: “This is the key to finding rest in your suffering. There is only one way in which rest is to be found: to let God rule in everything. Whatever else you might come to learn only pertains to how God has willed to rule. But as soon as unrest begins, the cause for it is due to your unwillingness to obey, your unwillingness to surrender yourself to God.”
It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing (John 6:33). It is impossible for the human heart to believe that God is gracious to him, and yet the very greatest danger is despairing of grace… Faith and grace are therefore intimately connected, for God’s acceptance and forgiveness is for those who believe… We do not find God’s heart by relating to him through the law – that is, by appealing to him as our Judge – but by relating to him through grace – that is, by believing and receiving him as our Savior. Despair comes from our own spirit trying to reason or bargain with God’s acceptance; but salvation comes from hope imparted by the Holy Spirit, which is to say, by means of the miracle of God.
We are not without God’s help in our pilgrimage, friend. Yeshua promised that the Ruach HaKodesh (רוּחַ הַקּדֶשׁ) would be “called alongside” (παράκλητος) to comfort us on the journey. The English verb “comfort” literally means “to give strength” (from com- [“with”] and fortis [“strong”]), an idea similarly expressed by the verb “encourage,” that is, to “put heart [i.e., ‘core’] within the soul.” In Hebrew, the word courage is expressed by the phrase ometz lev (אמֶץ לֵב), meaning “strong of heart,” denoting an inner quality of the will rather than of the intellect. Ometz lev means having an inner resolve, a passion, and a direction.
The walk of faith requires courage, that is heart… The human mind reasons and therefore fears, but the heart is the center of our being, the core of who we are. The heart does not reason its way to love but instead allows love to inform and direct reason. Therefore God asks our hearts to trust in him, and he does not allow calculated human reason with its fears to move us on the way (Isa. 55:8). When we receive divine grace to faithfully suffer, we hear the Spirit whispering back to us: “Be not afraid…” “Live in me…” “Walk in the light…” “I am with you always…” “You will endure…” “You are loved…”
Hebrew Lesson:
Psalm 73:26 Hebrew reading:
- Psalm 73:26 Hebrew page (pdf)