William Tyndale on Perseverance & eternal security
No — the genuinely saved will certainly persevere
And though God's elect cannot so fall that they rise not again, because that the mercy of God ever waiteth upon them
THE POSITION
The elect fall, sometimes far and for a season, but they cannot fall finally, because God's mercy keeps waiting on them as a father waits on a son, and as soon as they wake they repent. God sometimes withdraws his hand to teach them that all their power to do good is his. On 1 John 3:9 he holds the same: those born of God cannot sin as the children of the devil do.
9 Anyone born of God refuses to practice sin, because God’s seed abides in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.
20 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
English translator of the New Testament from Greek and of the Pentateuch from Hebrew, working in exile in the Low Countries, whose wording runs through the King James Version. He was strangled and burned at Vilvoorde in 1536. He was also the first English Protestant theologian of weight, defending justification by faith, the authority of Scripture over the church, and the obedience owed to kings. This entry rests on the Obedience of a Christian Man, the Answer to Sir Thomas More, the Brief Declaration of the Sacraments, the exposition of 1 John and his biblical prologues, all in the Parker Society edition (1848–1850).
Cite this page
"William Tyndale on Perseverance & eternal security", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/tyndale/perseverance (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/tyndale/perseverance).