Stephen E. Robinson wrote:
Most frequently the scriptures use the term endure to mean “last,” “continue” or “remain” rather than suffer.” That is important; it indicates enduring has more to do with reliability than with stamina. For example, Alma expresses hope that his son Shiblon “will continue in keeping God’s commandments; for blessed is he that endureth to the end” (Alma 38:2; emphasis added). Here enduring to the end is explicitly equated with continuing steadfast while in mortality. Nephi had already made that clear in 2 Nephi 33:9: “Be reconciled unto Christ, and enter into the narrow gate, and walk in the strait path which leads to life, and continue in the path until the end of the day of probation” (emphasis added). Notice that those who have come to Christ have already entered into the narrow gate. Now they must continue. Thus to endure means once we have found the strait and narrow path, we continue in that path (which we adopted at baptism) by keeping our commitments to Christ. First we come to Christ—then we stay put. Staying put in the Church and covenant is “enduring.” The “end” is the end of our mortal probation (see 2nd Nephi 33:9). To endure to the end means we don’t let go of Christ; we don’t quit the Church and kingdom or lose our testimony because of life’s difficulties and temptations—we stay put. Conversely, failing to endure means backing away from what we’ve started—first promising loyalty to God and His church and then withholding what we’ve promised, thus proving unreliable and unfaithful. “No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62; emphasis added). Endurance in the scriptural sense has little to do with physical stamina, for many of the physically most challenged Saints endure like champions as they plow the row God has assigned to them. Rather, endurance is a matter of integrity, of keeping our promises to God once we’ve been admitted to his covenant and his kingdom.
Just as a spouse who can be trusted to keep the marriage covenant is called faithful, so those who can be trusted to keep their gospel covenants are called faithful. And since the gospel covenant is so often symbolized in scripture as a marriage, it is entirely correct to refer to those who loyally keep that covenant as faithful partners. In the Old Testament the words for faith, faithful, and faithfulness all come from the Hebrew ‘aman’ to be firm or reliable) and imply primarily qualities of loyalty and determination rather than qualities of belief. The words for security, certainty, and guarantee all come from the same Hebrew root. Thus being faithful does not have as much to do with our belief or even our activity in the Church as it does with whether we can be trusted to do our duty in the Kingdom of God. The covenants of baptism and of the temple are solemn promises we make to God about how we will conduct our lives. Enduring to the end is keeping those promises throughout our lives—no matter what. (However, keeping one’s covenants does not mean “never sinning again,” since the covenant provides within itself a means of ongoing repentance by partaking of the sacrament.) Unfortunately, due to denominational influence in modern English, the word faith has come to be associated primarily with what we believe and largely ignores its original association with faithfulness.Thus the modern word faith renders only part of the sense of the Hebrew original. If we restore the original nuance (that faith is active to an idea—faithfulness—rather than just a passive mental acceptance of it), we largely resolve the false either/or of faith versus works. To have saving faith in Christ is to believe in Christ and to be faithful to Christ. It is to make an investment of ourselves in Christ. It is not enough merely to have a mental conviction that he is the Son of God without letting that conviction have any relevance to how we live our lives. If we merely believe in his identity without committing our lives to him, then we are no better than the devils, who also know who he is but are not benefited by that knowledge (James 2:19). ~Stephen E. Robinson, Following Christ (Deseret Book: Salt Lake City, 2019), 262-266 Dwarsligger® edition 262-266)
The above is continued with previous posts, click April 27, 2021.
