One of my favorite terms in the Bible is the admonition for us to “hold fast.” When I was younger, I read a lot about sailing — large sailing ships have always fascinated me. There is something majestic about traveling across the water in a boat with large rigging and all the parts of a ship. But being on the ocean is not without peril; there are times when storms come, and sailors have to withstand them.
From a nautical standpoint, “hold fast” is an old maritime command meaning to grip a fixed point, a rail, a line, anything they could securely hold on to. This was especially shouted to the crew in heavy weather so no one would get swept overboard; it’s essentially “hang on!” It was also used to mean securing a line itself (to belay it so it doesn’t run out), and “holdfast” is the general term for any fitting, clamp, or cleat that pins something in place against the ship’s motion so it can’t shift. (The word shows up outside sailing too; carpenters use a “holdfast” clamp, and biologists use it for the root-like structure kelp uses to grip a rock.)
This term “hold fast” appears a number of times throughout the Old and New Testaments. So it is not just a nautical term. In the Bible, the way it is used is powerful, because it describes the need for each of us to cling to God with everything that is within us.
In Hebrew, several words get translated as “hold fast,” each with a slightly different meaning. One word can mean to seize and grip firmly (Job 2:3; Isaiah 56:4,6), which is bound up with the idea of strength itself. Another word can convey the thought of grasping or seizing physically (Song of Solomon 3:4), and a third word can mean to cling, cleave, or stick to (Deuteronomy 10:20), describing the kind of closeness a husband and wife have, staying devoted and stuck to each other out of love and commitment, no matter what.
In Greek, several verbs get translated as “hold fast,” each with a slightly different meaning as well. One word can mean to grasp with force, to seize and not let go (Hebrews 4:14). Another word can mean to hold down firmly or to retain or possess securely (Hebrews 10:23; 1 Thessalonians 5:21; and 1 Corinthians 15:2). Finally, a third word can mean to hold oneself against something, and to cling to it (Titus 1:9).
As we can see, across both the Old and the New Testaments, “hold fast” describes a deliberate, muscular grip on what’s internal rather than external — faith, hope, integrity, God’s Laws — held under pressure, against a force that would otherwise tear these things away. It’s not casual possession; it’s resistance under strain.
Scripture actually gives us pictures of exactly what kind of strain is meant. Hebrews 6:19 describes hope as “an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil”; something that holds firm precisely because a current is pulling against it. And Ephesians 4:14 warns of not being “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting”—children of God blown off course by every gust. Both these Scriptures place us right in the middle of a storm-tossed deck: the wind and waves trying to sweep us overboard, and faith and hope being the grip that keeps us from going over.
The storms in our lives are going to happen whether we are ready to “Hold Fast” or not. The question is, where is our strength to ride out the storms?
Luke 8:22-25 and Matthew 14:22-33 describe actual storms in which the early disciples found themselves being forced for a reason. Christ used these moments to help teach the disciples that the storms were there to make them lean on Christ and realize how they could get through any situation. We are also Christ’s disciples and He uses the same approach with us today to help us learn to lean fully on Him in all situations so that when the storms that come get bigger, we can “Hold Fast” and find the God-given strength to endure until the end and make our calling and election sure.