Posted with permission from: Eternal Security: A Biblical Perspective
Pillar One
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. John 10:27-29.
With a small amount of scholarship, this verse can be cleared up. In the Greek text, the hearing and following are in the present tense. What does this mean? It means that only those who are hearing and following Christ right now are his sheep. Those that are living in a state of continual sin are not his sheep because they are neither hearing nor following Jesus. Who are secure? The sheep. Who cannot be snatched (taken away by force)? The sheep. Who is Jesus giving (present tense) eternal life? Those who are sheep. Who are the sheep? Who shall never perish? Who is Christ giving eternal life? Only those who are hearing and following right now! Whom do Jesus and the Father protect in their hands? Not the one who heard and followed, but only those who are actively believing now with an obedient faith. Is this not works? No! It is genuine faith! This is true biblical security.
The term “snatch” means to take by force. This promise guarantees that the devil cannot remove the believer (present tense) from the hand of God. This safety is only from forces outside the believer and God Himself. A backslider removes himself from the promises of safety and security. He is not removed against his own will.
Now, looking at this passage in its plain and obvious meaning, it renders no credence to the theory of unconditional eternal security. The chief pillar has fallen! The remaining seven groan under the weight to save this failed doctrine.
Read Entire Article: “The Eight Pillars of Eternal Security or The Toppling of an Idol,” By Jeff Paton
Related: All of my “Who Goes to Heaven” Posts
Perhaps you should study the parable about the LOST Sheep and the Lost coin.
There will also be a ressurection of the just and the unjust. I doubt wether the lost will be ressurected
just to be told they are doomed or lost.
Comment by Dan — December 13, 2007 @ 6:31 pm
Of the list of passages that teach the eternal security of the believer (or seem to teach such if you believe that notion is mistaken), the best known passage is probably John 10:27-29. There is indeed no mistake regarding Christ’s promise:
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
The statement seems pretty straightforward. ‘The sheep’ of Jesus hear his voice, know Him, and follow Him. Jesus gives His sheep eternal life, they shall never perish, and nobody is able to snatch the sheep out of the hand of Jesus. Just prior to another one of His Deity claims, Jesus tells us that nobody can snatch the sheep out of the Father’s hand, either.
But for those who believe a Christian can lose his salvation – can fall from grace – there must be a reinterpretation. This is usually done by focusing on verb tense and claiming the promise is conditional. Is such a view warranted by the text?
For example, an Internet blogger named Jeff Fenske came up with the following argument:
With a small amount of scholarship, this verse can be cleared up. In the Greek text, the hearing and following are in the present tense. What does this mean? It means that only those who are hearing and following Christ right now are his sheep. Those that are living in a state of continual sin are not his sheep because they are neither hearing nor following Jesus. Who are secure? The sheep. Who cannot be snatched (taken away by force)? The sheep. Who is Jesus giving (present tense) eternal life? Those who are sheep. Who are the sheep? Who shall never perish? Who is Christ giving eternal life? Only those who are hearing and following right now! Whom do Jesus and the Father protect in their hands? Not the one who heard and followed, but only those who are actively believing now with an obedient faith. Is this not works? No! It is genuine faith! This is true biblical security.
The term “snatch” means to take by force. This promise guarantees that the devil cannot remove the believer (present tense) from the hand of God. This safety is only from forces outside the believer and God Himself. A backslider removes himself from the promises of safety and security. He is not removed against his own will.
Now, looking at this passage in its plain and obvious meaning, it renders no credence to the theory of unconditional eternal security. The chief pillar has fallen! The remaining seven groan under the weight to save this failed doctrine.
Another poster named Jeff Paton gives us what he claims are ‘200 reasons why you should not believe in eternal security.’ Calvary Center also views the passage as ‘conditional.’
In short, the objections to this passage rely upon the notion that this promise of Jesus’ was conditional.
A CLOSER LOOK
I hope you paid attention when I quoted Jeff Fenske’s argument because he left out one VERY IMPORTANT detail: how did the sheep get into Jesus’ hand in the first place? The text tells us very clearly: MY FATHER, who has given them to me. Fenske left out yet another detail: what did Jesus give His sheep? Eternal life. Not the potential to have eternal life, but eternal life itself. How can eternal life be anything less than eternal?
Fenske’s argument, though, is worth examining to see if it is anywhere near as ’scholarly’ as he alleges. Dan Corner makes the same argument (see objection #1). Here, in essence, is what they are saying: since the verbs ‘hear’ and ‘follow’ are in the present tense, it refers to ‘continuous action,’ meaning that only those who AT PRESENT ‘hear’ and ‘follow’ him (which for some reason they always tie to doing good works) are saved.
Corner and Fenske are right on one count but wrong on almost every other count. The verbs are, indeed, in the present tense. (Corner erroneously refers to it as ‘the present indicative active’ when every first-year Greek student knows that the voice (active) ALWAYS PRECEDES the mood (indicative) in description; Corner only demonstrates his lack of knowledge of the Greek language by his terminology). But they fail to consider a number of problems that they know most laypersons will not throw their way.
1) There is MORE THAN ONE type of present tense.
Corner and Fenske seem to be unaware that the present tense may be categorized into three large groups: narrow-band, broad-band, and special usage (Wallace, 516). Under each of these three categories are numerous other categories of TYPES of present tense verbs. These include the punctiliar present (Mark 2:5), the iterative present (Matt. 7:7), and gnomic present (John 3:8). These three are only examples of some dozen or so different types of present tenses. And while they are correct that some present tense verbs may refer to right now, many of them do not.
Let’s apply their logic to one example to show the argumentive farce:
Luke 18:12
“I fast twice a week.”
Now let’s note that ‘fast’ is a present active indicative verb. According to Corner and Fenske, this means ‘continuous action.’ So what this passage tells us – if these two are consistent – is that the Pharisee who said this is ‘fasting right now.’ But if he were fasting right now, he wouldn’t be fasting twice a week, would he? He would be on a perpetual fast (and might I say, rather hungry). No, the present tense is not a sufficient ground to make this case, particularly when there are other problems with their presentation.
2) There is no conditional clause in the Greek.
This does not necessarily rule it out since there are both formal and informal conditions in the Greek language, but it does make the argument harder to substantiate. Jesus is stating a FACT about the sheep – that they know and follow Him – not that they MAY follow him (which is the translation mandated if indeed this is a conditional promise.
3) The verb is in the indicative mood, which argues AGAINST the conditional claim.
There are four moods in the Greek language: indicative, imperative, optative and subjunctive (not including participle as a mood since most grammarians do not). Although this is not fully accurate, the moods may be understood with what they basically say.
Indicative mood is the mood of the presentation of certainty. It presents something as REAL and accurate from the standpoint of the speaker. It does not mean everything in the mood is true – lies are stated in the indicative mood, but it gives a presentation of certainty. Basically, it is what IS. The subjunctive mood indicates what MAY be. The imperative is the mood of command or ‘what SHOULD be.’ The optative mood tells us what COULD be.
Jesus’ statement is in the indicative mood – indicating certainty from his point of view.
4) Every view that says this must be present tense following equivocates and instead of saying ’single sin’ instead tells us ‘many sins.’
And this is seen in Fenske’s very argument. Note what he says: Those that are living in a state of continual sin are not his sheep because they are neither hearing nor following Jesus. So what then, Mr. Fenske, about those who are committing occasional sins? And what exactly do you mean when you say ‘continual sin?’ How many sins must I commit for it to be considered ‘continual sin?’
Amazingly enough, I’ve been asking for 20 years and never had a single person answer that question with any degree of specificity. The fact is that to hold the ‘fall from grace’ view, one must not only read into the text, he must also ignore the text, particularly the part about the Father giving the sheep to Jesus.
5. The defense that claims a man may remove himself from God’s hand not only makes Jesus Christ a liar, but it is also based upon a faulty view of salvation.
I first became familiar with this argument in 1990 when Joe Shane, leader of the East Columbus Church of Christ (Mississippi) presented this argument in a weekly series of articles in the Commercial Dispatch. The view basically says – as does Fenske, Corner, and all others who think you can lose your salvation – this: the devil cannot reach into God’s hand and pull you out but YOU ON YOUR OWN can pull yourself out if you choose on your own to quit following Jesus.
But does the text say that? No, it does not. It says NOBODY can snatch the believer out of Jesus’ hand. To say – as these folks do – that this somehow opens up the believer to depart Christ’s hand on his own raises a different series of questions that must be considered. Those who argue this way insist man has free will. But how did they get in Jesus’ hand in the first place? The Father put them there – a fact that every person who denies eternal security passes over. Jesus compares the knowledge of the sheep for Him with the knowledge of Him for the Father (John 10:14-15). The very next verse makes it clear that JESUS is the one who brings the sheep to Himself (John 10:16).
This is no small problem because most people who argue against eternal security start from the wrong starting point: they start with man’s free will as opposed to God’s decree. But the truth of the matter is this: those who say that man can snatch himself out of Christ’s hand have ADDED to his words in violation of His command to not do so.
CONCLUSION
The promise is simple: Jesus lays down His life for the sheep. Those who do not believe (John 10:26) do not believe BECAUSE they are not His sheep. ‘Hearing’ and ‘following’ in verse 27 are synonymous with believing from verse 26. The believer is secure in the hands of Christ and the Father and nobody can take them out.
Despite the claims of Jeff Fenske, the pillar still stands.
Comment by Maestroh — August 2, 2008 @ 11:06 am
Dear Maestroh,
Actually, I didn’t write this article. And I posted this with permission of the author, giving links above and below the article. I’ve made these links even clearer, now.
I’ll respond later, unless someone else does in the meantime.
Jeff Fenske
Comment by Jeff Fenske — August 2, 2008 @ 7:56 pm
[Editors note: this is a response to Maestroh's comment #2 by the actual author of the article. I've indented the portions of Maestroh's comment that JP quotes in order for clarity. Thanks so much, JP!]
The passage is quite straightforward, only the sheep are given everlasting life, and Jesus tells who the sheep are; those that hear and follow Him. If someone does not hear and follow, they are not a sheep.
The suggestion that “there must be a reinterpretation” in order to see the condition of the passage asserts that only those that are presently hearing and following Christ, is nothing but a false assertion. Just as the promise states the condition of hearing and following, the opposite must also be true; if someone is not hearing and following, they are not sheep. This would apply to those that never followed, or those that cease to hear and follow. One thing is plain, there is a condition. It is a reinterpretation to pretend that the condition does not exist. It is to read the assumption that one cannot lose their salvation into the passage, and to nullify the condition to mean “if someone heard and followed Me, they are my sheep whether they hear or follow me anymore.”
The issue of the Father having “given them’ to Jesus is irrelevant to OSAS or Non-OSAS. The intent and scope of the article was not to give a full commentary on how people come to Christ, but the false assertion that it teaches OSAS.
When does He “give to them” everlasting life? Eternal life was eternal before anyone ever had it. Does it make that life any less eternal? If anyone forfeited it, would it be any less eternal? Of course not! If I posses an eternal pearl of great price, and I squander it by throwing it away, it still remains eternal whether I posses it or not. It would have been eternal before I had it, and eternal after I cast it away. The passage NEVER states that anyone has an eternal possession on that life. The OSAS advocate twists the Scripture to makes the quality of the life to be an eternal possession, instead of where Jesus placed the emphasis, on the eternal nature of that life. There is no eternal or unforfeitable possession of life stated in all of Scripture to anyone this side of heaven.
The straw-man of “good works” is nowhere stated or implied in the argument. If belief is required in order to get “saved,” then it is just as much a “works salvation” as those who would insist that that condition of faith is required for salvation at all stages of salvation.
The argument whether Corner is a poor Greek scholar is irrelevant; what matters is, is it true? Ad Hominem arguments add nothing to the exposition of the passage.
No one really cares how many variances in the present tense that there are, or what other passages may say! What does John’s 10: 27 present tense mean? You are clouding the issue where there is no fog. The present indicative active “asserts something which is occurring while the speaker is making the statement” (Zodihiates 857). “Action as continuous. Here the principle tense is the present, which in the indicative is used primarily of present time (Dana and Mantly 178). So, Greek Scholarship is in agreement as to what the normative, most common, normal, and primary meaning is “something that is occurring right now,” one has little exegetical and linguistic ground in which to argue otherwise. One must prove the assertion that the context clearly leads us away to some obscure or rare exception of this rule, other than the mere observation that exceptions to the rule exists! It is uncanny that God, through the inspiration of the Spirit, uses the present tense or “believe” as the condition of final salvation in every case! Are we to suggest that in every case we must stretch the meaning to me the most obscure and likely meaning instead of the most likely?
You create a false dilemma where there is none. First, it is not relevant to the passage in question. As I have stated already, pointing out an exception will not justify its application in the case of John 10.
Allow me to note that it is poor exegesis to rely on a definition alone, such as the word “eternal” apart from its context, and build a tower of presumption upon it as you do. In Luke 18:12 we do see something within the context that drives the meaning and application of the present tense. First, the Pharisees in question claimed that they “presently” fast twice a week. It is true that they are doing this presently; there is no doubt. They stated a qualification to the application of the present tense; twice a week. It does not change the primary meaning of the Greek in the least. We do not need to get into rationalization to explain it; it is plain to see that they stated the frequency and the currency. I know that you are trying to make it appear to be stupid to believe that they were “present tense” fasting all the time. You ignore the context in order to imply that it would be ignorant to apply a natural understanding of the present tense in John 10. Luke 18:12 has nothing to do with John 10. You have proved nothing by appealing to it.
But the truth of the present tense still remains! Even if Jesus states it as a FACT that sheep hear and follow, it is clear that if you ever cease to hear and follow that you are not a sheep! The same dilemma continues to be an issue and Eternal Security is proven false!
It IS a FACT that only the sheep are given eternal life, and that only those that presently hear and follow are sheep. The indicative mood does nothing to remove the condition, but sets the condition as a certainty! It is a certainty that if you do not presently hear and follow Jesus, He does not present indicative active, give you everlasting life!
I will chase the red herring a bit to satisfy the question. I would say that sin is unbelief, and is the antithesis to hearing and believing. I don’t “equivocate” the issue, but would say that there is a difference between one who uses a doctrine of security for license, and the person who stumbles and repents. The unrepentant are not hearing and believing. That is why the issue of “continual sin” is brought in, because the doctrine of Eternal Security must accept that a person can remain in unrepentance and still be saved, or Eternal security is not true. The scope of the argument does not deal with the issue of disobedience and repentance, just that one must, as Jesus said, be “hearing and following” Him in order to be a sheep.
This I understand is to bait the issue to say that it is problematic for anti-eternal Security people since it would imply that one could be a sheep one moment and not the next; be saved on moment and not the next. This is only as absurd as believing that a person can be lost one moment, place their faith in Christ and be saved a micro-second later! If we decide to go there, then we must get into a definition of sin and regeneration. Certainly, any argument will fall short in some people’s eyes because it is not a complete system of theology. Limiting the scope to a narrow issue is not equivocating.
And I have never had anyone show me in 20 years where there is a single statement of Eternal Security in all of Scripture, to include your unconvincing arguments! Eternal Security is no different than atheism; it must be learned. In order to get Eternal security “out of” Scripture, it must be first “read into” Scripture. You must “assume” Eternal security exists before you can contort Scripture to prove it.
It is calling Jesus a liar when you deny the obvious intent of the present tense. You are saying that you can “sin and win,” when Scripture consistently tells us that final salvation is conditioned on a present tense faith. I would say that it is you that has a faulty view of salvation; you teach the same lie as the devil told to Eve, “In the day you eat thereof, you shall not surely die!” The same “promise” of Eternal security! The devil has not had to modify the lie since the beginning, and people are still duped to believe him!
You are correct that it does not “say” that one can pull themselves out, but yet you ignore what it does say! It states that the no external object can snatch “us.” It in no way can include ourselves. Plain grammar tells us that!
It does puzzle me that God would be so contradictory to command us to “remain” in Christ; “abide” in Him. “Continue” “Endure” etc. I guess that you must explain those conditions and warning away too!
Scripture everywhere states the condition of faith. God no more believes for us than He repents for us! What you appear to be contending for is something that is never stated in Scripture; salvation by FATE! The passages you present pose no difficulty to my theology, and are in fact, fully embraced.
What a laughable contradiction! You embrace a theological fiction; the “God’s decree.” There is no “God’s decree!” If God ever decreed anything, it was not salvation of any individual!, Secondly, most non-Eternal Securists do not start with free-will, but with Free-Grace! The starting point is clearly stated in John 3:16, where salvation id promised to “whosoever will,” not “whosoever must” or those that hit the Lucky Lotto of Fate.
And ADDING man to the external force that cannot pluck him out of God’s hands is a distortion of God’s words, and denies the condition of present tense hearing and following Him. The context speaks loudly against Eternal Security!
Nonsense! Jesus finishes His discourse (immediate context) with the words to those that did not believe (were not sheep). You assert that people believe because they are sheep, and those that don’t are not sheep. It would not make any sense for Jesus (God) to appeal to these non-sheep to believe! “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know and believe…” (10:37-38). You wish to deny any free-will, so what would the efforts of Jesus to convince them do for them or for God? Doesn’t Jesus believe that the sheep are fated, and sheep believe? If people are always sheep or goats from eternity, then why don’t all sheep believe the first time they hear the Gospel? Is that not showing that they are not sheep?
The most natural understanding of the passage is therefore that one becomes a sheep by believing, and that God persuades free men to believe, not against their will, or by coercion.
Fatalism and Eternal Security makes God’s Word to be contradictory and nonsensical at so many points that I am astonished how so many can pass over the plain truth and miss it!
Comment by JP — August 27, 2008 @ 7:46 pm
Jeff, I guess we could debate this with the OSAS crowd till the last day and they still would not be convinced. They love their OSAS doctrine because they are safe in a false security and this way they can continue on with their many excuses for sinning every day. It’s true, OSAS is a license to sin.
There was no eternal security [OSAS] in the Old Testament for the children of Israel and there is none in the New Testament.
Question for the OSAS crowd: If there was no eternal security in the Old Testament … then when did God change His mind ??? Please answer that one.
Ezekiel Chapter 3
19 Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.
20 Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand.
21 Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul.
Ezekiel Chapter 18
24 But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.
25 Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal?
26 When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die.
27 Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.
Now go to Hebrews:
Jude 1:5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Notice that ALL the Children of Israel were SAVED out of Egypt… but then God destroyed those who did not “continue” in believing.
OSAS … don’t let pride stand in the way of your learning truth.
Ego and Pride are the evil twins who stand guard at the door of truth and knowledge.
Comment by Lostball — September 8, 2008 @ 11:07 am
Let me add this to my previous comments:
Jude 1:24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
25 To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.
God is able to keep us from falling and present us faultless before the presense of His glory ….. and with exceeding joy. If it was impossible for us to fall away from the faith, then why would Gods Word tell us that He is able to keep us from falling? It’s because you can fall from grace.
OSAS: you can be free from this heretical and soul damning doctrine.
Friend, you WILL overcome, or be blotted out of the Book of Life.
Revelation 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
Comment by Lostball — September 8, 2008 @ 11:24 am
I find it amusing to witness how someone who tells me that my argument is in error because I start with the wrong presuppositions would use Fatalism’s idea of “God’s decrees” as their proof! They use one bad doctrine to support yet another, and in fact, they deny their own doctrine by trying to convince me that I am wrong. They assume that everything is final due to some imagined “Decree” of God, and because of that, man is not free; he is a victim of the god that makes that “Decree.” So, what possible good could come from arguing about it? If Fate can’t be changed, and changing what someone believes can have nothing to do with moving them towards being saved, then isn’t the fact that they argue about it prove that they don’t actually believe it?
Anytime a Calvinist argues that their doctrines are correct, they are actually testifying that their doctrines are not true! If I am predestined to be an Arminian, what possible good would it do to try to argue that I am wrong? Convincing someone of Fatalism will not save them! If I do not have a free will, then what possible sense can it make to argue with me to change? By responding you only prove that you do not believe that all is set by some mystical “Decree,” and that you believe that I have enough freedom of the will to change what I believe! Shocking! By your own argument you just proved Arminianism!
Comment by JP — October 30, 2008 @ 3:56 am
This is just a note of appreciation to you proponents of this subject and also I am giving much praise to God. I just got the idea tonight to search the web specifically on the subject of ‘Can you lose your salvation’. This was after watching a TV minister that I respect for frequently admonishing christians of the need for obedience to Christ and righteousness, yet he ended his program stating a form of the ‘once saved always saved’ doctrine. This is a doctrine I fervently disbelieve and I have always been frustrated since the OSAS doctrine is one that I can’t find in scripture. To me the ALL of scripture speaks to the fact that our salvation in contingent on repentance from sin and continued striving for obedience to God’s commandments thereafter. However, my beliefs have not obtained much meaningful christian fellowship in my lifetime as most prefer to follow OSAS. So, when I searched tonight and found articles by Jeff Paton and read them I was very blessed. I have abundantly experienced accusations of trying to be right on the subject, when so many pastors and so-called christian authorities disagree with me. But I never hear the subject of OSAS argued with significant scriptural support, when it seems one can endlessly support conditional salvation with the scriptures. SO I am PRAISING GOD that the truth about salvation has such worthy proponents and I will keep this in my prayers. Seem’s to me that a fundamental issue in the debate about OSAS and conditional salvation is whether one can treat be Bible and self-contained and be best interpreter and dictionary for itself. To me the proof of the Holy Spirits authorship of the Bible is that very little outside context is necessary to understand the truthful doctrines of scripture. Like Psalm 119 says ‘the sum of the word is truth’, or Corinthians states ‘line upon line and verse upon verse’, and that we learn spiritual words with spiritual meanings. I believe that we have to treat the Bible as a book written by one author who is the Holy Spirit, and He wrote the Bible so that its doctrines of truth are woven from beginning to end of the scriptures. He develops and reiterates the same truthful themes past boundaries and borders of the different books so that doctrinally the Bible reads as one book. Within this understanding of the structure of the Bible, is the means by which what is written in scripture is uniquely the Word of God, and the particular words of scripture are God Breathed (or directly from God) and therefore cannot be subverted by information outside of scripture. I believe outside context is helpful sometimes in correct interpretation of the words of a particular passage, but I believe any doctrine of truth of the scriptures is so abundantly reiterated through scripture when it is allowed to interpret itself that any need for outside context is eliminated. In the way I am describing, I believe the Bible undoubtedly distinquishes itself as the Word of God because of its internal consistency that any truth is abundantly reiterated from beginning to the end of scriptures. Like with the issue of OSAS versus conditional salvation, truth is established by very abundant scriptural quotation which shows the tread of truth through the word, and truth is not established by man’s opinion or indirect argument. So again, I PRAISE JESUS for what I believe is His specific and only truth about salvation. This being that we are eternally secure in our salvation, IF we continue in the faith grounded and settled.
Comment by Richard L. Sypert Jr. — July 1, 2009 @ 8:56 pm
Nonsense! Jesus finishes His discourse (immediate context) with the words to those that did not believe (were not sheep). You assert that people believe because they are sheep, and those that don’t are not sheep. It would not make any sense for Jesus (God) to appeal to these non-sheep to believe! “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know and believe…” (10:37-38). You wish to deny any free-will, so what would the efforts of Jesus to convince them do for them or for God? Doesn’t Jesus believe that the sheep are fated, and sheep believe? If people are always sheep or goats from eternity, then why don’t all sheep believe the first time they hear the Gospel? Is that not showing that they are not sheep?
The most natural understanding of the passage is therefore that one becomes a sheep by believing, and that God persuades free men to believe, not against their will, or by coercion.
Fatalism and Eternal Security makes God’s Word to be contradictory and nonsensical at so many points that I am astonished how so many can pass over the plain truth and miss it!
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it’s true JP, it’s nonsense to us people when we think of God’s decree. We tend to always seek our own will to decide than God to choose what’s best for us. In the first place, man is incapable to do the will of God because our nature is marred by sin. All our faculty tend to go against the will of God. It means we are incapable to choose the will of God because we are dead in our sin as Ephesians 2 says. Can a dead person respond? unless you are quickened by the Spirit, that’s the only time you can respond to the Father’s call through the Gospel and see the beauty of Christ to put your trust in him and believe Him. If you say of free will as how you could choose morally and socially, yes you can still do that even your’e not still a believer but when it comes to spiritual things, you have to be born again first before you can see and enter into the kingdom of God. Seeing and entering is responding to God’s call. I don’t think that it is coercion or force. We believe God is sovereign in everything here in the universe but when it comes to salvation, man don’t want God to be fully sovereign. Man want to decide on his own and his own effort. That’s inconsistency. If we pray for God to save a love one or friend, aren’t that a sign we submit to God that He is sovereign enough to save a person not on on person’s work? Who saves? God. Who decides whom to save? The Savior, because He is God, not man. Nonetheless, God calls everyone to repent, as a sign of His love for everyone that should cause us to repentance.
Comment by Mark — July 7, 2009 @ 3:09 am