Paul states, “For I am persuaded, that…[Nothing] …shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:38-39)
Occasionally, one hears the assertion that we become Christians when we “decide for Christ”; that is, when we decide to trust Him. Therefore, the argument runs, we may subsequently decide to cease to trust Him. We decide to remain Christians, they claim, and we may decide to give up that position. This is a stark presentation of an extreme form of a faulty understanding of conversion. Who then is eternally secure, if anyone can be? What happens at conversion?
When the Lord Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about receiving eternal life, He introduced the subject by a reference to being born again. He explained that eternal life would be entered upon by faith in the Son of God. But this is only one side of what happens, for the new birth He referred to is a work of God through His Spirit.
Paul gives us the theology of this: believers are sealed with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13; 4:30), the guarantee of good things to come, for we are thus marked as God’s property. This is in view of the future day when we shall experience the fullness of redemption.
Before He went to the cross, the Lord Jesus explained to His disciples that He would send “another comforter,” the Holy Spirit, who would be “with” them and “remain in” them. So believers are not only initially sealed with His Spirit, but also indwelt by the Spirit as a continuing reality. Paul says in Romans 8:9 that every believer has the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of Christ, as Paul calls Him.
In Romans 8 again, believers are seen as being “in Christ,” and their position is expressed in the context of a continuum reaching back to God’s foreknowledge, continuing through justification by faith, and climaxing in glory. At the end of that chapter, Paul declares that nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
But this may seem to be high theory removed from our daily experience of ups and downs, times of doubt and failure punctuated by times of spiritual exhilaration. Let us look at what the Lord Jesus says of the ongoing experience of those whom He describes as His sheep.
He describes in John 10 how He brings them into safety. At verse 9 He says He is the door; that is, He keeps safe those who answer His call to come into His fold for safety: “I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, He shall be saved.” His fold is secure against all predators, for He is the door, as an eastern shepherd would normally be in a sheepfold in the wilderness. But that is only one aspect of the relationship between the Shepherd and His sheep.
Our security in Christ, the forgiveness of all our sins, is based on what He claims in verse 11: “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.” We received forgiveness in the first instance because He laid down His life for us in His sacrifice on the cross; we answered His call and entered His fold. And that sacrifice has lasting efficacy.
But there is more in salvation than initial forgiveness. In verse 9, He adds that the saved person “shall go in and out and find pasture.” John 10 is rich in teaching to help us understand our privileged place in Christ. He gives us freedom in our life of following Him—we “go in and out.” A sheepfold is not an internment camp! Moreover, He gives us satisfaction—we “find pasture.” He has come that we might have “life…more abundantly.” He has come to enrich us, not to impoverish us. All of this presupposes that at conversion we embarked on a life of association with Him, of following Him.
See how comprehensive this relationship is, as outlined in John 10? We hear His voice, for we are called by the gospel to a life of obedience to Him. Peter describes this new life in 1 Peter 2:25: “Ye were as sheep going astray; but ye are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” Obedience to His voice brings us, as David puts it in Psalm 23, to green pastures and still waters. It is significant that Peter more than once expresses salvation as being through “obedience” to the gospel.
Another important expression which is used of this relationship between our Lord and us is, “He leadeth me.” These are not anonymous, dumb creatures who must be driven whither they know not. He calls them by name, He says in John 10, and leads them out. He knows where the best pastures are and they trust His skill to lead. He knows them and they know His voice and know Him. So they are preserved from their enemies, who would seek to seduce them.
His summary of this relationship in John 10:27-30 is perhaps the clearest statement of our eternal security. Just think of the detail: we hear His voice; He knows us; we follow Him; He gives us eternal life, and we shall never perish. No one shall pluck us from His hand. No one shall pluck us from His Father’s hand.
It must be stressed that this eternal security is seen as depending on the Saviour and His work for us. Scripture makes it clear that salvation brings us into a new life of glad obedience to Christ. We dare not proudly claim that we are eternally secure if our lives give no evidence of that change which He patiently but firmly works in our attitudes, our values, our aims, our everything. Read again 1 Peter 2:21-25 and the whole of John 10. Of course we all stumble repeatedly and need restoring grace, but these verses face us squarely with the nature of the normal Christian life.
But someone may be worried about, for example, Judas. Did he not lose his salvation? John 13 seems to make his situation clear. In verse 10, the Lord Jesus refers to initial salvation as a bath, in contrast to subsequent restoration, which He calls foot-washing. The bath is once for all; the foot-washing is repeated. He reassured Peter there that the bath of regeneration needs no repetition, so that we are “clean every whit.” Then He said that not all of them were clean, and verse 13 explains that He was referring to Judas, who had never had the bath of regeneration. In John 6:64 we are told the Lord Jesus “knew from the beginning who they were who believed not, and who should betray Him.” Was Judas perhaps in the Lord’s mind when He told in Matthew 7:22 of wonder-workers who will one day find out that He never knew them?
But what about those who, in the later life of the apostle John, “went out from us” (1 Jn. 2:19), and presumably taught heresy? John explains that they went out because “they were not of us.” In other words, they were not genuine.
Some worry is caused by those referred to early in Hebrews 6. On the surface they seem to have been saved people, yet in verse 8 they seem to be described as being “nigh unto cursing.” The writer goes on quickly to assure the readers that he is “persuaded better things” of them “and things that accompany [or are near to] salvation.” He is at pains to establish that people may go a long way towards the crucial step into salvation, and yet draw back.
The same applies to those in Hebrews 10 who draw back, in contrast to “those who believe to the saving of the soul.” We start and continue in faith, for He keeps us.
Christ’s summary of this relationship in John 10:27-30 is perhaps the clearest statement of our eternal security.