“P”
[John 10:27-30]
November 25, 2018, Second Reformed
Church
Is God sovereign over our salvation,
or is God partially sovereign and we partially sovereign? Has all authority and power be given to
Jesus, or not?
This is the issue before us as we
consider the rulings on doctrine by the Synod of Dort. And on May 9, 1619, the Synod ruled that God
is absolutely sovereign in salvation. We
contribute nothing to our salvation except our sin (cf. R. C. Sproul).
The Synod ruled and affirmed five
doctrines which show us that all thanks and praise and glory belong to God and
not to us. They define our work as
Christians as proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, whereas God – our Triune
God – brings salvation to pass.
We saw that Total Depravity affirms
that all mere human beings are born with Original Sin, inclined towards sin,
unable to do any spiritual good because we are spiritually dead. Every part of us has been effected by sin.
We saw that Unconditional Election affirms
that since we are dead in sin, we cannot choose salvation. God, for His own reasons apart from us, chose
– in His astounding love – to save some out of the mass of humanity doomed for
eternal suffering.
We saw in Limited Atonement that God
chose us specifically to save: Marla,
Maria, Malcolm Muggeridge – and the Son of God incarnated in the person of
Jesus to save those specific people that God the Father chose to save. Jesus did not live and die for any others.
We saw that Irresistible Grace
affirms that God the Holy Spirit raises the people that God the Father chose
and Jesus died for to spiritual life – applying Jesus’ atonement to them. And when the Holy Spirit raises us to new
life, we are drawn with an unstoppable compulsion to Jesus and His salvation,
and we follow Him and do the good works He has called us to do.
Finally, today, we look at the
doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints.
Here the question is, does God
preserve us in the faith, or do we preserve ourselves in the faith? Does God keep us from falling away, or do we
keep ourselves from falling away?
First, Christians sin.
Some people argue that if God is
Sovereign, we must be robots with no ability to make choices. But that is not what the Scripture
teaches: God is Sovereign over
everything. God has predestined
everything. But, still, we freely make choices
and are responsible for our choices. How
does that work? Well, we are free, but
God is more free than we are.
We can easily see sad examples of
believers who sinned horribly and yet remained believers.
We remember King David – the man
that Scripture calls the “man after God’s own heart.” David was on the roof of his palace and saw a
woman – and he lusted after her – he wanted her for his physical pleasure. And when he found out that she was married to
Uriah the Hittite – well, that was no problem – David sent Uriah to the
frontline of battle to secure his death – his murder. And David took Bathsheba as his wife.
And Nathan the prophet came and told
David that a rich man had stolen the only lamb of a poor man to serve as food
at his table. And David flew into a rage
and commanded judgment against the man, and then Nathan said, “You are the
man.” (2 Samuel 12).
Still David is preserved in the
faith. David remains a believer and
repents of his sin.
We remember Peter, that fateful
night when Jesus is taken in the Garden, and we read:
“Then they seized [Jesus] and led
him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at
a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and
sat down together, Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl, seeing him
as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, ‘This man also was
with him.’ But he denied it, saying, ‘Woman, I do not know him.’ And a little
later someone else saw him and said, ‘You also are one of them.’ But Peter
said, ‘Man, I am not.’ And after an interval of about an hour still another
insisted, saying, ‘Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a
Galilean.’ But Peter said, ‘Man, I do not know what you are talking about.’ And
immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord
turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he
had said to him, ‘Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.’
And he went out and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:54-62, ESV).
And yet, Peter remains a
believer. He repents of his sin before
the risen Lord, and Jesus sends him out – forgiven – the Apostle to the Jews.
And Paul writes, “For I do not
understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing
I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.
So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know
that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to
do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good
I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no
longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
“So I find it to be a law that when
I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God,
in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the
law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my
members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law
of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin” (Romans 7:15-25,
ESV).
This is the forgiven Apostle to the
Gentiles – a believer.
What is the point?
The point is that Christians can
commit horrible sins – even remain in sin – for a period of time and not fall
away – not lose their salvation – but remain in the faith. Not that we should ever sin! Of course, we are to be striving after
holiness by the power of God the Holy Spirit.
But even these awful sins, like murder, adultery, and publicly denying
Jesus, will not cause us to lose our salvation.
Have you ever sinned a sin and
wondered if God would forgive you? Have
you ever continued to sin the same sin and wonder if repentance was
futile? Have you ever been so disgusted
with yourself that you almost didn’t repent and ask for God’s help to stop?
We must be striving after
holiness. We must continually ask God
the Holy Spirit for the strength to say “no” to sin and to do what is
right. We must continually turn away
when temptation comes – and it will come and come and come, and we will sin –
but we must be sinning less – and we are able because God the Holy Spirit
indwells us. Let us keep the work and
the sacrifice of Jesus before us and see how beautiful and astonishing it is that
God would ever give Himself for His creation.
John, the beloved disciple, writes,
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If
we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him
a liar, and his word is not in us” (I John 1:8-10, ESV).
Christians sin, but if we confess
our sin, sincerely, repentantly, desiring to follow after God’s will, Jesus
will forgive us and cleanse us.
Second, God preserves the believer.
Hear again what Jesus says:
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them,
and they follow me. I give them eternal life, 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. I and the Father are one.”
Jesus is talking about His sheep – those
people that God the Father elected from all eternity to be His and to give to
His Son. And Jesus, being God, knows
very well that His people will not achieve perfection – sinlessness – holiness
– in this lifetime. He will come again
to glorify us and perfect us and make us sinless and holy.
And yet, Jesus says:
His sheep will follow Him. Not, they will follow Him now and then. Not, they will follow Him, but some will fall
away. No, all of His sheep. All of the elect will follow Jesus to the end
of days.
He gives His sheep eternal life, and
they will never perish – not some of them will never perish – every single one
of the elect that God chose and gave to His Son – will never perish and will
have eternal life. Not one of those He
chose will lose the gift of eternal life.
Every single one will believe.
No one will ever snatch them out of
His hand. The devil cannot take any of
those God chose from Jesus – every one of the elect will always be His.
No one will ever snatch the elect
out of the Father’s hand because there is no Being greater than the Father – so
it is not possible that any member of the elect could be lost or choose to be
lost or be stolen away from the Father.
And Jesus and God the Father are the same one God – so it is impossible
for anyone in all of Creation to cause a believer to lost His salvation,
because Jesus is God – the greatest Being in all of existence.
Hear what Paul tells the Philippians: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a
good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians
1:6, ESV).
Paul says he is sure of this – and he
is writing under the guidance of God the Holy Spirit, so this is inerrant and
infallible – God, Who began a good work in you – salvation – will bring it to
completion. Not may bring it to
completion unless you fall away. No, His
will will be done. The God Who chose
each member of the elect from before the Creation, the God Who came to earth to
live and die specifically for each member of the elect, the God Who raises each
member of the elect from spiritual death and applies the once and eternal
salvation secured by Jesus for each specific one – this God will bring the
believer to glorious completion in Jesus on the last day – not one will be lost
– every one that God chose will believe and be received into the Kingdom –
glorified.
God preserves the believer in
salvation. If you are a believer – one
of those elected by God from before the foundation of the world, you will never
totally fall away. You may engage in
gross and damning sins – which you must repent of – but you will never be lost,
because God preserves you in your salvation – and God is the greatest Being in
existence. No one can stop God from
doing what He wills.
But…have you ever known someone who
said he is a Christian and appeared in every way that you could tell to be a
Christian, but, at some point, he renounces Christ?
The eldest of my sisters professed
and renounced faith in Christ. The couple
that led me to the Reformed understanding of the Scripture professed and
renounced faith in Christ.
Third, anyone who denies Christ
totally and finally never was a believer.
John writes, “Children, it is the
last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many
antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went
out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would
have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they
all are not of us” (I John 2:18-19, ESV).
And we read about Jesus and the
disciples:
“When many of his disciples heard
it, they said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’ But Jesus,
knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, ‘Do
you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending
to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help
at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are
some of you who do not believe.’ (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those
were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, ‘This
is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the
Father.’
“After this many of his disciples
turned back and no longer walked with him” (John 6:60-66, ESV).
The same question and problem
existed in the first century: there were
people who were following Jesus and coming into the church, and they seemed to
be believers – they confessed the creeds, they knew what the Bible said, they
could state the Gospel, they participated in the Sacraments and in the care of
the members – but then something happened.
In the context of John’s letter, it
is the insistence that Jesus physically rose from the dead – as shall we. John says that those who deny the physical
resurrection are the antichrists. They
could believe in the message of Jesus, in a spiritual reality, even in Jesus’
appearing – but a physical resurrection – that they wouldn’t believe – and the
truth came out as they denied Christ and left the church – they never really
believed.
Jesus had far more followers at one
point in His ministry – He gave them food and healed them. But when Jesus said that all the other gods
were false gods and that salvation is entirely the work of God – that Jesus
Himself is the One God – well, then, they waked away. They denied Him – they never really believed.
Someone can seem to be a Christian –
someone can even believe he is a Christian – but if he doesn’t really believe
in his mind and in his heart that God came to earth in the person of Jesus,
lived a perfect life under God’s Law, died for the sins of everyone who will
every believe, physically rose from the dead, and ascended back to His throne –
he is not a Christian.
Being a Christian is having an
intellectual understanding and heart belief in Who Jesus is and what He did. If you don’t truly have that and you can’t
truly confess that – you are not a Christian.
Sadly, men and women will show themselves to not be who we thought they
were until the last day. But God knows
the heart. God knows who are His.
And so we hear the Gospel preached
again and again in the Church – because believers need to hear it and be
reminded of it and continually be re-formed to what the Scripture teaches. And, because there are people in our churches
who call themselves Christians who are not – and they need to know they are not
and understand what the Gospel is if they are to have the hope of salvation.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones tells the
story of being a guest preacher at a church and an elderly woman – who was a
long-time member of the church, well thought of, and a faithful giver to the
ministry – who heard him preach and went up after the service having realized
that she was not a Christian at all, and she wanted to know more – how she
could be a Christian.
Still, there will be others who hear
that you must believe in your heart and mind in Who Jesus is and what He did,
and they will be turned off and renounce the faith – I can’t tell you how many
of my Christian friends in college have renounced Jesus. I hope they are going through a “phase”
now. But if they never confess faith in
Jesus again, they were never Christians in the first place. They were people who found something
enjoyable – likeable – appealing – about what was said, but when push came to
shove, they didn’t believe or love Jesus.
They were wrong – not God. God knows
– and chose – everyone who will ever believe in His Son, Jesus. And by the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit,
every one that God has chosen to be His out of the mass of humanity – each one
specifically – by name – each one will be raised to spiritual life and receive
eternal salvation and life with Jesus.
Why are the Canons of Dort – these five doctrines – important? Because, if they are true – if they are the
correct understanding of the Scripture – then salvation is all of God and all
to the glory of God – an outrageous gift of love to specific beings who hated
God so much that they were dead in their sin – but now believe and are assured
of everlasting life, because it is God’s work – the work of the most powerful Being
in all of existence Who says He loves you and will never lose you.
If they are wrong, then we, at least
partially save ourselves, God is not sovereign, and we can never be sure of our
salvation. Because – one day we can be walking
down the street, after ninety years of faithful belief and service to Christ
and in strange slip deny Him and get hit by a bus – and we will go to Hell.
No.
God is God, and He has saved and preserves a people for Himself. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to
the Holy Spirit.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You that You
are God and we are not. We thank You for
reasons beyond our comprehension, You chose to save a specific people for
Yourself through the gift of Your Son.
Thank You for the assurance of hope in knowing that our salvation is
totally in Your hands, so we can never be lost.
And keep us telling our friends and family Who Jesus is and what He has
done that You would be glorified in the salvation of others. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
