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Believer’s Security

John’s Gospel contains sayings of Christ which Evangelicals love to stitch together to try to prove that we are unable to lose our salvation. The argument goes like this: “Jesus says that he will never cast out those who come to him and that no one can snatch them out of his hand. But if he won’t cast you out, and no one can take you out, your salvation is eternally secure.”

There are many problems with this argument. The most basic is the way it treats language. Under the influence of sola scriptura, Protestants often treat the Bible as if it were a handbook of systematic theology. They try to find in it the precise, technical statements that one finds in works of systematic theology.

But that genre of theological writing—which tries to spell out the truths of theology in the most exhaustive, detailed, and analytical manner possible—had not been invented when the Bible was penned. It was centuries after the close of the canon before anything resembling systematic theology was being written.

Protestants are especially susceptible to reading the Bible in this manner because Protestantism developed in northern European cultures, such as England and Germany, that have a penchant for detailed analysis. They contrast with the Middle Eastern culture that gave birth to Scripture, which is much looser, approximative, and hyperbolic in its modes of speech. Because of its cultural background, Protestantism habitually misreads the Bible by treating its statements as if they were axioms of systematic theology. They are not.

Almost nowhere in Scripture does one find technical statements of a truth. One finds multiple passages that each reflect an aspect of the truth, but none of them spells it out in all its details. The statements in Scripture are partial expressions of a truth, like we use in everyday speech. They are not like expressions in a technical journal, and they must be given a human rather than a manualistic reading. This applies to Jesus’ assurances on the security of the believer. If we treat his statements in a human manner, what conclusions can we draw?

A good illustration was given to me by Ken Hensley, who at the time was a Baptist pastor investigating Catholicism. (He has since been received into the Church.) He said, “Suppose I told my congregation, ‘If anyone comes to my office for counseling, I will certainly not turn him away. And once you come to my office for counseling, I won’t let anyone drag you out.’”

If a congregation were told this, nobody would imagine that the pastor was implying that the moment one stepped into his office for counseling that one would be immediately and irrevocably committed to a perpetual course of counseling and that one would never be able to leave his office for the rest of eternity.

The statements that you won’t be turned away and that you won’t be pulled out in no way imply that you won’t leave on your own.

This sheds light on how Jesus’ statements should be understood when read in a human rather than a manualistic sense. They are partial statements of the truth concerning the believer’s security—as is clear from the fact Evangelicals try to stitch them together. If either were complete in itself, no one would combine them. But even the combination of the two statements does not express the whole truth regarding the believer’s security. John’s Gospel has more to say on the topic.

In John 15 Jesus states that it is possible to be taken out of him and thrown into hell. He says that the Father himself will do this. So while in John 10 it is the Father who keeps one from being snatched out of Jesus’ hand, in John 15 it is the Father who removes one from Jesus.

This allows us to build a more complete picture of how the believer’s security works. According to Jesus, if someone comes to him, he will not cast the believer out. Neither will he let anyone pull the believer away from him against the believer’s will. But if the believer fails to bear fruit and abide in God’s love, God himself will take him out and, barring repentance, the believer will end up in hell.

The security of the believer is not unconditional. We have a conditional security of salvation—conditional on our bearing fruit, keeping Christ’s commandments, and abiding in God’s love. If we do these things, no one is going to snatch us away, and we will never be turned away.

“All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out”. —John 6:37

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall 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.” —John 10:27-30

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away. . . . If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. . . . As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” —John 15:1-2, 6, 9-10

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