Grace Bible Chapel, July 7, 2024, Greg Rhodea PhD
I. Jesus the
22 Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. 24 The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
II. Jesus the
31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”
33 “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods” ’? 35 If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside—36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? 37 Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. 38 But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” 39 Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.
III. The End of Jesus’
40 Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. There he stayed, 41 and many people came to him. They said, “Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true.” 42 And in that place many believed in Jesus.
The Bottom Line
…by seeing the
…by
…by
My View of Eternal Security: “Perseverance of the Saints”
“Perseverance of the saints means that all those who are truly born again will be kept by God’s power and will persevere as Christians until the end of their lives, and that only those who persevere until the end have been truly born again” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology¸ 788).
Many passages indicate a believer’s salvation is secure: John 6:38-40; 10:27-29; Rom 8:1-2, 28-30; Eph 1:13-14; Phil 1:6; 1 Pet 1:3-5
Many passages indicate a believer must continue in faith or be in danger of losing salvation: John 8:31-32; Matt 10:21-22; Col 1:21-23; John 15:1-2, 5-6; Heb 6:4-8; Matt 10:32-33
Some key passages indicate that a failure to persevere in faith is evidence that a person’s relationship with God was actually illegitimate from the beginning: Heb 3:6, 14; 1 John 2:19
“Here we see why the phrase eternal security can be quite misleading. In some evangelical churches, instead of teaching the full and balanced presentation of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, pastors have sometimes taught a watered-down version, which in effect tells people that all who have once made a profession of faith and been baptized are ‘eternally secure.’ The result is that some people who are not genuinely converted at all may ‘come forward’ at the end of an evangelistic sermon to profess faith in Christ, and may be baptized shortly after that, but then they leave the fellowship of the church and live a life no different from the one they lived before they gained this ‘eternal security.” In this way people are given false assurance and are being cruelly deceived into thinking they are going to heaven when in fact they are not” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 806).