Thursday, April 16, 2020

Assurances for the Sheep

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them; 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."  (John 10:27--29)

It is winter, and the Lord Jesus is walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon, crowded around by unbelieving Jews who incessantly questioned His claims and teaching.  Their demands for Him to declare plainly if He is the Anointed One, the Christ, are not made sincerely, but stem from unbelief (v. 25).  Importantly, the Lord Jesus cites the hidden reason for their stubborn unacceptance of Him: "...you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep." (v. 26)
I say hidden because the truth of God's election of certain individuals to salvation is revealed only by the Holy Spirit of God to the believing soul whom He has quickened.  Such grace is an inner verification to the believer's spirit, granting the assurance of eternal security in the Lord Jesus' sacrificial atonement. 
In this 10th chapter of John our Lord speaks of seven characteristics of His sheep (elect ones) that serve as wonderful assurances to the redeemed that they do, indeed, belong to the Good Shepherd.
(1.) SENSITIVE  "My sheep hear My voice" 
Our Lord is teaching here what the apostle Paul echoes in Rom. 8:16, "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God."  By contrast, "a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised," (I Cor. 2:14).  Thus, the Savior distinguishes between those who are lost and those who are saved by the sensitivity to His promptings.  Through prayer, the Scriptures, preaching of the Word, and witness of those around us, the Holy Spirit speaks to our heart, assuring us that we are His. 
(2.) KNOWN "I know them" 
Although it is true that God is omniscient (all-knowing), to say "I know them" implies more than awareness.  The Old Testament records the use of "know" in the most intimate of terms.  Gen. 4:1 records that Adam "had relations" with his wife, Eve (NASB).  The King James Version states that he "knew" her and she bare Cain.  The picture portrayed by our Lord Jesus, then, is one of an intimate, highly personal involvement with His elect.  He loves His sheep, His elect, with the depth of commitment and delight that a godly husband has for his godly wife, but perfectly. 
To the non-elect, however, the Lord Jesus states, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness," (Matt. 7:23).  In the day of judgment there will be those who call Him 'Lord,' and present miraculous deeds as 'proof' of their salvation, yet the deciding issue is whether or not He knew them, (vv. 21, 22).  Salvation in the final analysis is not a matter of our declarations, but of His sovereign initiative.
(3.) OBEDIENT  "they follow Me" 
As in the natural order of things, sheep belonging to a shepherd recognize his voice and follow his lead (v. 4), so in the spiritual realm, the elect not only hear His word but prove to be doers of His word, as well (James 1:22). 
Knowledge is really not a substitute for obedience.  In the upper room the Lord Jesus promised blessing for obedience: "If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them," (John 13:17).  He, then, immediately contrasts such blessing for His own with the disobedience of Judas Iscariot, whom He states, "...lifted up his heel against me," (v. 18; cf. Psalm 41:9).  Regardless how religious a lifestyle the unbeliever practices, he/she is still a rebel at heart (Jer. 17:9), and cannot please God (Rom. 8:8). 
Since to obey is better than sacrifice (I Sam. 15:22), the obedience of the child of God is to be motivated by love (I John 4:19), rather than reward. 
(4.) CONFIDENT "I give eternal life to them"
To rest in confident assurance, declaring to be true what the Lord has said is so, is not empty presumption.  To know the faithful witness of the blessed Holy Spirit that I am Jesus' child, engraving His ownership upon my heart through the use of His Word and seal (Eph. 4:30), realizing full well that His eternal life is a gift I neither earned nor deserved, is to glorify Him in His saving grace. 
Such biblical assurance has no equal for sustaining us through suffering.  Paul confidently declared, "For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day," (II Tim. 1:12).  We are to know in Whom we have believed, with confident gratitude for the eternal life He has given so freely.
(5.) INSEPARABLE  "they shall never perish"
The biblical meaning of death is separation.  Physical death involves separation of the spirit and soul from the body.  Spiritual death is also separation: the spirit is separated from God, in hell.  Christians are said to be "asleep" (I Thess. 4:13) or have "fallen asleep" (v. 15) or "fall asleep in Jesus," (v. 14), when they die, physically.  In stark contrast, the unsaved are said to perish, meaning to be damned forever. 
For the redeemed elect, there will never be a separation from the everlasting love shown toward them in Christ's salvation.  At the moment of physical death, the Christian, being absent from the body is at home with the Lord (II Cor. 5:8).  And nothing can separate us from His love, ever (Rom. 8:35--39).
(6.) SECURE  "no one shall snatch them out of My hand; ...no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand." 
The triune Godhead is pictured in Scripture as sovereignly and inseparably involved in the salvation of the elect.  In eternity past, the Father set His heart upon the elect ones (Eph. 1:4).  He also built a fence about them, as it were (v. 5), (the concept within "predestined").  In the fulness of time (Gal. 4:4) the Lord Jesus came in order to accomplish atonement for those whom the Father had chosen, becoming sin on their behalf (II Cor. 5:21).  He shed His sinless blood as He endured the cross, experienced death in the tomb for three days and three nights (Mt. 12:40), and defeated death's sting by rising from the dead (I Cor. 15:20).  Sent by the Father and Son, the blessed Holy Spirit then applies the blood-bought salvation to the elect by quickening them from spiritual death by His power and presence (Rom. 8:11). 
No one, then, who has experienced such a salvation can do anything to undo it.  No sin is so heinous that Satan can use it to snatch us from the eternal grip of the Father and Son.  Our fellowship can be broken (I John 1:9), but the relationship established at salvation cannot be broken, ever (Rom. 8:1).
(7.)  GIVEN  "My Father, who has given them to Me"
High mystery, this.  The Lord Jesus speaks of a revealing within the triunity of the Godhead, the Son being given by the Father the ones for whom He was to lay down His life (John 10:11, 15, 17).  His was to be a substitutionary atonement, as He would die in the place of those whom the Father had given Him. 
There is great comfort in verse 16 of this 10th chapter of John.  The Lord Jesus states that the elect who lived at the time of His sacrificial death were not the only sheep in the Good Shepherd's fold.  The "other sheep" would include all the elect of all time, constituting the completed body of Christ, the ones whom He "did purchase for God with His blood from every tribe and tongue and people and nation," (Rev. 5:9).  Worthy is the Lamb to be praised both now and forever!