Eternal security
By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
Last week Theology 101 introduced the analogy of divine birth as one way of thinking about and undergirding the formal understanding of belief about the eternal security of believers in Christ. The point was just as physical birth is an irreversible reality so is the spiritual birth of each Christian. Hence, one who has been born again spiritually cannot become unborn but is eternally a child of God.
In addition physical birth is not a repeatable event. As a person is born once so a believer is born again only once. Jesus’ words to Nicodemus about the necessity of a spiritual birth were not, “You must be born again … and again … and again.” Once saved, always saved could be expressed as once spiritually reborn, always spiritually reborn.
Trustworthy and lasting gift
This week attention is drawn to the dual analogies suggested by Christ’s declaration in John 10:27–28: “My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.”
The first of these analogies is that of the divine gift. God’s Son made it clear His followers have been given eternal life that has the security of never perishing. What Christ gives is a trustworthy and lasting gift.
God who through Christ bestows eternal life is the joint trustworthy Giver. What God gives He does not retract. This divine gift has behind it the integrity and authority of its divine source. That divine integrity is expressed in the truth of Romans 11:29, “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
One of those irrevocable gifts is that of the believer’s eternal salvation.
Promising grip
The second analogy in John 10:28 is that of the divine grip. Once a repentant believer has believed in Christ, that believer is securely in the hands of the Savior from whose hands no one is able to snatch that person away.
On the occasion Jesus gave this promise He also went a step further to promise the double security of believers being not only in His hands, but also in the hands of His Father, promising, “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one” (John 10:29–30).
Eternal security is to be experienced and appreciated in terms of a divine birth, divine gift and divine grip.
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