Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1056
“I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.” John 10:28.
THOSE of you who were present last Thursday evening will remember that I spoke, then, upon the necessity of “holding fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end,” [A PERSUASIVE TO STEADFASTNESS, NO. 1042] and I showed you that it is only by continuing in the faith with which we began that we are proven to be partakers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let us speak as plainly as we may, we are always liable to be misunderstood. The most eager hearer may easily confuse his thoughts with our words, and so attribute notions to us that spring up spontaneously in his own mind.
Thus I met this week with an earnest anxious enquirer who thought I had meant that though a man should be a Believer in Jesus Christ, yet after all he might perish. I dare say some expressions I used led him to think so. Had he been long a hearer here, he could not have imagined that I could give utterance to such a statement! For all of you who hear me continually know that if there is one doctrine I have preached more than any other, it is the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints even to the end. What I intended to say, and I do not wonder that he did not quite understand me, was this—the Believer must always be a Believer—having began in that confidence, he must continue in that confidence.
The alternative would be that he draws back unto perdition, in which case he would perish as an unbeliever—and then the inference would be that the faith he seemed to have was a fiction, that the confidence he seemed to enjoy was a bubble—that he really never did believe to the saving of his soul. This is a fair argument based on the operation of the Spirit of God. It is in no sense a condition dependent on the good behavior of men. The one way by which a soul is saved is by that soul’s abiding in Christ—if it did not abide in Christ, it would be cast forth as a branch and be withered.
But, then, we know that they who are grafted into Christ will abide in Christ! We reason in the manner of the Apostle Paul who, when he had spoken of the danger that some were in that, having begun well, they should end badly—after being enlightened and tasting the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come, they should turn aside—he adds, “But Beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.”
The question, however, having been mooted, it occurs to me that it may not be unprofitable if I state briefly—not by way of controversy, but simply for the sake of instruction—the doctrine of the security of the Believer in Christ, the certainty of the Believer’s perseverance even to the end, and of his entrance into eternal rest. This text at once suggests itself to me—“I give unto My sheep eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hand.” The three clauses of this sentence represent to us three gracious securities. Here is a Divine gift—“I give unto them eternal life.” Here is a Divine promise, far-reaching and wide—“they shall never perish.” And here is a Divine holdfast—“neither shall any pluck them out of My hand.”
I. First, then, observe THE DIVINE GIFT—“I give unto them eternal life.” Eternal life comes to every man who has it as a matter of gift. He did not possess it when he first entered into the world. He was born of the first Adam and born to die. He did not educe it or evolve it from himself by some mysterious processes. It is not a home growth, a product of the soil of humanity—it is a gift. Nor is eternal life bestowed as a reward for service done. It could not be— for it is a prerequisite to the doing of service!
The term “gift” shuts out all idea of debt. If it is a gift, or of Divine Grace, then it is no more of debt or of reward. Wherever eternal life is implanted in any person’s soul it is the free gift of the Lord Jesus Christ—not deserved but
bestowed on the unworthy. Therefore we see no reason why it should be revoked from the person who has received it. For, suppose there are certain disqualifications in the man who has participated in the gift, yet they cannot otherwise operate to his prejudice in enjoying the gift than they would have operated to his ever receiving it if they had been taken into account at all.
The thing does not come to him because of any worthiness in him, but comes as a gratuity. There is no reason why it should not continue, since it has come into existence, or why the present tense, as we have it here, should not always be a present fact. “I give”—I continue to give—“to them eternal life,” that cannot be affected by an unworthiness subsequently discovered because God knows the end from the beginning. When He bestowed eternal life upon the man who has it, He knew right well every imperfection and failing that would occur in that man. These demerits, had they been reasons at all, would have been a cause for the not giving, rather than for giving and then taking away again.