None Of Them Is Lost

It is perhaps worth mentioning, though a moment’s thought would reveal it, that the atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ not only saved sinners from death and hell but gained for them everlasting life and glory. The redemptive sacrifice of the Lord Jesus brought eternal security as well as God’s full and free salvation to all His chosen people. Christ’s death accomplished in time what God’s will purposed from eternity. Our Saviour did not save us on the cross only to relinquish us under the complexities of life and lose us in the end. 

A gospel certainty

‘Once saved, always saved’, is a central pillar of the gospel of God. All those elected by God to salvation were given to the Lord Jesus Christ in the covenant of peace to be redeemed from their sin and freed from all guilt and condemnation. Our ever-blessed Saviour tells us in this High Priestly prayer that He has finished the work He was given to do. That included saving and keeping. Every chosen sinner will be saved and every saved sinner will be delivered home to glory. While in the world Christ kept His people in God’s name. We are still kept safely in God’s name.

We belong to Jesus

The power to save and power to keep those who are saved is vested in Christ. We are the possession and property of our Lord Jesus. The Saviour says in John 6, ‘All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out’. He continues, in John 10, ‘And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand’.

Our present hope

The immoveable foundation upon which our eternal security is fixed is the promises we have from the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We have an interest in each Person’s common cause for our grace and glory. We who believe belong to the Father by election. He chose us to eternal life before the world began. We belong to the Son by assignation. We were given into the hands of the Saviour to be redeemed with His precious blood. We belong to the Spirit by placement. He set us apart in the Lamb’s Book of Life. He calls us forth by conversion from amongst the fallen in Adam and comforts us with the gospel.

Them and us

What the Lord Jesus says concerning the loss of none of those given to Him by the Father has particular reference to His immediate disciples but is equally true for all the elect. The redeemed shall be kept. Not one will be lost; not one can be lost. The removal of a single chosen sinner out of Christ’s hand would invalidate Christ’s atonement, compromise the efficacy of His blood, contradict the will and power of the Father, and deny His justice and faithfulness. 

All-glorious Saviour

Far from there being any possibility of Christ being shamed by losing one for whom He died, He is honoured, rather, in successfully accomplishing His work and bringing His people to glory. Here we are told that Jesus is glorified in us; not because we are good but because we are saved. He declares, ‘And all mine are Thine, and Thine are mine; and I am glorified in them’. Christ is glorified by the success of His work for us and in us. The church is Christ’s trophy. Our final salvation is His victory. Our righteousness is to His everlasting praise.

Kept in God’s name

When the Lord returned to heaven He enlisted His Father’s care, and that of the Holy Spirit, for the protection and preservation of His Bride. The Lord’s people are a kept people. At Christ’s behest we are kept safe by God’s power and authority, and preserved through His own Name. We are kept completely, in life and in death, according to God’s pre-ordained purpose. We are kept faithful and trusting according to the gift of faith given to us. We are granted every temporal and spiritual need according to the wisdom and kindness of our loving God. ‘All things work together for our good’ … ‘for they that be with us are more than they that be with them’.

Kept forever

God’s people are in the world, though we are not of the world. We dwell amongst people who are unsympathetic to our beliefs and opposed to our Saviour. We are prone to attacks from the world, the flesh and the devil. It is necessary that we be kept by God’s grace and power, safeguarded under His daily care and preserved against all the opposition we face. Our Saviour lost none of those committed into His charge. Nor will the Father lose any who have been returned to Him. Brothers and sisters, be assured, your eternal destiny as a believer in Jesus Christ is fixed, certain and sure. 

Amen.