Bill
Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…
Understanding important truths from the Bible….
Once Saved Always Saved
John 3:16 NKJV
16
For God
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in
Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
The one verse of Scripture which is the most
popular, most widely quoted, and most widely known is John 3:16. And I think it necessary to add, the least
understood.
It does not say
that all men have free will and can accept Christ if they will, which is
believed by most non-Calvinists.
It does not say
Christ died for the elect. Calvin denies
God is referring to the elect in this verse.
A.W. Pink claims that “world”
refers only to God’s elect. This
position of Pink has found agreement rarely in other reputable Bible commentaries.
The
misunderstanding of this verse lies in three errors.
- Defining “so” as an adjective rather than an adverb. In the Greek of the New Testament ,“so” in Vs. 14 and Vs. 16 are precisely the same word and they are, by virtue of the way they are spelled, adverbs.
- Defining “world” as every single individual person rather than in John’s sense throughout the Gospel as both Jews and Gentiles. John is a true Christian universalist. Salvation is no longer a Jewish national privilege (it never was), but it is to be inclusive of all manner of men everywhere.
- Defining “whosoever” as a statement of free will. Whether this is by ignorance or intent to deceive, it is equally in error. The word translated in the King James Version as “whosoever” is the simple pronoun “all”. This pronoun is immediately followed by its antecedent, or that which defines it, “those who believe.”
To make “all”,
(Greek pas) mean “free will” is to
import a meaning into this that is not there.
If this meaning is found elsewhere is another matter, it is not here.
Having stated
the above we can understand the following truths from 3:16.
1. Salvation has as its source God’s
self-determined love. In its source
neither man’s activity nor the work of Christ on the cross is the origin of God’s
saving activity. That rises simply from
His self-determined love.
2. The result of that love is the gift of
Christ in His whole person for salvation.
This is His life, His death, His resurrection and His present reign.
3. This is done in the uniquely Divine
person of the God-man. God cannot
die. Man cannot redeem. The uniquely “only begotten Son” alone can do this. In His person and work He is always to be
realized as “given”. As the one “given”
it was always His purpose and personal intent to give His life for the
redemption of His people.
4.
In
the purpose of God the single way of entry into all the treasures stored in
Christ is through faith in Him. Let me
finish this thought with Galatians 2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for
if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
5.
What is due man separate from Christ is summed up here as
perishing. This is not a complicated
word. It means as it is used in this particular
tense “to be lost, to perish, to be
ruined”. It is, in the context of
John 3:16, to be outside the Kingdom of God.
6.
There is the adversative to perishing which is emphasized
by the strongest use of the Greek form “but”
(alla). The opposite of perishing is to “have everlasting life”. It is the design of God’s love that the end
product is this condition. It is neither
won by man nor lost by man.
Romans
5:6-11
6 For when we were still without
strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.
8 But God demonstrates His own
love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Much more then, having now
been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
10 For if when we were enemies
we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been
reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
11 And not only that, but
we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now
received the reconciliation.
Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am persuaded that
neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things
present nor things to come,
39 nor height nor depth, nor any
other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Hello Mr. Bill -- Thanks again for your post.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how to reconcile your position on salvation with the parables and examples that Jesus gave us in the Gospel.
He tells us the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14), where each man was a recipient of the master's generosity (i.e. saved by the master's freely-given gift) but only if he freely responded to the gift. And the man who did not respond was not welcomed into the kingdom.
He tells the parable of the sheep and goats, where the sheep inherit the free gift from the Father, but only if they respond to His grace by living with charity. Neither sheep nor goats knew whether they were doing God's will, but it's clear that their choices play a key role in their entry into the Kingdom.
Jesus also looks at the rich young man with love and invites him to come up higher, beyond following the law and into a life of total self-giving -- which path can only be followed at Jesus' invitation and through Jesus. But the young man makes his own choice to turn away when he could have accepted this free gift instead.
In these stories there's no indication that those who enter the Kingdom had received any gift or grace that the others did not; rather it's clear that all received the same invitation, and some responded while others did not.
I don't understand why there would be a need to "watch and pray" (Mt 26:41) if we could never be lost once saved; or why we'd be given the parable of the "lost" sheep if it were impossible for us to get lost after having entered the fold.
To me, it seems that a correct interpretation of St Paul must account for these clear teachings of Our Lord.
Thanks again!