No One Will Snatch Them Out

[Christsfreeservant]

John 10:27-30 ESV

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will 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. I and the Father are one.”​

My sheep hear my voice

This is not speaking of literal sheep, but “sheep” is being used figuratively here to symbolize Jesus’ followers, i.e., those who are believing in him for their salvation from sin and for eternal life with God. We are the sheep of his pasture, and he is our shepherd (the one leading and guiding us).

His sheep hear (listen) to his voice. And to listen is more than just audibly hearing with our ears, but it has to do with paying attention and heeding what we hear, whether we hear audibly or in our spirits. It means we take what we hear seriously, and we act upon it, and we don’t ignore it.

And how do we hear Jesus’ voice? We hear it through the written word of God, and not just through Jesus’ words he spoke while he was on this earth, but through the apostles and what they taught, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And we hear it through the writings of the prophets of old, too.

But we don’t just hear him through the written word, but we hear him through his Holy Spirit who is indwelling the lives of those who believe in Jesus. He speaks to our hearts and he counsels, comforts, corrects, instructs, teaches, comforts, encourages, and guides us in the right way.

Also, we hear our Lord speaking to us through his creative works (Romans 1), and through our everyday circumstances, and through music and art and clouds and rain and children, etc. For, if he is living within us, he is speaking. We just have to be listening and heeding what he is saying.

I know them

Jesus Christ has a personal relationship with his sheep. He knows them personally and experientially because they are in relationship with him. This knowing has to do with intimacy, as well. There is a closeness in this relationship like between a husband and a wife.

So, what has to take place for this type of intimate relationship to take place between us and our Lord? Is there anything which might prevent this type of intimate relationship from taking place?

Jesus Christ first had to die on a cross for our sins, paying the price for our sins so that we could be delivered from slavery to sin and live to him and to his righteousness. Then, by faith in him, we are crucified with him in death to sin and we are raised with him to newness of life in him.

We are now delivered from our slavery to sin so that we can become slaves of God and of his righteousness. Now we no longer walk (in conduct, in practice) according to our flesh, but now according to the Spirit. For, if we are still walking according to the flesh, we don’t know God and we don’t have eternal life with God, and we aren’t in relationship with him.

[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 14:23-24; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; Matt 7:21-23; Matt 10:33; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8]

They follow me

To follow Jesus means that we are now his disciples, and we are cleaving steadfastly to him, being conformed to his divine nature, doing what he says to do in practice. It means we are obeying him. We are going where he sends us, and we are saying what he commands us to say.

We are following his example for how to live the Christian life in the power of his Spirit, and we are doing and saying the kinds of things that he said and did. He is our husband, and we are his bride. So, our desire is for him, to be with him, to please him, and to enjoy sweet fellowship with him.

It means we are walking in the fear of the Lord, and Jesus is our Lord (owner-master), and our lives are surrendered to him, to doing his will. Therefore, we honor God with our lives, we show him respect, we follow his leading, and we live our lives in conformity with his will for us.

I give them eternal life
They will never perish

Yes, the Scriptures teach that those believing in/on Jesus Christ have eternal life with God, but what does it mean to believe in him? It isn’t just words that we repeat after someone else in a prayer, and it isn’t just a public confession of him as Lord or a verbal profession of him as Savior.

The faith that God requires for our salvation comes from God, for we can’t even believe in Jesus unless God the Father first draws us to him (persuades us to put our faith in him). So, we submit to Christ as Lord, and die with Christ to sin, and live to Christ and to his righteousness in obedience.

For, if we walk in sin and we don’t live in obedience to our Lord, we don’t have eternal life with God, the Scriptures teach. For, we must continue in Christ and in his word and abide in him and walk in obedience to his commands until the end of time, too, to be assured of eternal life with God.

Remember that Jesus’ sheep listen to him, they heed his words, and they follow him in obedience, and he knows them intimately, and they will have eternal life with God. And they will never perish. So, this promise is not for those who make a cursory confession of Christ as Savior and Lord.

No one can snatch THEM out of my hand

Many people are quoting vv 28-30 and they are leaving out verse 27, and they are applying these promises broadly to all who make a claim that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior. But that isn’t saying what they are saying it is saying.

The promises of verses 28-30 apply to those who fit the description of his sheep in v. 27. We are those who are paying attention to what our Lord says, who are heeding his word, we are putting the word of God into practice, and we are following the lead of God’s Holy Spirit.

And this isn’t a one-time thing and then it’s over. This is ongoing until the day that we die. For the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us who walk (in conduct, in practice) according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. Daily by the Spirit we must be putting sin to death.

So, if we are paying attention to the word of the Lord, and if we are following him in obedience, as a matter of practice, and we are continuing in him and in his word, and we are not continuing to live in sin, then we will not be snatched out of our Lord’s hand.

But if all we do is profess him as Savior and Lord and then we continue on in our sin, only now without guilt, and we ignore our Lord’s commands (New Covenant), and we live for ourselves instead of for him, these verses here don’t apply to us. This is not a promise we can claim.

For, faith in Jesus Christ is more than words. It is living out the faith we say we have in Jesus Christ by doing what he says to do. Jesus wants more than words from us. He wants our hearts surrendered to him forever.

[Rom 12:1-2; Tit 2:11-14; Eph 2:10; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; Eph 4:17-24; Col 1:21-23; 1 Co 6:19-20; 2 Co 5:15]

More Than Words

BETTENCOURT, NUNO / CHERONE, GARY F.

Saying I love you
Is not the words I want to hear from you
It's not that I want you
Not to say, but if you only knew
How easy it would be to show me how you feel…

Hold me close don't ever let me go
More than words is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me
Cos I'd already know

 

[honey badger]

to be lifted up (hung on a tree) is to be caught between heaven and earth, pictured as being crucified between to thieves .... and one and the same as reasoning between two fruits of a tree ...

it is this mentality we are called out from

"Therefore come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean, and I will receive you."

 

[TedT]

John 10:27-30 ESV

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will 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. I and the Father are one.”
My sheep hear my voice

This is not speaking of literal sheep, but “sheep” is being used figuratively here to symbolize Jesus’ followers, i.e., those who are believing in him for their salvation from sin and for eternal life with God. We are the sheep of his pasture, and he is our shepherd (the one leading and guiding us).

His sheep are the elect who have gone astray into sin (like the prodigal son). The holy and elect angels are never called sheep, only sinners are called sheep.

But Peter (1 Peter 2:25) writes that converts to Christ are sheep gone astray into sin who have RETURNED their Savior... which to me implies that they were with HIM as family before they went astray into sin. To go astray into sin must mean they did so from rebellion as GOD tempts no one to sin and Christ would never reject any faithful person, and I am sure that the Shepherd was not negligent.

Therefore, it is normally obvious that Peter is writing to some apostatized (gone astray) elect Christians (people of the flock). It is also normally apparent that what he was writing is intended for every new convert in every age since.

Therefore, it seems normal that the Holy Spirit would have us believe that all of the Church has personally apostatized from Christ prior to their conversion in this life. Since we are conceived as sinners, it is easy to see that we apostatized from Christ before our conception and that is why we are sinners at our birth.
Interesting aside:

RETURN
Return means to go back to where you once were…

Ecclesiastes 12:7 ...and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Gave it what? Life on earth no doubt. Well if the dust goes back to its pre-conception state does this not imply the spirit goes back to its pre-conception state? And unless you want to argue that this means annihilation because pre-conception we had no life of any kind whatever, then you must accept that we did have a spirit life pre-earth, and then were sown into the world by the Son of Man, Matt 13:36-39, or the devil.

RETURN? How does GOD use return:
Job 1:21 And Job said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb and naked shall I return thither. Do we really think Job is planning on returning to where he was born from, his mother's womb, or is this a poetic way of saying he is going back to where he came from, Sheol. Where else could he be going?

Psalm 9:17
KJV - The wicked shall be turned into hell …
NASV - The wicked shall return to Sheol ...
Kiel - Delitzsch(#16) - Yea, back to Hades must the wicked return.

In this verse, we get a peek at the 'created on earth' bias of the KJV translators against the pre-conception view, rendering return as turned. It is important to see this because, once we recognise the fact that almost every translator has a bias against pre-conception theology, we must realise that we will often have to look very thoroughly at their translations of the Scriptures, if we are going to see past it.

From the other translations of this verse, we can see that these persons, at their death, return to Sheol, Hades, a place they have obviously been in before. Of course we accept return to mean return or to go back to where you once had been...its face value, and ignore the efforts of some to change its meaning.

I think that Peter bore added witness to this fact in 1 Peter 1:3 Blessed be the GOD and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ...which ...hath begotten us again unto a lively hope...

Just when was the first time you were begotten by GOD? And if 'begotten' refers to coming into Christ, when did you get unbegotten so you could get begotten again? Well, unless you are one of those earthly backslidden types, the only time such an un-begetting or rebellion could have taken place is prior to your conception. And since Peter is writing to the whole Church rather than to just the backslidden types, he could be referring to a pre-conception rebellion and the straying of HIS elect since that time, which straying or rebellion ends only upon conversion to obedience unto holiness to that Shepherd, that is, upon being born in Christ (begotten) again. The words support this interpretation though it has been ignored for centuries.

Peace, Ted