Never to Be Cast Out
As readers may know, I have been diagnosed with a progressive neurodegenerative disease known as Lewy body dementia. This disease always ends in death, though the path by which that outcome arrives varies. I do have good days where I have few or even no symptoms, but there are other days where I can be quite discombobulated. Lewy body dementia is known for its ups and downs. I’m on several medications and these should help delay the onset of the most serious symptoms. Nevertheless, humanly speaking, I have accepted the reality: there is no cure and unless something else happens first, sooner or later this disease will end my earthly life.
It’s something I often reflect on. I won’t be able to grieve for my wife and children later, but I do now. I grieve for what they experience now already, but I also think of what invariably is to come. But when I think about what I’m going through and will go through, the gospel is my hope and strength. For over 25 years I was blessed to preach Christ and the comfort we have in belonging to him. The message that encouraged others is my bedrock and why I can face an uncertain future (how the disease will progress) and a certain end (death) with confidence. Even in my trials, this gospel gives me joy.
I often think of Christ’s words in John 6:37, “All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” These are beautiful gospel words, worthy of our attention for a few moments.
Who are those who have been given to Jesus by the Father? To answer that, we need to go elsewhere in John’s Gospel. In chapter 10, Jesus says the Father has given “the sheep” to him. The sheep are the elect. The sheep are those who’ve been chosen by God for salvation. The sheep are those who then believe in Jesus Christ. The Father has entrusted these specific individuals to his Son for salvation.
All those, all the elect, will come to Jesus. In other words, they will all in due time believe in Jesus Christ as their Saviour. All the elect will share in the gift of faith. The Holy Spirit will come to their cold, dead, sinful hearts. He’ll make hearts of stone turn into hearts of flesh. He’ll work the miracle of regeneration. The Holy Spirit will cause people to be born again and then they’ll believe in Jesus Christ.
When they come to him in faith, he’ll never cast them out. When Jesus says he will never cast them out, he’s using the strongest possible terms in the original Greek. He will certainly never throw out anyone who believes in him. The idea behind that can be likened to a house. You can come into a house and then someone might throw you out. But Jesus says, if you have come into my house, I will never toss you out. You come into his house through faith. Once you are in his house, really once you are in him, he will never fling you away. Believing in him, you’re secure with him.
That encouragement only grows stronger in the following verses. He affirms in verse 38 that as the Son of God his mission is to do the will of the one who sent him. His calling is to do God’s will. Verses 39 and 40 lay out exactly what that will is. Here we find some of the best encouragement that Jesus has to offer believers.
Christ says the Father’s will is that he should lose not a single one of those given to him, but raise them all up at the last day. We already saw that those given to him are the elect. Now Jesus says he has come to do what the Father wants. The Father wants each one of those elect people to be preserved. He has the power to do it and the will to do it. So the elect will be preserved. Right here we have that beautiful doctrine of grace known as the perseverance of the saints. The saints, all true believers, are going to persevere. They’re going to do that because Jesus is going to see to it. He won’t lose a single one of those who’ve been entrusted to him.
This is an awesome gospel truth. This is powerful stuff for life. Let me explain how.
We live in a world vandalized by the fall into sin. Things are breaking down. We’re breaking down. Not just me, but all of us are terminal cases. Right now, if everything is clear in your mind and God’s grace enables you, you can take hold of Christ and believe. He holds on to you, but you’re also holding on to him. But what happens when that mental capacity is gone?
I often think of my maternal grandfather, my Opa Vanderland. In the last four years of his life, he suffered with dementia. It was an Alzheimer’s type, quite different to Lewy body. Every time I’d go to visit with him, I’d have to introduce myself. And then five minutes later, I’d be a stranger to him again. He didn’t have the mental capacity to remember me or any other family members. For a long while, he still knew about his God and Saviour, but eventually that went too. He became a shell of a man. Throughout his life up to then, he’d been a professing Christian, but now he couldn’t tell you anything about his faith or the Saviour. When he died, was he lost? No, because even if you lose your grip on Christ due to illness or some other circumstance, he’ll never lose his grip on you. We all have to learn this while we can.
Whether you’re young or old, you never know what might happen to you in the future. Like me, it might be some type of dementia. You might suffer another type of disease. You might have a depression so severe you can no longer see your Saviour clearly. You’ve lost your grip on him. It sometimes happens to Christians. But if you lose your grip on Christ, he will never, ever lose his grip on you. He is going to do the will of his Father. He is going to lose no one. If you’re truly trusting in Christ now, he’s simply not going to lose you. As I said, learn this now while you can. Fix it in your heart. You may get to a point where your grip on him is starting to slip away – you know you have that illness and it could be just a matter of time. This will be such a huge comfort to you then, even as it is to me right now.
Someone once said that if you had come to Christ and he would cast you out, you would be the first one in history. It’s not going to happen. Christ isn’t like that. Reflecting his and our Father, he is full of mercy and compassion. If you’re a Christian, you’ve always been in his hands, and you always will be. I love that teaching, and I pray you do too.
