Introduction: As the author of one of the four gospel accounts in the NT, John emphasized more than any other that no one who is born again by the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus will lose this eternal life. With the heart of a true evangelist who wants others to find and believe Jesus, he most extensively quoted Jesus himself on this topic.
1) Read Jn 3:6-8. In this discourse, Jesus answered a Jewish leader what he meant by being ‘born again’ and why no one can ‘enter the kingdom of heaven’ without it.
- Was Jesus talking of the salvation of individuals or of the nation as a whole? [v3: “I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” => Since this was a one to one conversation, Jesus evidently spoke about the salvation of the individual that he was talking to]
- v6: Why is being born again essential for the salvation that Jesus was talking about? cf Jn 7:34; 8:21-24
- When do believers receive such new life? The moment they believe, or only in a future resurrection of the dead? Jn 3:16,36; cf Jn 4:14; 5:24-26
- “…that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”: Since this new life in Christ is spirit, can it still be destroyed? Why or why not? Jn 4:14; 6:40,47,51; 8:52-53; 11:25-26 If such eternal new life could still perish, how would it be superior to a natural life ‘in the flesh’?
- …and if it can still perish, how could it be called eternal in the first place?
2) Read Jn 6:37-40. After a miraculous sign of feeding 5000 people, Jesus taught them that he himself is ‘the bread of life‘ (v35), because he gives eternal life (vv27, 33).
- How did Jesus explain the fact that anyone at all will believe this? vv29,36-37 [Because of the Father…]
- v39: What did Jesus mean by “losing nothing that the Father has given him”?
3) Read Jn 10:25-30. What does it mean to never perish, v28? cf Jn 11:25-26
- Why can also no one steal the sheep from this Shepherd? v29
- How did John reconcile this fundamental truth with the fact that many who seem to begin as Christians fall away and make no pretense of believing Jesus later in life (as in the parable of the sower, Mk 4:1-9)? Jn 15:6; cf 1Jn 2:19
- If final apostasy proves that someone in reality never was truly Christian, what distinguishes genuine saving faith from theirs?
- Read Mk 4:20. What distinguishes genuine believers: Their own good works or their faith? cf Jn 6:28-29
4) Did John suggest that we cooperate with God to remain born again? => Why not? cf Jn 1:13
- Why did John mention this teaching of Jesus in almost every chapter of his gospel? cf Jn 16:1
- What difference does it make whether you believe that God will save and keep you in the faith?
- Differences of opinion (politically overshadowed by a struggle for independence from catholic Spain) arose in the early 17th century when a group following the Dutch Reformed minister Jacobus Arminius argued in one of 5 articles of remonstrance (protest) against the existing Protestant catechisms that even genuine believers may lose saving grace. 5 contrary articles by an international synod in Dordrecht in 1618-1619 rejected the Arminian position (=> 5 point Calvinism). Arminians in turn questioned the authority of that synod, so that the question continued to divide subsequent generations of Protestant theologians (for more information, see here):
- How do you explain this phenomenon?
- What do you think can or should Christians learn from that history?
- Can and/or should one remain ‘agnostic’ about the question? Why or why not?
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