Experience peace by maintaining tensegrity in your theology.
John 6:37-40 (NIV)
37 "All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
Canons of Dordt
Point 1 - God's Unconditional Election
4 - A Twofold Response to the Gospel
God’s wrath remains on those who do not believe this gospel.
But those who
do accept it
and embrace Jesus the Savior
with a true and living faith
are delivered through him
from God’s wrath and from destruction,
and receive the gift of eternal life.
Summary
Jesus gives us a fascinating peek behind the curtain, so to speak, in today's passage. The people who come to Jesus are the people whom the Father gives to Jesus. As theologian Robert Mounce puts it, "The coming by faith to the Son is the unmistakable indication that they have been chosen by God." In other words, the evidence of your election is the fact that you've come to Jesus.
Jesus uses a strong negative statement to make a solid positive affirmation. When He says whoever comes to me I will never drive away, He also means that He will heartily welcome, keep and preserve all who do come to Him. We will certainly be coming back to this passage and others like it this year as we focus on how God's grace is stronger than we are in that we have the solid assurance that we will be held tightly in God's hand for all eternity.
This is why, Jesus says, that He needed to come down from heaven (a phrase that shocked those listening to Him!) in order to do the will of His Father who sent Him. God's unchanging will is that Jesus shall lose none of all those He has given Him. God's will is always accomplished, so as one who has been given to Christ, you can be certain you will never be lost! This doctrine gives us unspeakable comfort as we gather in the cemetery to bury the dead, knowing that Jesus will raise us up at the last day.
Dig Deeper
It's important that as we dig into these doctrines of grace that you learn to maintain tensegrity in your theology. Tensegrity is a contraction of the words tension and integrity. It's the solid, stable condition achieved when multiple opposing forces have an equal balance of tension and compression. Tensegrity enables bridges to cover spans of thousands of feet while carrying thousands of tons.
It seems that Jesus is presenting two mutually exclusive ideas here. On one hand, it seems somewhat fatalistic to understand that you're saved simply because God gave you to Christ, as if you're simply a pawn in some great cosmic transaction. On the other hand, Jesus lays out a number of imperatives that you must fulfill in order to achieve salvation. You must come to Jesus, look to the Son and believe in Him in order to gain eternal life.
The challenge for you is to live in the tension between these truths. If you lean too hard into God's sovereignty and conclude that because God gave you to Jesus you'll never be driven away no matter how sinful you remain, you will experience instability. But if you let go of God's sovereignty and depend totally on your own ability to look to the Son, you'll miss out on the comforting assurance of knowing for certain that Christ will raise you up at the last day.
But when you do the hard work of coming to understand how both of these concepts are equally true - the equalized tension between God's sovereignty and your responsibility - you'll live in the rock solid tensegrity that God desires for you.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who gave you to Christ that you would look to Him for salvation;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray for the wisdom, discipline, and strength to do the hard work of understanding sometimes difficult theological concepts;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: Mark 16
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