Featured The result of loving Jesus and keeping His commandments

These men could not have been saved because they could not have believed in the death burial and resurrection of Christ this hadn't happened yet.
MB

 

Jesus says he will never leave nor forsake. He will not lose even one whom the Father gave him.
I trust what God says. Do you trust what God says?

 

"None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled." (John 17:12)

Sheep get lost. Sometimes they return safely, sometimes they don't (e.g. Judas Iscariot).

I'm trying to figure out how Calvinists reconcile sheep getting lost.

 

Still remain sheep even when out of the fold, do not change into goats!

 

So sheep that go astray and get lost are still saved even if they never return?

That would make Judas Iscariot the patron saint of Calvinism.

 

John 17, Jesus intercessory prayer, shows us the Supremacy of God. Judas was never a sheep given to be kept unto eternity. Judas was chosen to fulfill his role in the redemptive process.
You may question God and hate Him for His Supreme authority over men, but He owes you or me no explanation at all.
Yet, he prays a Supreme prayer:

John 17:9-26 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify themin the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself,that they also may be sanctifiedin truth. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

 

Judas is explicitly called a sheep by Jesus...


---> "Behold, I am sending you [the twelve] out as sheep in the midst of wolves." (Mt. 10:16)


---> "And Jesus said to them [the twelve], 'You will all fall away, for it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.'" (Mk 14:27)


Jesus also calls Judas...

- A "disciple" (Mt. 10:1)
- An "Apostle" (Mt. 10:2-4)
- "One of the twelve" (Luke 22:47)
- Sent "to proclaim the Kingdom of God" (Luke 9:2)
- "Chosen" (John 6:70)
- A "friend" (Mt. 26:50)


Furthermore, Judas was predestined to reign and rule with Christ...

"So Jesus said to them, 'Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.'" Matthew 19:28


One cannot "fall away" (Acts 1:25) from that which one never belonged. Yet Judas not only resisted grace, but he resisted He who is the source of all grace.


I'm trying to figure out how Calvinists reconcile sheep getting lost.

 

You cannot fall away from that which you did not belong.

---> "...to take the place in this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas fell away, that he might go to his own place." (Acts 1:25)

 

There is no passage that disqualifies God's elect.

 

All humans disqualify. There is no one righteous, not even one.
Our qualification is solely upon the gracious act of God to atone for our sins and impute Christ's righteousness upon us.

 

1 Corinthians 6:9 - Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

Galatians 5:19 - Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,
20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,
21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

1 John 3:9 - No one who is born go God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. (NASB)

1 John 3:9 - No one born (begotten) of God [deliberately, knowingly, and habitually] practices sin, for God’s nature abides in him [His principle of life, the divine sperm, remains permanently within him]; and he cannot practice sinning because he is born (begotten) of God. (AMPC)

 

This is why salvation is by God's grace.

Ephesians 2:4-10 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Romans 8:29-30 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

 

Strawman question.
The letters to the churches have nothing to do with God's redemptive reconciliation of sinners. But, feel free to start a new thread on the subject if you wish.