ANNOUNCER: What does John’s Gospel say about the assurance of eternal salvation? When Jesus evangelized, did He talk about assurance of salvation? How does current Free Grace theology compare to what Jesus said? This is Grace in Focus. Thank you for joining us today. Grace in Focus is the radio and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. You can find out more about us at faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. 

Now with our discussion today, here are Bob Wilkin and Bob Vacendak. 

BOB W: Bob, we’re going to be talking about assurance and the Gospel of John, which is one of the major chapters, if not the major chapter in your dissertation, right? The gospel of John is a pivotal book for assurance. Why? 

BOB V: Well, first of all, the entire book from beginning to end was written specifically to people who did not believe. And God’s purpose for that book is so people might believe that Jesus is the Christ and that believing they have life in His name. 

BOB W: John 2:31.

BOB V: Correct. So the entire purpose, even for the Last Discourse, that’s not written to believers. Now believers can profit from it, but it’s written that as well as all of the promises about eternal life, it’s all written to help move a person who is not believing the promise of Jesus to a person who does believe the promise of Jesus and knows that He has eternal life. 

BOB W: Okay. Now the last discourse is what? John, the Upper Room Discourse, John 13 through 17, and the high priestly prayer in 17?

BOB V: They’re not in the upper room the whole time. And so that’s why people call it the Last Discourse. 

BOB W: Yeah, and they end up in Gethsemane. So John’s Gospel is pivotal for assurance because its purpose is that people might believe and by believing have life in His name. And what they’re believing is Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, which we need to talk about what that means too. So lots of people, however, don’t go to the gospel of John for assurance. As we spoke about in the last couple of episodes, most people in Christianity today look at themselves for assurance. They look at their works. They look at their feelings. And if they look at the objective promises in the Bible, it’s interesting they don’t tend to focus on the Gospel of John. They tend to focus more on warning passages or passages that call for perseverance or James chapter two or whatever. 

BOB V: It’s because the leaders that they’re under teach them that way. They teach them to look at their own lives. They teach them to look at the fruit of the Spirit. If it’s a reality in their life. They tell them, Hey, is the Spirit is he witnessing to your spirit that you’re a child of God? And all of these are causing people to look to their own lifestyle, their own Christian testimony to see whether or not they have what it takes, which is totally antithetical to the gospel that the Lord Jesus gave that they would look to themselves rather than to what He’s promised. 

BOB W: Okay. So where in the Gospel of John, would you take people for assurance? BOB V: You can take them to many places. One of my favorites is John 5:24 because, like John 3:36, John 6:47 and John 6:54, John 5:24 has the word “has” in it.

BOB W: “Has everlasting life,” present tense. 

BOB V: Yes. And so that is powerful. Now, passages like John 3:16 and others that have a subjunctive verb in there. I don’t want to get into the weeds or anything, but they kind of don’t sound quite, because they say “may have.” 

BOB W: Like John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should,” now some translations have will. But many translations say “should not perish,” but “should have everlasting life.” And the reason is there are subjunctive verbs there. And the subjunctive mood conveys conditionality. And so people say, well, it says they should have it. But no, the conditionality is if you believe you have, if you believe you have a eternal life, if you believe you’ll never perish. That’s why some translations translate it as “will not perish, but has everlasting life,” because the condition is believing. And if you do that, then you have it. I think in your dissertation, you talk about a lot of these “never” passages, right? Isn’t John 3:16 one of them, will not perish? I guess it doesn’t use ou me though, it’s just “not perish.” 

BOB V: Right. Well let me talk about John 5:24 for a second, because you asked, where do we take someone? Because for instance, John 5:24, “He who hears my word and believes in Him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” That word has that flies in the face of Calvinistic and Arminian theology. I don’t know how you can say something that’s so much different because both of those theology say, one day, I’m going to have assurance that I’ll be with God forever. And it’s when I die. And that’s so sad because Jesus is so clear. “He who hears My word, believes in Him is that me has everlasting life.” And so when a person takes Jesus at His word, when they understand that Jesus is promising them eternal life, and they believe Him, instantly that person has something that is eternal.

BOB W:  And they know it, right? 

BOB V:  Correct. Of course they know it! 

BOB W:  It’s not like He’s keeping this a secret.

BOB W:  What’s interesting about the verse you’ve chosen, I have other friends that say it’s their favorite assurance, their favorite evangelistic verse because it has a present tense, a future tense, and a past tense. And so the present tense is everlasting life. So you find somebody who believes in Jesus, the one whom the Father sent, that person has everlasting life, and because it’s everlasting life, well, they’re always going to have it. 

But secondly, future tense, they will not come into judgment or condemnation, either way you take that. And then, but they’ve already past tense, past from death in the life, and the life obviously is the same everlasting life. So the middle element shall not come into judgment means judgment regarding everlasting life. Believers will be judged, but not concerning our eternal destiny. 

BOB V:  That’s correct. And again, I want to say this again is that it’s just so difficult to understand how a person can cling to Calvinistic or Arminian theology, and yet take John 5:24 or verses in John like that, and how they can look at that that way and just write that off. You know, it’s like I said at the conference, “Lord, Jesus, you don’t understand the Bible, you don’t understand what you’re saying. You’re telling people you can know it right now.” They don’t ever say anything like that, but that’s exactly what they’re doing when they argue against the Free Grace view of John 5:24. 

BOB W:  Right. Or John 6:47, “He believes in me, has everlasting life, and did you mention John 3:36? 

BOB V:  Yeah, John 3:36, 

BOB W:  Which is John the Baptist. Some people think that’s John the Apostle, but I think that’s still the testimony of John the Baptist. And he’s talking about having everlasting life as a present possession, and we’re not going to be judged concerning everlasting life, and we’ve already passed from death into life. There’s no going back. And so it’s like, you’re right, what a lot of people do with their theology is they contradict the Lord Jesus Christ and they don’t really realize it. But they think they’re okay because, well, my pastor says so, or my denomination says so, or my Pope says so, or my Archbishop says so, or my Cardinal says so, or whoever it is, my priest. 

BOB V:  And they’re making the same mistake that the academics or the theologians make when they want to study the teachings of now dead theologians. And they spend their entire lives scouring what that person has said when that person may not have even been sharing biblical truth. 

BOB W:  They may not even have been born again. I mean, a lot of the commentaries that I have are written by liberals, but they did devote themselves to studying the book so they make some helpful comments. But I think it’s vitally important that people recognize that if we go to verses that are dealing with sanctification and we try to make those assurance verses, well, then we’re not going to have assurance. The only way you can go to a sanctification verse and be confident that, yes, I’m walking in the light is because I already know I have everlasting life. If I don’t know I have everlasting life, I have no basis of knowing if I’m walking in the light or not. 

And so, it all starts with assurance. And until we have assurance, we don’t have the life, right? He who has the Son has the life, he who does not have the Son, does not have the life.”  And in order to have the Son, we have to have the testimony within us. And it’s the testimony that God gives everlasting life to all who believe in His Son. 

BOB V:  Correct. And so, in the gospel of John, what we have is there’s four different areas that are so important to the idea of assurance of salvation. You talked about the “never” passages. There’s six of them in John and then Jesus says in Hebrews chapter 13, “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” that never, that Greek phrase, ou me, is highly emphatic. 

BOB W:  Okay. Ou is no. And me is no. Either one of them independently means no. But ou me is double no. It doesn’t make it a positive. Instead, it makes it much more emphatic. Like never ever. 

BOB V:  Yes, never ever. And so, you’ve got those passages over and over that are used in John. You’ve got these passages where they use not only that word “never” in the English. By the way, you know, I often when I’m teaching say, and so, do you know what what that word never means? Everybody laughs because they know what it means. It’s final, it’s like never. Everybody knows what that means except theologians.

BOB W:  Yeah, I’ve often thought if you want to make John 3:6 complicated, go to seminary. When I was doing my master’s thesis at Dallas Seminary on the Perseverance of the Saints, the librarian gave me an article from Presbyterian pastor, a Calvinist pastor. And the guy said, I never preach on John 3:16 because it’s too complicated. Literally. And he went on to say in the article that I tell people they have to have three or four years worth of good works before I have enough evidence that they’re genuinely saved. And so, you can see how lots of people, they’re going to stay away from the Gospel of John because it’s sure sounds like if you just believe you have everlasting life. And so, they don’t want that so they go elsewhere. 

Well, thank you so much, Bob. We’re going to go ahead and do a part two on assurance. How many do you say “never passages,” six? So, we’ll go through those six “never” passages and we’ll go through the rest of the Gospel of John. 

And in the meantime, let’s all keep grace in focus. 

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On the next episode: we continue with what the Gospel of John says about eternal salvation. Please join us and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.