Seven Miracles - Pt 29

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they made plans to put him to death. (John 11:47-53 ESV).

The fifth truth is that inside the universal offer of salvation, God has a particular design in the death of Christ to convert the elect, the scattered children of God, and bring them to himself. John says that Jesus died “to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (v. 52). In other words, God has a people chosen for himself all over this world (cf. Ephesians 1:4-5). Jesus said to Paul in a vision when he came to Corinth, “I have many in this city who are my people” (Acts 18:10). John says Jesus died to gather them. This is so much more than a mere offer. When Jesus died, one of the designs of his death, one of the particular purposes, was to infallibly bring those people to himself. We must not limit the purpose and the power of the death of Jesus to simply providing a way for all people to be saved. It is that! However, it is so much more than that! It is gloriously more than that! It is also the power and purpose to overcome the rebellion of God’s elect and bring them to faith. It is to gather the children of God. So many times the pivotal and much memorized verse that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16) has been misinterpreted. Christ died not only to offer the world salvation, but He also died to overcome the rebellion of the elect children of God and gather them omnipotently to himself. Amen and hallelujah for the true and universal offer of salvation to all who believe. But he did more. He called them and enabled them to believe. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead and defeated death forever is that which enables everyone who has been called to be saved. Not one will be lost. It is not a matter of ancestry; it is not a matter of religion; it is not a matter of geography; it is not a matter of creed or orthodoxy. It is all begun and completed in the power and purpose of God. This gives us the only hope worth having! We are saved because of the competed work of grace through Christ!