In John 17:12, when talking about his disciples to the Father, Jesus says, “While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me.”
And by “safe,” Jesus meant safe from the devil, with a specific example in Luke 22:31, when he told his disciples, “Satan has tried his best to separate all of you from me, like separating chaff from wheat. So I prayed for you (32) that you’d never lose your faith in me.”
And here in John 17 Jesus is praying for his disciples again, and for the same reason, when he says in verse 9, “I’m not praying for the world, but for those you (Father) have given to me, for they are yours.” And what did he pray to his Father on behalf of his disciples for? Verse 11: “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name – the name you gave me – so that they may be one as we are one.”
And what better guarantee that the devil would never separate the disciples from God, than all of them being as one with God as the Father and Jesus are one? Their relationship with God was eternally secure.
But there’s another guarantee of their eternal security tucked away in that verse too, because of “the name the Father had given to Jesus.” It was the Father’s own name – along with the “power” of the Father’s name too. And that was powerful stuff because it enabled Jesus to keep his disciples perfectly safe (12).
And in so doing he revealed the indestructible power of the Father, which he, Jesus, had now been given too. And with that power Jesus proved in the lives of his disciples that the devil had no power over them.
And isn’t that what the Father had sent Jesus to this planet for – to reveal through Jesus what he, the Father, was like (John 1:18)? Well, when it came to protecting his children he was invincible. The proof was right there in Jesus’ disciples; they were perfectly safe in Jesus’ care. And the Father being eternal, and Jesus too, meant the disciples were eternally secure as well; the devil would never be able to touch them.
But, same verse, John 17:12, didn’t Jesus lose Judas? So can some disciples slip through the net after all? Dare we ask, then: “Can we lose our salvation?”….(next blog)
