Some would say that this passage is just about God's love for His creation in general... yet other verses are just as clear:
John 10:27-28 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand."
True believers - those redeemed by His amazing blood - hear His voice and respond, they follow Christ (obedience to His Word) and He gives them Eternal Life". Those who are truly redeemed shall never perish - and CANNOT be snatched (plucked/removed/dropped from) Christ's hand. How much more clear does God's Word need to be?
Philippians 1:6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Who began a "good work" in the believers in Philippi? God the Father, through the Holy Spirit! It is the Holy Spirit who acts as our preservative - our keeper.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. The old thing has "passed away" - passed away, as in death. Gone. Buried. When one truly accepts Jesus Christ as their personal savior, in complete repentance and becomes fully obedient - they put the old self away - the old self is nailed to the cross with our sins.
The problem that causes confusion and eventually false doctrine on the matter - that so many professed Christians "fall away" - either by "backsliding" (returning temporarily to the sins of the flesh), or by flat out running away from the Lord (and fully disavowing their faith. But again - God's Word deals with this: 1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.
If a man starts out and makes a profession but gives it all up, he will never be saved, because he was never born again to begin with, he was never truly changed by grace divine. True saving faith leads to a revolution within the person - one that results in the death of the old self, the chains of sin, and the will to sin. As Dr. Ironside once wrote:"it is quite possible to join a church, to make a Christian profession; it is quite possible to observe the Christian ordinances (Baptism and the Lord's Supper), to teach and to preach, and yet never be born again."
You see - Romans 10:9-10 9that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
Confessing with your mouth doesn't get you saved (though many cling to a "confession" (or sometimes called a profession). Yet just SAYING you are saved or have trusted Christ are not the same thing as appropriating God's gift of Eternal life. The believing in your heart is the key. But even "believing" or "faith" are sorely misunderstood terms. I have "known" and even had "faith" all my conscious life that Jesus was real, that He was the Son of God, that He died on the cross to pay for the sins of the world, that He rose from the dead. Yet until I actually placed my complete trust in His redeeming work. Until I acknowledge my sin and the cost of that sin. Until I went beyond being sorry, to truly being grieved by my life of sin, and repented - consciously chose to TURN FROM willful sin - then that "faith" was not a saving faith.
The unfortunate truth - evangelists and churches have laid claim to many numbers - of people who have "confessed" Jesus Christ. Some as the result of an emotion experience - others because "friends did it", and yet others because their parents wanted them too... and the list goes on. Is it any wonder we see so many seemingly just "walk away" from church, from a relationship with God, and from what looked like salvation?
But what we have to remember God's Sovereignty. It is God who calls us to repentance, to faith (which HE gives), and ultimately, to salvation. We cannot "keep ourselves" - but the sovereign, all-powerful, and Grace-giving God can.
The doctrine of losing salvation can only come from the one who would like nothing better than to convince one of God's Elect that they are lost - because they will act the part, damaging their testimony and impact on the world for God.
This is why I so clearly see and believe the words Paul recorded in 2 Timothy 1:12 For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.
