Introduction by Kirk R. MacGregor - James Clarke and Co Ltd

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Introduction hand,” reflects the Johannine autograph. Rather, the original text of John pronounced, “That which my Father has given to me is greater than all, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand,” indicating the supreme greatness of Jesus’ sheep and their collective identity as a most precious gift by the Father to the Son. Due both to the irrevocable nature of the Father’s gift to the Son and to the infinite worth of believers, both individually and collectively, in the Father’s sight, the salvation of believers is forever secure. Relating it to John the Baptist’s maxim that “a person can receive nothing unless it is given to him from heaven” (3:27), Michaels places this promise in the larger context of John’s Gospel, where it is seen that God the Father decides the citizenship of his Kingdom by drawing disciples, who then validate their status as an intertrinitarian gift by coming to Jesus. In the high-priestly prayer of John 17, Jesus substantiates this reasoning by placing his disciples, past and present, in his list of gifts the Father has bestowed upon him (vv. 6, 9, 24). Given this assessment, Michaels closes his essay by displaying its added hermeneutical value for fully understanding the multilayered meanings of Christ’s parables about the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price (Matt 13:44–46), which are now seen to span two vantage points. For believers, the treasure and the pearl connote the Kingdom of God; but for Jesus himself, the treasure and the pearl allude to the company of the redeemed, an insight corroborated by a rare but probable logia Jesu from the Gospel of Philip independent of the canonical Gospels. Branching out from this locus classicus and building on the hermeneutical groundwork laid by Michaels, the next two chapters continue in Johannine studies with detailed analyses of individual pericopae furnishing unshakable assurance of the believer’s salvation. In chapter three, Shawn L. Buice probes John 6:38–40 for its ability to reveal the will of God, cognizance of which is vitally important for Christian discipleship and yet often seems a labyrinth incredibly difficult to decipher in particular life situations for laypeople and theologians alike. This confusion is increased by the nature of the scriptural witness itself: unlike such codes of religious law as the Jewish Mishnah or the Theravada Buddhist Vinaya Pitaka, the Bible features an absence of texts straightforwardly explaining what to do when faced with particular situations. However, John 6 explicitly identifies the will of God as, first, Jesus losing none of those the Father has entrusted him but resurrecting them on the last day, and second, the eternal life plus final resurrection, SAMPLE xxii © 2011 James Clarke and Co Ltd
Introduction presented as an amalgamated whole, of everyone who puts their trust in Jesus. Buice relates this exposure to the pragmatic aspects of the larger Johannine Christology, which in part present Jesus as a divinely commissioned agent whose desire is to accomplish the Father’s will. Admitting that a specific group of people, “those he has given me,” are referred to in John 6:38–40, Buice follows R. C. H. Lenski by arguing that this concession does not demand limiting the number of persons who can acquire salvation to a divinely pre-selected company. Rather, Buice interprets the further description of this group, “everyone who sees the Son and believes in him,” as a universal invitation which removes all religious and ethnic boundaries and places membership priority upon the hearer’s decision. Standing in a Baptist tradition borne out of both Particular and General Baptist streams, Buice marshals John 6 as support for a view denominated “preservation of the saints,” which mediates between synergism and monergism by drawing a distinction between the steps in the ordo salutis for which the individual and God are primarily, but not exclusively, responsible. Moreover, Buice maintains that a “preservation” model carries with it the pastoral advantage of preparing believers to rely exclusively upon God’s strength for carrying out the good, so escaping the psychological damage caused by thrusting believers back upon themselves for the responsibility of achieving sanctification. Chapter four treats the divine counsels reached prior to the creation of the space-time universe, as revealed by the high-priestly prayer in John 17. Here Jon Balserak insists that, far from an esoteric consideration with no practical relevance, a proper understanding of these counsels is imperative for the believer’s security. Balserak sheds light on their significance by recalling the Patristic controversy between Heracleon ( fl. 175), a Valentinian Gnostic who composed the first commentary on John’s Gospel, and the prominent early church leader, philosopher, and exegete Origen (185–254). On the one hand, Heracleon proposed that, for John, faith in Christ was a matter predetermined by a person’s conception by either God or the devil. On the other hand, Origen responded in his own Johannine commentary that belief was a matter of human free will. Dissenting from Heracleon’s interpretation of the pre-temporal counsels while not necessarily agreeing with Origen, Balserak avers that John 17 evinces an overarching covenant of redemption, whose parties are the Father and the Son sans any creaturely envoy. Established before the world’s foundation, this covenant stipulates that the Father will choose a people SAMPLE xxiii © 2011 James Clarke and Co Ltd
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Introduction by Kirk R. MacGregor - James Clarke and Co Ltd

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