No Man Plucks Them

"And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." (John 10:28). It is the verse most often quoted for eternal security, and it is nearly always quoted alone. Years ago I studied John 10 with a small group for a week, and I came away convinced that the verse is true, that it means exactly what it says, and that it does not mean what it is usually used to mean. The chapter is about authority: who has it over the flock, who lost it, and who never had it. Read whole, it is one of the most comforting chapters in the Bible and one of the most sobering, and it is both at once.

The prophets in the room

Jesus did not invent the picture. He was standing in front of the priests and Pharisees, the men who inherited the care of Israel's flock, and He was quoting their own prophets at them. Ezekiel had said it six hundred years before: "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them." (Ezekiel 34:2-4). The result was the scattering: "And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them." (Ezekiel 34:5-6). Jeremiah said the same: "Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD. Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD." (Jeremiah 23:1-2). And even in the scattering God did not abandon them: "Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come." (Ezekiel 11:16). Then the promise. God would take the flock away from the hirelings and shepherd it Himself: "Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them. For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out." (Ezekiel 34:10-11). "I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment." (Ezekiel 34:16). And the shepherd He would send would be David's Son: "And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd." (Ezekiel 34:23); "Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth." (Jeremiah 23:5).

So when Jesus said "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." and "But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep." (John 10:11-13), every priest in the room knew which prophecy He was standing in and which side of it they were on. He was not only calling them unfaithful. He was telling them the thing Ezekiel had promised was happening: the flock was being taken out of their hands. That is why they picked up stones by the end of the chapter. It was not an abstract claim to deity that enraged them; it was the claim to their sheep.

One flock

"And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." (John 10:16). The prophets had said God would gather the remnant "out of all countries" (Jeremiah 23:3). Jesus says the gathering reaches past Israel's fold, and the result is not two flocks under two arrangements but one flock under one shepherd. Everything the site says about Israel and the church is in that one verse (see The End Times: One Story, Not Two). The same promise in Ezekiel that gives the flock a new heart also says who is not in it: "And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God." and then, in the next breath, "But as for them whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord GOD." (Ezekiel 11:19-21). The new heart and the warning are one paragraph. Keep that in mind; John 10 does the same.

Who has the authority

Here is the hinge of the chapter, and it is the part the security proof-text leaves out. Before Jesus says no one can pluck the sheep from His hand, He says the same thing about His own life: "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." (John 10:17-18). No man taketh it. Not Satan, not the priests, not Pilate, not the mob. Nobody had authority over the laying down of Christ's life except Christ, by the Father's commandment. Then, ten verses later, the same claim about the sheep: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand." (John 10:27-29). The two sayings are one saying. No one has authority over the laying down or the raising up of the Shepherd, and no one has authority over the laying down or the raising up of His sheep, except God. That is what the verse promises, and it is everything. "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:28). "There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?" (James 4:12). Man cannot send you to hell. Satan cannot. Demons, governments, false teachers, your worst enemy, your own family: none of them can pluck you out of that hand. We have no reason to fear any of them. Paul's list in Romans 8 is the same promise with every candidate named: "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39). Read the list again. Every item on it is something outside you.

So why all the warnings?

That is the question I could not get past in that study, and the chapter answers it. If nothing outside can take a sheep from the Shepherd, why does the same Shepherd spend so much of the New Testament warning His sheep? Because the danger was never outside. "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:" (Matthew 15:19). Our biggest problem is not the wolf. It is the heart the wolf appeals to. And the one who holds the authority over the sheep is the one who says what happens to a sheep that will not follow. The same Jesus, in the same Gospel, five chapters on: "Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." and "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." (John 15:2, 6). The Father takes away; the Father casts forth. No man can pluck, and He will not need any man to. He does it Himself, because He is the only one with the authority to, and the entire Bible is the record of Him doing exactly that with a people He never stopped loving. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." (Hebrews 10:31). It is fearful because those hands are the only ones that can do anything to you at all.

Look at what the promise itself says the sheep do. "My sheep hear my voice... and they follow me." The verbs are present and continuing, and they are the sheep's verbs. The promise is made to sheep that hear and follow, which is the same shape as every promise in Scripture: the Spirit who will "abide with you for ever" is promised to those who abide (see Take Not Thy Holy Spirit From Me), the branch that is never cut off is the branch that abides in the Vine (see The Vine). "Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father." (1 John 2:24). None of this weakens the promise. It tells you who it was made to.

Shepherd, hireling, thief

Augustine preached on this chapter and found three men in it, and his sorting is still the best I know. "The Shepherd is to be loved, the hireling is to be tolerated, of the robber must we beware." The thief "climbeth up some other way" (John 10:1); the hireling flees when the wolf comes because "he careth not for the sheep"; the Shepherd lays down His life. And Augustine asked who it is that enters by the door, and answered with the publican: "the confession of sins invites the physician's healing; as in sickness, he that says, I am well, seeketh not the physician." "And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." (Luke 18:13-14). The man who exalts himself climbs another way; the man who confesses enters by the door. That is a warning about shepherds, and Ezekiel's woe still stands over every pastor who feeds himself. But it is also a warning about sheep. A sheep that is sure of itself is climbing.

Conditional and secure

I wrote to a small group years ago that God's salvation is both conditional and secure, and that those two words do not conflict. I still believe it, and John 10 is where I learned it. It is secure because the hand is God's, and no creature can open it. It is conditional because the sheep is a sheep only while it hears and follows, and God Himself, who alone has the authority, says what becomes of a branch that will not abide. Richard Taylor put the contradiction of the other view in one paragraph: it tells the sinner to repent, as though he were responsible, then tells him once saved he is secure, as though he were not; it gives a man the ability to get into the kingdom and denies him the ability to get out. That is not a doctrine of security. It is a doctrine of two different men, one before conversion and one after, and Scripture knows only one. Paul, near the end of his life, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:12). He was apprehended, held in the hand; and he was still following.

There is an old error Paul names by name that looks a great deal like a modern comfort. Hymenaeus and Philetus were "Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some." (2 Timothy 2:18). They told believers the thing they were waiting for had already happened. Ask what that does to a man's faith. If the resurrection is behind you, you stop pressing toward it. If every sin you will ever commit is already dealt with in the past tense and nothing you do can touch your standing, the warnings become paper and the following becomes optional. That is why Paul says their word "will eat as doth a canker" and "overthrow the faith of some." Not because the promise was false. Because they moved it into the past and took the following out of it.

Both are His hands

Here is the verse that seems to stand against everything above, and I will not wave it off, because it is true and it is a comfort: "neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:28). I believe it with my whole heart. Nothing outside you, no enemy, no power, no circumstance, can snatch you away from God against your will. But pluck is the word He chose, and it matters. The Greek is harpazō, to seize by force; Barnes glosses it "to rob; to seize and bear away as a robber does his prey." The promise is against a thief. It says nothing about a sheep that wanders, which is the subject of every other warning in the chapter and the book.

And the same Bible that says no one can tear you out of His hand says, in the very passage that warns about falling away, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). Both of those are His hands. No one can steal you from the one; a person can still turn and walk out of it on his own feet, and find himself in the other. The hand that holds you was never a cage. Chrysostom, who had no quarrel with either verse, put the two together in one sentence:

Wesley reads verse 28 with the same clause: those Christ knows "shall never perish, provided they abide in my love." Gill takes the other side, and honestly: the sheep "were in the hands of Christ, before they were in the loins of Adam," held from eternity, so that nothing, including themselves, gets them out. That is the Reformed reading and it is coherent; it simply has to supply "including themselves," which the verb does not.

And there is a third text about the same hands, and it is the one that settles who the warnings are for. "Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him" (Luke 12:5). Jesus says it "unto you my friends" (Luke 12:4). Hebrews says its fearful thing to people who "have received the knowledge of the truth" (Hebrews 10:26) and adds, "The Lord shall judge his people" (Hebrews 10:30). So the promise is about other hands, and the warnings are about His. No enemy can take a sheep from the Shepherd. The Shepherd’s own hand is the one a sheep should fear to leave, because it is the only hand with power on the other side of death, and it is the same hand that bears the nail.

One caution on my own line, since the commentators press it. "The hands of the living God" is not always a fearful place. When David was given his choice of punishments he said, "let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man" (2 Samuel 24:14), and the Pulpit and JFB both note it: to fall into His hands "with filial faith in his father's love, though God chastises him," is good; it is fearful "as a reprobate and presumptuous sinner doomed to His just vengeance." So "both are His hands" is right, and the difference between them is not which hand but how you arrive: carried, or having walked out. Hebrews 10 is written to people who "counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing" (10:29), and the next verse says the Lord "shall judge his people." That is the hand the walked-out sheep meets. It is still His. Which is why, in the next section, He is still calling.

Return unto me

What God has wanted from His flock has never changed, from Moses to the last prophet to the last book: "Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the LORD of hosts." (Zechariah 1:3). "Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?" (Malachi 3:7). Return from where? From wherever we wandered. The same God who says no one can pluck His sheep from His hand also says, over and over, come back. Both are the voice of the Shepherd, and a sheep that hears His voice hears both. The Spirit did depart from Saul (1 Samuel 16:14), and the Word is "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12); God can divide what He joined. And David, who knew it, prayed "take not thy holy spirit from me," and was answered. "Quench not the Spirit." (1 Thessalonians 5:19). "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (1 Peter 4:17-18). Those are not verses for the goats. They are addressed to the house of God.

Chrysostom, preaching on the same chapter, notices where Christ puts the proof:

Not his skill, and not his authority. The special proof is that he dies instead of the flock.

Augustine, preaching the same chapter, heard the definite article as a guard. There are good shepherds, and then there is the One the word was made for:

Where this lands

"The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want." (Psalm 23:1). Fear no man, no devil, no power, no future. Not one of them can reach into that hand. Fear the One whose hand it is, the way a sheep fears the shepherd's voice, by following it. "These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended." (John 16:1). He spoke the warnings so that we would not fall, not because we could not. The hirelings have lost the flock; the Shepherd has it; and He is the door. Enter by Him, confessing, and stay.

Related: The Thief Did More Than Believe, What the Word Says, and What We Believe It Means, The Warning and the Way Home, The Security of Salvation, Take Not Thy Holy Spirit From Me, The Vine, Every Warning, Gathered, The Rod and the Staff, and One Story, Not Two. Scripture from the King James Version, linked to BibleHub; the words of Christ are marked in purple and the words of God in gold. Augustine's sermon on John 10 (Sermon 137 in the Benedictine numbering) is quoted from the public-domain Oxford translation. The Richard S. Taylor paraphrase is from his writing on Christian security. The core of this letter is a small-group share I wrote in 2018.