Works of John Bunyan: The Greatness of The Soul, And Unspeakableness of the Loss Thereof; Come and Welcome To Jesus-Christ, 243.

 

First, ALL cannot be intended in its largest sense. That ALL that is given to Christ, if you take the gift of the Father to him in the largest sense, cannot be intended in the text, is evident.

1. Because, then, all the men—yeah, all the things in the world—must be saved. “All things,” saith he, “are delivered unto me of my Father” (Matt 11:27). I think, no rational man in the world will conclude this. Therefore, the gift intended in the text must be restrained to some, like a gift that is given by the Father to the Son through specialty.

2. It must not be taken for ALL, that in any sense are given by the Father to him, because the Father has given some, yea, many to him, to be dashed in pieces by him. “Ask of me,” said the Father to him, “and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” But what must be done with them? Must he save them all? No. “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Psa 2). This method he used not with them that he saved by his grace, but with those that he and saints shall rule over in justice and severity (Rev 2:26–27). Yet, as you see, “they are given to him.” Therefore, the gift intended in the text must be restrained to some, like a gift that is given by the Father to the Son through specialty.

In Psalm 18, he says plainly, that some are given to him that he might destroy them. “Thou hast given me the necks of my enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me” (verse 40). These, therefore, cannot be of the number of those that are said to be given in the text; for those, even ALL of them, shall come to him, “and he will in no wise cast them out.”

3. Some are given to Christ, that he might bring about some of his high and deep designs in the world. Thus Judas was given to Christ, to wit, that by him, even as was determined before, he might bring about his death, and so the salvation of his elect by his blood. Yea, and Judas must so manage this business that he must lose himself forever in bringing it to pass. Therefore the Lord Jesus, even in his loss of Judas, applies himself to the judgment of his Father, if he had not in that thing done that which was right, even in suffering of Judas so to bring about his Master’s death, as that he might, by so doing, bring about his own eternal damnation also.

“Those,” said he, “that thou gave me, I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (John 17:12). Let us, then, grant that Judas was given to Christ, but not as others are given to him, not as those made mention of in the text; for then he should have failed to have been so received by Christ, and kept to eternal life. Indeed, he was given to Christ; but he was given to him to lose him, in the way that I have mentioned before; he was given to Christ, that he by him might bring about his own death, as was before determined; and that in the overthrow of him that did it. Yea, he must bring about his own death, as was before determined, and it was his overthrow that did it. Yeah, he must bring about his dying for us in the loss of the instrument that betrayed him, that he might even fulfill the Scripture in his destruction and in the salvation of the rest. “And none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”

Ted