John 10:27-29 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
A spiritually dead person can no more give himself spiritual life than a physically dead person can give himself physical life. That requires a supernatural act on the part of God. By that supernatural act God Himself, through His Holy Spirit, sovereignly takes us out of the kingdom of Satan and places us in His spiritual kingdom by a spiritual rebirth.
And having once been born into the kingdom of God, we can never become unborn. Since it took a supernatural act to bring us into a state of spiritual life, it would take another such act to take us out of that state. Hence the absolute certainty that those who have been regenerated and who therefore have become truly Christian will never lose their salvation, but will be kept by the power of God through all the trials and difficulties of this life and will be brought into the heavenly kingdom.
This gift of eternal life is not conferred upon all men, but only upon those whom God chooses. This does not mean that any who want to be saved are excluded, for the invitation is, “and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life” (Rev. 22:17). The fact is that a spiritually dead person cannot will to come. “No man can come to me unless the Father wo sent me draws him” (John 6:44). Only those who are quickened (made spiritually alive) by the Holy Spirit ever have that will or that desire… And concerning them Professor Floyd Hamilton has very appropriately written: “All that God does is to let them alone and allow them to go their own way without interference…God save all who want to be saved, but no one whose nature has not been changed wants to be saved.”
The Reformed Faith by Loraine Boettner, pg. 10-11.
