Hey guys, this is Justin. Today’s question is submitted by Gunner, and he asks, “Does Jesus ever turn away someone who desires to be saved?”

Well, Gunner, let me begin to answer your question by reading the words of Christ from John chapter six, beginning in verse 37, where he says, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out, for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

In this passage, we see very clearly that the Father gives people to Jesus. The Father has chosen people from before the foundation of the world, and has given them to Christ, the Son. Anybody that is given to Christ will come to him, and Jesus says that anybody who comes to him, he will never cast out.

So, in a sense, we can simply answer the question “Will Jesus ever turn away someone who desires to be saved?” with the proclamation that Jesus will never turn away anybody who comes to him in faith. He promises that he will save us and that he will raise us up on the last day. What comfort the words of John 6:40 are: the will of the Father is that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and Jesus says, I’ll make sure it happens. I’ll raise him up on the last day. So, no, nobody who comes to Christ and looks upon him and believes in him will ever be turned away, or will ever be rejected, or will ever be lost.

Later on in John chapter six, just a few verses later in verse 44, Jesus does make it quite clear. He adds some words as to how people might come to him in the first place. He says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.” It sounds just like what he has said a few verses before. If the father has given someone to Christ, they will come to Christ. If the father has drawn someone, they will come to Christ, and this individual will never be turned away, and will never be cast out, and will never be lost, but Jesus will raise him or her up on the last day.

We could also think about John three and Jesus’s words to Nicodemus where he tells Nicodemus that no one will enter the kingdom of God unless he is born again. That phrase “born again” could also be rendered “born from above”. Then he tells Nicodemus that that happens by a work of God’s Holy Spirit, and he compares the work of the Spirit to the wind. He explains that the wind blows and you hear the sound of it. You see its effects, but you don’t know where it came from or where it’s going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

So, how it is that people come to Christ in the first place is a work of God’s sovereign grace, and the Bible is crystal clear that anyone who comes to Christ believing in him for eternal life will never be turned away. We can rest in that. We can hope in that promise. We can trust Christ and know that we will never be turned away from him. We will never be cast out, but we will be raised up with Christ on the last day.

I hope that answer’s helpful to you, Gunner, and anybody else who maybe listening. Grace and peace to you. Keep trusting Christ.