"He Shall Not Fail!"
Isaiah 42:4
This is God's promise concerning his Son.
Whatever Christ has undertaken as Jehovah's Servant, whatever he was sent to
do, he shall perform perfectly, completely, and successfully. "He shall
not fail!" Did the Son of God come into this world to save his people? God
says he did (Matt.1:21). Therefore, we must conclude that he will save them
everyone! With the Christ of God failure is an impossibility!
Not one soul for whom he is Surety and Substitute can, by any possibility,
perish!
HE HAS NOT FAILED! Looking into the
future, Isaiah wrote, "He shall not fail!" Now we look back and say
regarding the past, "He has not failed!" The Son of God has not
failed to fulfil all the types, promises, and prophecies of the Old Testament
Scriptures. He has not failed to establish perfect righteousness for men. He
has not failed to redeem his people (Heb.
We believe in particular, effectual
redemption precisely because it is the only redemption taught in the Bible. Any
other theory of redemption presents Christ as a failure! To say that Christ
suffered and died to redeem and save some who are finally lost in hell is to
declare, as one Arminian did, that, "Hell is a ghastly monument to the
failure of the triune God to save the multitudes who
are there!" That cannot be! Christ Jesus has not failed to bear the sins
of his people, to satisfy the infinite wrath and justice of God against our
sins, and to completely put away our sins (Heb. 1:3;
I will go a step further and tell you that
the Son of God has not failed to do me good. I speak from experience. I tell
you only what I know to be true. Christ has never failed to meet my needs, to
protect his child, to sustain my soul, to comfort my heart, to deliver me from
evil, and to show himself faithful.
There are some things of which we are
assured because God has promised, "HE SHALL NOT FAIL!" He shall not
fail to save every soul given to him in the covenant of grace (John
Don Fortner