I’ve been thinking a good bit lately about the word “lost”. What does that really mean in theological terms? We use it all the time today and mostly to refer to those outside of salvation in Christ. In other words, there are current believers in Christ and everyone else on the planet is “the lost”. The more I think about it and study it in the Scriptures, I’ve come to the conclusion that is actually a misuse of the word. The world at large is not “lost”. That sounds shocking to our modern evangelical ears, but this is an explanation of why I’ve come to that conclusion.
When I go to one of the literal translations such as the ESV and do a search on the word “lost”, I come up with 40 occurrences in the entire Bible. In the Old Testament, its used 25 times in various ways:
- The moral law on handling the finding of a ‘lost’ object that you know belongs to someone else
- People who ‘lost’ heart or ‘lost’ hope
- Those who ‘lost’ possession of a territory, a donkey, etc.
- A way of escape is ‘lost’ to them – a group that cannot locate the way out
- Once in Isaiah 6:5 when Isaiah is whisked into the presence of God, he says “woe is me! For I am lost!” meaning in that instance he is dumb and silent and cut off.
- The very few times it does refer to a people group, it refers to ‘lost sheep’; the people of God (Jer 50:6, Ezekiel 34:16, Psalm 119:176)
In the New Testament, what is even more striking is the term is used 15 times and 14 of those are in spoken dialogue by Jesus himself. The only time it’s not from the mouth of Jesus is in Rev 18:14 where its speaking of the end times when the merchants of the earth in the judgment “lost” their delicacies and splendors. Every other time in the NT the word is used, it is Christ using it to describe his sheep. No other NT writer uses the term ‘lost’.
Therefore, it strikes me that nowhere in Scripture is the term used of the unbelieving world at large. Old or New Testament, when “lost” is referring to a people group, it’s referring to God’s own people, his sheep. I can’t find a single instance where “lost” refers to the unbelieving world at large.
The one questionable usage from Jesus is Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” But the sentence before that is concerning the salvation of Zaccheus when Jesus said, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.” He just saved another of his sheep that was lost, a true son of the faith of Abraham. This still isn’t referring to the world at large. He came to seek and save lost SHEEP, his own, not goats or wolves. The offer of free grace upon repentance and faith is of course definitely universal, open to all who will have it, but he is seeking his lost sheep.
I find the ‘lost’ in Scripture is a defined, predetermined set of individuals, overwhelmingly referred to as ‘lost sheep’. They are God’s, elect and chosen from before the foundation of the world, who at that point in time have yet to find their shepherd and fall before him in repentance and faith. But they will. The goal of the church is to preach the gospel to all, in order to find those sheep who are lost. They already are sheep, just not under the shepherd yet, so they are ‘lost’. There is no such thing as a lost goat or a lost wolf – only lost sheep. It does not refer to the ‘many’ on the broad road that leads to destruction – the “world”. In fact, that is the term for all the non-sheep; they are referred to as “the world”.
Think about it. The very word “lost” implies prior ownership; prior possession. Some of the OT verses point to being honest when you find something that was lost by another – because it still belongs to them. If I’ve lost my car keys, that implies ownership – they have been and are even now my car keys; they belong to me and I’m searching for them. This implies something wonderful.
Lost means you are owned and wanted.
You are being searched for because you belong. Lost is an attribute of something of yours, in this case something of God’s that is being searched for because it belongs, it’s wanted. In Luke 15, Jesus speaks three parables in a row that are all about the joy in heaven when the good shepherd finds another of his lost sheep. The last is the prodigal son; he always was a son of the father but was lost and then was found. To the father, the prodigal son was lost but wanted; the father saw him from afar because he was searching.
Beautiful.
In that sense it is a wonderful thing to be lost. It is not some term to refer to the entire unbelieving world that is in willful rebellion, those who will not now nor will they ever willingly bow to Christ in repentance. It’s actually a precious term that refers to those who, though in rebellion and in their sins now, belong to the Shepherd, sheep that at that present time have yet to be found and do not yet know they are sheep. The lost do not perish; the lost sheep are all found by the Good Shepherd through the preaching of the gospel. He loses none.
However, we fellow ‘found’ sheep do not know who the lost sheep are. This is why we preach a sincere offer of the gospel to all the world, because the lost sheep will hear, recognize the truth as the voice of their shepherd, and be found. Those who won’t listen to and bow to God’s truth are not lost. They are the world.
This is good news – if you repent and bow to Christ, repenting of your sin against him, placing your faith in him alone, then you prove you are one of the ‘lost’ that has now been found. Otherwise, if you persist in your sin, you aren’t “the lost”, you are “the world”. Different term.
I think this is clearly seen in John 17, the high priestly prayer of Jesus where we mere mortals get a glimpse into the Trinity and can ‘listen in’ to a conversation between God the Son and God the Father. There is a very clear distinction between the ones the Father has given to the Son (the lost to be found) and everyone else (the world). The lost and the world are not synonyms at all.
I think we’d all agree that dogs do not become cats; that elephants don’t turn into giraffes. You can’t change species. Another way to look at this distinction is when Jesus speaks of his gathering of all the nations for judgment at the end of the age:
33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.
Matt 25:33 ESV
Surveying the scriptures, I don’t see where all start out as goats and at some point swap species and become sheep. The sheep were known before the foundation of the world; their individual names recorded:
8 and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.
Rev. 13:8 ESV
For these sheep, they are in one of two states: either lost (still in their sins) or found. This great Shepherd will find all the lost sheep before this sorting.
I don’t find Jesus ever talking about all unbelievers as the lost. Instead, listen to him in John 15:
19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
John 15:19 ESV
Those sheep that are intermingled in but that He has chosen out of the world, before they repent – in the process of time – are the lost. Sinners the same as all, but lost sheep that only God knows. The Shepherd will find them through the preaching of the gospel. The Holy Spirit will regenerate them, give them new hearts, that then hear the truth and repent and believe. That’s why, once found, sheep are left here – to be a part of the church that is preaching the gospel so the other lost sheep will hear the truth which is His voice. Faith comes by hearing. He will draw them, they will come. They are the lost.
Our goal – preach the gospel to all so the Shepherd can draw his lost sheep out from the world. They are wanted and he’s the Good Shepherd, he loses none. This is Romans 8:29-30.
It is the same for all sheep. Apart from the Shepherd knowing us from before the foundation of the world, finding us, giving us new hearts, new eyes to see, new ears to hear – there would be no such thing as a sheep. None. No one would be saved. There is absolutely no room for boasting as sheep – it is all of mercy and grace. God gets any and all of the glory. BTW, if you are currently absolutely not a sheep and like it that way and want nothing to do with Christianity, well…it is not up to you or any of us. So were all sheep at one point. The Shepherd knows his sheep, has known them all from before creation, and at the proper time, He will create a new heart for Him in you. He is all-powerful and will overcome any resistance with His love, mercy, and grace. He leaves no sheep behind.
Let me end with this. One of the dangers of these truths is if someone who has yet to repent and come to Christ in faith sits around and wonders whether you are a lost sheep or not. There is no value in that. Zero. You can’t see the secret decrees of God, and you can’t enter heaven and look for your name in the book. What you do instead is listen to the Scriptures, look intently on Jesus as he reveals himself there, recognize yourself as a sinner, repent of your sin, see His glory, and throw yourself totally and completely onto the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ and thereby prove that you are a sheep that was lost but was just found by your Shepherd. The only way for you to know – is simply to DO what every sheep does.