Featured Giving by the Father - Jn. 6:37-65

Biblicist....you may actually learn a little more about this passage if you focus on the extent to which Christ is ALSO asserting his Deity here....

Jesus will say in the gospels INNUMERABLE times (and Bob has quoted some of it for you)...that Jesus draws "All men unto himself"....in this passage...he is also referring the Jews to the fact that the Father also "draws"...

He's asserting his status as Divine....the Jews got it. You seem to not perceive what Jesus is saying when he insists on two things:

1.) The "Father" draws
2.) He (as the Son) draws

....he's doing far more than preaching Soteriology....he's asserting his deity.

 

We can do this Biblicist....but, you won't like it.

True....I haven't provided evidence yet, we're not even on the same page to where I can.

True again....I have not sought to "disprove" your assertions much at all.

I haven't "ignored" it....no one has....you are so VERY committed to the perfect air-tight perfection of EVERYTHING you say that you honestly can't distinguish the difference between someone who understands your ideas, and one who hangs on your EVERY WORD. Seriously...your own respect for your own ideas are actually THAT narcissistic....

I'm arrogant...PROBLEMATICALLY ARROGANT.......(Bob appears to suffer a bit too, and I bet he'd admit it)....but, I've literally never known ANYONE so convinced of their own perfection as you. And it utterly clouds your capacity to follow a thread.

This is your arrogance speaking, and it betrays frankly...your sanity....it's not that we don't "GET"....how ingenious you are....it's that we are fully aware of the quality of your arguments, and find them wanting....they've been "weighed in the balance" and they've been found wanting.
They aren't too perfectly nuanced that we're too stupid to get them....you just don't have the skill-set to convince us of how brilliant your arguments are.

Accept that, it's quite liberating. Happens to me all the time. ALL of my arguments are impenetrably perfect and brilliant and spot-on......but, inexplicably....I'm apparently not good enough to convince everyone how perfect they are.....It's a blow to my hubris, yes, but I have to deal with it. You would profit from learning the same thing.<---and I am possessed of that same hubris in truck-loads....but since it takes one to know one, you make ME feel humble. That's hard to do.

Yes

*sigh*....Yes.

Draw.

By way of clarification:
Do you mean that it's a "necessary" consequence or a "sufficient" one?....or possibly BOTH.

Because "necessary" I'll affirm...."sufficient" no....and therefore not BOTH.

You are trying to force us to assume one view (as you do)....but, you haven't convincingly made your case...You seriously can't see that though...because you can't FATHOM how it is even POSSIBLE that a human possessed of even marginal intelligence couldn't read what you've written and fall on their knees in submission to every word THE Biblicist now speaks.

Yes, it's hard to accept....but, you are un-convincing.

It's BOTH....it's not "either-or" you assume that.

Yes, it is....so I can't fathom why you appear to be getting so worked-up about God's perfectly Sovereign decision NOT to grant us the understanding that you already have about this issue.

The Holy Spirit will work on us in his OWN TIME....No reason for you to get frustrated that he hasn't followed your plan for when (or even if) he reveals these greater truths to us. Who art thou oh man to reply against God?? :laugh:

 

This statement is the crux of the issue.

Arminians are adamant that the Father is ‘fair’ to one and all. He draws ‘all’ men – meaning every single human. He leaves no one out.

However, Arminians claim, it is now within the power of free will that man ‘chooses’ to hear and learn. All men have been given the same opportunity by the Father.

The difference in the results resides in men, not in God.

To the good use of free will by man be the glory.

The issues of Election and Predestination were core issues which drove the Reformation.

Non-Catholic Arminians (including Baptist Arminians and SDAs) support the Roman Catholic view which has been overwhelmingly ‘Arminian’ long before the advent of Arminius.

I now quote from “The Original and True Rheims New Testament of Anno Domini 1582.” (Prepared and edited by Dr. William von Peters, Ph.D.; © 1998; p. 171)

[FYI: This is the first English version Bible authorized by the Roman Church. It was printed for the express purpose of countering the Reformation Bibles used by Protestants to convert Catholics to the truths of God’s Word. The Rheims Bible used extensive annotations to teach their errant Catholic interpretation of theology.]

“Annotations – JOHN, Chapter 6……..verse 44. Draw him. – GOD DRAWETH US WITH OUR FREE WILL – The Father draweth us and reacheth us to come to his Son, and to believe these high and hard mysteries of his Incarnation and of feeding us with his own substance in the Sacrament:

not compelling or violently forcing any against their will or without any respect of their consent, as Heretics pretend: but by the sweet internal motions and persuasions of his grace and spirit he wholly make us of our own will and liking to consent to the same.”

Please note the common disdain by which Catholic Apologists and Non-Catholic Arminians voice their extreme displeasure with Calvinists who give all the glory for salvation to God alone.

 

All squares are rectangles - but not all rectangles are squares.

All who come to Christ were Drawn, and chose to hear, and learn -

But not all who are drawn - will come to Christ because "men loved darkness rather than light" John 3 so even though Christ is "the light that coming into the world enlightens every man" John 1 -- not all will accept it.

"He came to HIS OWN and HIS OWN received Him not" John 1.

in Christ,

Bob

 

You've not read particularly deeply either the writings of the (very Catholic) St. Augustine or the writings of the (very Catholic) Priest Gottschalk have you?

Your Soteriological view-point was shaped largely by Augustine (who was quite Catholic)..........

If you HONESTLY believe that the "Reformation" was largely some sort of back-lash against the "Arminianism" of the Roman Catholic Church in favour of a more "Calvinist" one...then frankly...you are deceived. That's a deranged view-point that absolutely NO respectable historian of the Church takes. Calvin's (and indeed nearly all of the Reformed Divines') view-points were explicitly Augustinian....That's as Catholic as you get.

 

I agree that no man - not those who would one day be saved, and not those who will never be saved .. can "of themselves' come to Christ.

But the text cant be bent to say "no man can come to ME - so a few of them I draw to me and thus enable to come".

Rather "I will DRAW ALL unto ME" John 12:32 is the teaching in the Gospel of John. Not "I will draw the arbitrarily selected FEW of Matt 7 and do not care about the rest" -- I think we can all agree on what wording is found in John 12.

This fits perfectly with the "compound condition" specified in John 6 of DRAW and HEAR, and LEARN. Not all Drawn will choose to hear and to learn - thus the "Drawing of ALL" does not guarantee that "All Drawn will come" because instead of a SINGLE condition mentioned in John 6 - it is a COMPOUND condition.

Even your own proofs from John 6 rely on our ignore the compound condition and treating three concepts as if they are one in your draw\hear\learn "word".

I thought that this was my argument against your position.

Not all Drawn will choose to hear nor will they choose to learn.

Hence the Romans 1 "they are without excuse" because even though they are informed about the "invisible attributes of God clearly seen in the things that have been made" Rom 1 they still choose to continue in their darkened minds - loving darkness rather than the light that is shining on them.

Taught is the result of those Drawn - choosing to hear and accepting what they hear - so that they learn and then come to Christ.

It is a compound set of conditions - not a single one. And so not all Drawn will go through each of the subsequent steps.

in Christ,

Bob

 

Protestant....the only error Arminius suffered from was that his views (and back-ground) were too overly "Calvinist"...his error wasn't his Arminianism...his errors were that he was ENTIRELY TOO enamored with the Catholic Augustinianism which poisoned the very soul of the Reformation. Calvin was too Catholic and Augustinian for the Scriptures....ditto poor Arminius whose only failing was to cling to too much of the un-Scriptural Augustinian Manicheanism which still perverts Calvinism today.

 

Please be explicit. To what do men owe the reason as to why some accept and others reject? Is it man's free will choice/decision?

I have not wavered in answering the Arminian position.

Nor has Biblicist or any other Calvinist member of this board.

The reason lies in the irrisistible grace of God working efficaciously in the Elect.

"I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy."

 

"poisoned the very soul of the Reformation"

The more you speak the more apparent (to those who have ears to hear) that your heart, soul and spirit is with Catholicism, despite your pontificating Baptist profession.

Scott Hahn would be proud of both you and Quantum Leap of Faith.

 

Actually my understanding of the doctrines of grace came as a result of studying the God-breathed teachings of Jesus and Paul primarily.

You know.....those teachings of Election and Predestination "which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures unto their own destruction."

You know.....those teachings of God's sovereign electing grace that only Christ's Elect sheep can believe. "Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you."

 

Yeah....I get it...you've just defaulted to claiming that the doctrines of Calvinism can only be believed by his "sheep" (which means the saved people)...and since we don't subscribe to them...we are not "his sheep"...

I know...you guys are SO EASY to bait into ultimately questioning the very Salvation of anyone who doesn't share your particulars....You took about 5 POSTS from me to default to it!!

:laugh:You Guys are SO EASY!!! :laugh:

Don't worry...I won't report that Clear violation of B.B. rules, because having YET ONE MORE Calvinist question my salvation is simply not an insult to me. I couldn't care less what you think my relationship with Christ is.

Your friend Iconoclast takes about 15 posts....but he always defaults to it too. Almost all Calvinists will ultimately.

When, as a good Calvinist, you are losing a Theological debate the steps are:
1.) Question their Salvation
2.) Murder them in cold-blood like John Calvin does.

How imminently predictable.....and very Catholic of you :wavey:

 

I never agreed with Biblicist either. I have said from the beginning that not all who are drawn come. But all who HEAR and LEARN do come.

I agree with the scripture that Bob posted, how Jesus described the gospel as children piping in the marketplace, calling people to dance, but they would not.

Luk 7:31 And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like?
32 They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.

These people were drawn, they were called, but they refused to dance. They heard the music, but they paid no attention to it.

It is the same with John 6:45, not all that the Father attempts to teach listens and learns. Just like our modern schools, some students pay attention to their teachers, read their books, and study, and these kids learn.

Other kids goof off in class. They hear the teacher, but pay no attention. They do not read the books provided them, or do their homework, these kids fail.

It is not that the teacher purposely taught some and did not teach others, some students listened, studied and learned, while others did not. The fault lies with the student, not the teacher.

Biblicist acts like this is unheard of.

 

I believe there was a typo in your profession of faith.

Should it not have read, "I couldn't care less what my relationship with Christ is"........?

We Calvinists DO care that the Lord's name not be dishonored.

Strange as it may seem, it is not all about you, but about eternal truth.

P. S. Quoting Scripture in context (i.e. John 10, etc.) is now illegal?

How Inquisitorial of you.

 

Finally. Winman speaks. I was 'worried' not having seen a post from you on this thread for 24 hours. Unheard of.

So now God the Father 'attempts' -- gives it a go; tries hard; makes a rigorous effort -- to reach all men, yet fails in His 'attempt.'

That may be so with manmade gods, but not so with the Lord God who rules the heavens and earth and all it contains.

"Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it."

Once again you 'attempt' unsuccessfully to use your same old tired illustration comparing the Lord God Almighty to a sinful, finite human school teacher....an illustration which I have refuted.

But let the Lord speak on the matter:

"To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like?"

Winman responds: 'To my 5th grade school teacher, Lord.'

 

:laugh: I laughed for like 2-3 minutes at this! I guess I find obvious truth to be pretty entertaining under such circumstances. Good one! :thumbs: I need some water...