Featured John 6.44

That does not answer the question I raised in my post. I will ask it this way; why aren't you as adamant about your insistence on a literal and universal application of both verses in the text? That should be a simple thing to answer. Another question; Why did Paul, who was the apostle to the gentiles, never use the word "draw" in any of his letters to the gentiles?

What if you learned you were preaching a damnable doctrine when you are preaching the Reformed system? Could you change?

 

It did, but you did not understand the answer. That means that I failed to communicate or you failed to comprehend (or both).

I am "adamant about [my] insistence on a literal and universal application" of NEITHER verse. I do not view verses in isolation, but as part of the flow of the conversation both of the people whose conversation is being recorded and the broader message of the author of the book.

In the one verse, the point (specifically and contextually) is that there were two types of people, those that "got it" and those that "never would". To those that "never would" the message was 'quit your griping'. To those that "got it" the message was 'you learned that from GOD and be assured that He and I have you covered on this'.

The verse that you want me to take "literally" I do. It does not say that only those that see Jesus will be saved, it says that those that SEE and BELIEVE will (absolute certainty) be saved. Later on Jesus explains that all of these words are "spiritual" rather than "physical" and I take that literally as well. So the SEE Jesus is spiritually see him. That was demonstrated by the many that physically saw and heard Him but never 'got it'.

In the same way, John 6:44 says that those that GOD (the Father) DRAWS (literal and spiritual), Jesus will raise all of them on the last day and Jesus will lose none of them (from another verse in the same chapter). John 6:44 also says that no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws them. Literal or figurative, how can no one come to Jesus unless ... if God draws all without exception? How would that response fit with the statement immediately before it to "Stop complaining"?

The context provides the meaning, not some imagined false "universalism" or "hyper literalism".

It was and I did.

I don't know, why did John, Luke and James all use the word?
Writer's preference, I guess.
If your question was meant to imply that Paul never TAUGHT the concept, then you would be mistaken.

It is unlikely that one can be saved, read scripture and preach something "damnable" from the word of God. It is easy to be mistaken on many biblical details, but it is impossible to quote scripture and prevent God from saving someone. I challenge you to find a single instance where God tried to save someone but a human stopped Him. Saul comes closest, being taught by those "brood of vipers", yet God chose Paul and saved Paul and greatly used Paul. Score! God-1; Pharisees-0.

I can and have changed my beliefs over the course of my life. I started out "nihilist". Could you change?

 

Thank you atpollard for your response and giving an answer although I must say that any honest person reading it would have to agree it was an elaborate non answer. But let me focus in on what you said about Paul not even using the word draw in his evangelism of the gentiles. You inferred that it was no big deal and I am just awe struck by a comment like that. The drawing of the Father to the Son is presented to us from the Reformed as a fundamental of the Christian faith. No one, we are told, can come unless they are drawn by the Father. As far as I can tell this is the only chapter in the scriptures that makes this declaration and you say it is just a matter of word choice but this foundational teaching still appears in Paul’s letters. I would like a quote from Paul that is an equivalent to the statement in John 6:44. If you can’t find anything it is okay for this exercise to make two or three sentences up that expresses the same thing as Jn 6:44. I just can’t think of different words in a single short sentence that would say the same thing as Jn 6:44.

If this really is foundational to the Christian faith why don’t we see it more often in scripture? Could you be wrong about this?

 

It was only an elaborate non answer to the question you framed in a “do you still beat your wife” format.

(Your question was why do I apply one as literal and universal but not the other?) I first offered a simple direct answer ... neither verse is applied as universal and literal in isolation.

I then elaborated on just how I do apply the verses.

 

Easy question first ... I could, but I am not.

Your first error towards Reformed Theology is demanding a specific wording to satisfy you. Let me respond in kind:

Where in scripture is the verse that says that everyone without exception has been forgiven of their sins. I will now nit pick any verse you present as not containing the exact wording that I have chosen to demand. (This is what you are doing with Paul.) You are demanding an exact phrase as if that phrase were the heart of Reformed doctrine. It is not. The heart of Reformed Doctrine is that men are incapable of coming to God without supernatural help from God, and God makes the first move. It was a response to the semi-Pelegian view that people had enough innate goodness to be able to make the first move towards God in salvation.

If you really want someplace where Paul teaches this, how about:

John 6:44 “No one can come to me” ...

• [Romans 3:9-12 NIV] 9 What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. 10 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."
  
• [Ephesians 2:1-3 NIV] 1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
• aka “Total Inability”

John 6:44 ...”unless the Father who sent me draws him” ...

• [Romans 9:8 NIV] 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring.
  
• [Romans 9:11-13 NIV] 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls--she was told, "The older will serve the younger." 13 Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
  
• [Romans 9:15-18 NIV] 15 For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God's mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
  
• [Romans 9:21-24 NIV] 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? 22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory-- 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
  
• [Ephesians 2:4-5 NIV] 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.
  
• [2 Thessalonians 2:13 NIV] 13 But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord, because God chose you as firstfruits to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.
  
• aka “Irresistible Grace”

John 6:44 ... “and I will raise them up at the last day.”

• [2 Corinthians 1:21-22 NIV] 21 Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22 set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
  
• [2 Corinthians 5:4-5 NIV] 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
  
• [Ephesians 1:11-14 NIV] 11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory.
  
• [Philippians 1:4-6 NIV] 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
  
• aka. “Preservation of the Saints”

 

Barry,
I'll make one more reply before signing off this thread...

This tells me point blank that God chose someone to be saved and that it occurred before the foundation of the world:

" Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly [places] in Christ:
4 according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
5 having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
6 to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." ( Ephesians 1:3-6 ).

I'll break it down for you:

3) God the Father has blessed believers with all spiritual blessings in Christ.

4) He has chosen believers "in Christ".
Therefore, if any man be "in Christ" he is a new creature ( 2 Corinthians 5:17 )...
You know the rest.

To be in Christ is to be saved, Barry.
If a person is chosen "in Him", then they are chosen to be saved.

5) God the Father ( the one doing the blessing is verse 3 ) has predestinated the ones that were chosen "in Him before the foundation of the world, to their adoption as the children of God.

6) He has made us accepted in the beloved...
We didn't make ourselves accepted by our belief, because belief is the work of God, not the work of men.

There's how I see it and why.


So, for you to say that there is not one verse in the Bible that says that a person is chosen to salvation, it sorta confuses me....
Because to me, I showed you at least two passages where God's choosing someone to salvation is derived very nearly blatantly from the Scriptures.
Why you do not agree, I do not know.


May God bless you sir, and this will be my last reply to you in this thread.

 

[

The question was, why do you have different methods of interpretation for the same chapter?” You have a literal interpretation for John 6:44 but there is not a Reformed believer alive today who will present verse 40 as literal.

John 6:37-40
37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Here Jesus said two things that the Father wills
1) every one who sees the son and 2) believes on him may have everlasting life.

Here is what is said in John 6:44

John 6:44-47
44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.
47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.

So how does the Father draw? Through the words of the prophets. They all have been taught of God but not all have learned of the Father. This is key because Jesus is presenting himself as the “Son of God” and declaring that God is his Father. The Jews did not know God as Father in the OT and now here is Jesus declaring that only those who can be taught that Jesus is the Son of God can have eternal life. They must believe that God is his Father and that He came down from him.

At the end of this discourse when all ad forsaken him he asked his disciples if they also would go away, to which Peter responded with to whom shall we go, we believe thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.

BTW, just a short time later Peter and none of the 12 believed that Jesus rose from the dead. The death, burial, and resurrection was not what these men in John 6 were expected to believe.

The Reformed are teaching things that are not true.

 

Here are verses from another chapter.
How would you interpret them as either ALL being literal or NONE being literal?

[John 12:1, 23-25, 45 NASB]

• 1 Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. ...
  
• 23 And Jesus answered them, saying, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
  
• 24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
  
• 25 "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. ...
  
• 45 "He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me.

Good luck with that.
I don't think that verses in the same chapter all need to be viewed as equally literal, allegorical, poetic, physical, spiritual, or anything else. They must be viewed in context based on the speaker, the hearer and the message of the author.

 

I do. I believe that the verse is literal and spiritual (because Jesus said it was: "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life." John 6:63)

I believe that everyone that saw and believed WAS SAVED and has everlasting life and will be raised up at the last day ... JUST LIKE JESUS SAID. I believe that even today, the message is still a spiritual literal truth ... everyone with "eyes to see" Jesus as Lord and "ears to hear" the Good News that Jesus Saves has been given the gift of being "saved by grace through faith not of themselves" [Eph 2:8-9] and will also have everlasting life and Jesus will raise him up at the last day.

What John 6:40 does not say is that everyone must see the physical body of Jesus Christ in order to be saved. Sorry, but it just does not say that. Read it again and see if it "literally" makes such a claim. So all I am guilty of is NOT insisting that verse 40 says something that it does not say.

 

He was merely quoting the words of the prophets, but since you place such importance on the people learning from the prophet's words, let us read the source that Jesus quoted from ...

[Isa 54:1-17 NKJV]

1 "Sing, O barren, You [who] have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, You [who] have not labored with child! For more [are] the children of the desolate Than the children of the married woman," says the LORD.
2 "Enlarge the place of your tent, And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; Do not spare; Lengthen your cords, And strengthen your stakes.
3 For you shall expand to the right and to the left, And your descendants will inherit the nations, And make the desolate cities inhabited.

4 "Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; Neither be disgraced, for you will not be put to shame; For you will forget the shame of your youth, And will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore.
5 For your Maker [is] your husband, The LORD of hosts [is] His name; And your Redeemer [is] the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth.
6 For the LORD has called you Like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, Like a youthful wife when you were refused," Says your God.
7 "For a mere moment I have forsaken you, But with great mercies I will gather you.
8 With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; But with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you," Says the LORD, your Redeemer.

9 "For this [is] like the waters of Noah to Me; For as I have sworn That the waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth, So have I sworn That I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you.
10 For the mountains shall depart And the hills be removed, But My kindness shall not depart from you, Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed," Says the LORD, who has mercy on you.

11 "O you afflicted one, Tossed with tempest, [and] not comforted, Behold, I will lay your stones with colorful gems, And lay your foundations with sapphires.
12 I will make your pinnacles of rubies, Your gates of crystal, And all your walls of precious stones.
13 All your children [shall be] taught by the LORD, And great [shall be] the peace of your children.
14 In righteousness you shall be established; You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; And from terror, for it shall not come near you.
15 Indeed they shall surely assemble, [but] not because of Me. Whoever assembles against you shall fall for your sake.

16 "Behold, I have created the blacksmith Who blows the coals in the fire, Who brings forth an instrument for his work; And I have created the spoiler to destroy.
17 No weapon formed against you shall prosper, And every tongue [which] rises against you in judgment You shall condemn. This [is] the heritage of the servants of the LORD, And their righteousness [is] from Me," Says the LORD.​

So what is the message of the prophet ... what man has done to accept God's favor, or God's pledge to sovereignly give his blessings. This is the self-pledge of a God that DRAWS a people to himself. Just like Jesus said.

They were not taught by the prophets, they were taught by God ... as in:

• [Rom 8:28-30 NKJV] And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to [His] purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined [to be] conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
• [Eph 2:4-5 NKJV] 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

 

Thank you for trying so hard, atpollard but now you are confusing the tense of the verbs. If you are going to put Jn 6:44 in the present tense and say only those who the Father draws, and make that stipulation apply to yourself in 2020, then I am going to ask you to apply the verbs in John 6:40 the same way because that is what Jesus said. He said it is the will of the Father that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him shall have everlasting life. I can't let you get away with making the passage agree with your theology by changing words.

Trust me, there is not a single word written to you in the OT. Jesus Christ ministered to the circumcision under the OT law of Moses. There is no salvation in the OT.

 

What do these words mean?

John 6:44
"No man can come to me, except ..." [KJV] [ASV] [WEB]
“No one can come to Me unless ..." [NKJV] [NASB]
"For no one can come to me unless ..." [NLT]
"No one can come to me unless ..." [NIV] [ESV] [CSB] [NET] [RSV]
"no one is able to come unto me, ..." [YLT]
"No one can come to me except ..." [DBY]

I am applying the words that John wrote.

 

So who has seen the Son and believed on Him and not received everlasting life?
Where have I ever claimed that such a thing has happened?
I SAID I agree with the verse. I believe that every person that seeth (sees) the son and believeth (believes) on (in) him shall have everlasting life.

I prefer a less archaic translation, so what about the NKJV: “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Have you seen the Son?

 

No one. Everyone who has seen the Son and believed on him was drawn by the Father. No one since those days
Has seen the son as your argument seems to say. I say amen. Likewise no one since those days has been drawn by the Father. It is right and proper for you to avoid requiring a man to see the son and believe on him in order to be saved. No one living today has seen the Son yet many have believed on him. The same can be said about the drawing of the Father. God is not drawing anyone now. We have a whole New Testament series of letters and not a single word is any of them about the Father drawing men to Christ. The apostle Paul does not even use the word draw in any context in any of his 13 letters. John 6:44 is the only place in the scriptures that says anything about God drawing men to Christ
l. The drawing of the Father in John 6 was to the faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. It was not to salvation because the provision for salvation had not been made yet. You cannot be saved by believing only what these OT men believed that day.

It is wrong atpollard to make the drawing doctrine in John 6 a foundational Christian salvation doctrine. You do not have to believe that erroneous teaching.

No, but I believe in his gospel, that he died for me, that he was buried, and that he was raised from the dead on the third day. God did not make any promises to any of my ancestors who lived contemporaneous with those men of Israel in John 6 and before.

I would think that a nation who had been promised for 2000 years that God would come and be their King and savior would need some evidence and persuasion including a testimony from God that this man Jesus is the prophesied one. I am not surprised by that. In John 20:30 he said the reason he wrote his gospel was so men might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they might have eternal life through his name.

 

What do these words mean?

John 6:44
"No man can come to me, except ..." [KJV] [ASV] [WEB]
“No one can come to Me unless ..." [NKJV] [NASB]
"For no one can come to me unless ..." [NLT]
"No one can come to me unless ..." [NIV] [ESV] [CSB] [NET] [RSV]
"no one is able to come unto me, ..." [YLT]
"No one can come to me except ..." [DBY]