Featured Why did Christ say he would draw all men to himself.

I am going to give you some information knowing you will not receive it but it is true.The drawing of the Jews in John 6 by the Father was four-fold and it was specific to the audience to whom he was speaking, the physical seed of Abraham. This can be proven and I know it because I have read John 5. What does John 5 say relative to the fulfilling of the OT promises that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and promised King and Redeemer of Israel? You may read it for yourself.

1) In John 5:33, Jesus says that John the Baptist bears record of him and his credentials.
2) Verse 35 says the works or the miracles he performed before their eyes bears witness of him.
3) He says in verse 37 that the Father bears witness of him and you will remember that he spoke from heaven at the baptism of Jesus Christ
4) And finally he say in verse 39 the scriptures bears witness of him.

These are all the things that God is using to draw this people to Jesus Christ. The entire chapter of John 6 is a fulfilling of the Manna type. The chapter begins with Jesus feeding the 5000 with the lunch of a single child. Later, the next day, he proclaims himself to some of these same people who had witnessed the miracle to be the bread of life that was sent down from heaven so they might eat and live. The bread was the physical figuring the spiritual. It fulfilled the manna type in Exodus. The bread he provided gave life is it was inside their bodies. Outside their bodies it would not sustain their physical bodies. Jesus said they must eat him, speaking metaphorically, because if he was not inside them they would not have life. The spiritually astute among the crowd would have understood that he could not indwell them in the physical but when his blood was shed and his body given, they could receive his Spirit into their mortal bodies to give them life, because he is life.

Now, it would have been useless to speak to anyone but a member of the family of Jacob about manna. Nobody else knew anything about that and nobody but Israel knew the ways of God. He always uses the physical to teach the spiritual. So, the manna and the feeding the five thousand with the 5 loaves and two small fishes is an object lesson in the salvation that is providing from God and it is to Israel. They must eat his flesh and drink his blood to have everlasting life. This is the draw that is being demonstrated in John 6.

But what about the gentiles after the cross. There is not a word about manna from the preacher of grace to gentiles, the great apostle Paul. Here is another very important reality that anyone reading this may check out for themselves. Paul does not even use the word "draw" in any of his 13 letters he writes to the gentiles. not once. If this is true, and it is, how is every man drawn if Christ be lifted up. The answer is by the gospel being proclaimed by the gospel preacher because his death is on the behalf of the whole world. Jesus Christ sends his preachers out to all the world to tell them he has reconciled them to God through his death and God will receive any and all who will come in his name and he will give them the Spirit of Christ to indwell their mortal bodies with the hope that he will glorify their bodies and make them like unto his glorious body bye and bye. This is the blessed hope of the Christian.

If this drawing doctrine is so important to the Reformed, they should be able to answer why it is never a doctrine of the New Testament scriptures concerning you.

 

Paul tells us that the Church is the Children of the Promise, the Israel of God.
Romans 2:29
But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.
Romans 9:8
This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

I agree that John is speaking covanental language. The drawing is particular to God's covenantal chosen people. God has chosen us before the foundation of the world and God drags us out of the pit of sin where we were bound by sin, which was once our master. In dragging us out, he has claimed us for His own. A people of the New Covenant.

JD, you had some of it right, just not all of it.

 

The word draw does mean drag, however it means more. It also means:

1. metaph., to draw by inward power, lead, impel
   

I believe this inward power is the Spirit in power leading to Christ, after new birth. Rom 8:14

14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

The word led here means:

1. to move, impel: of forces and influences on the mind
   

 

You cant receive it.

 

I cannot receive LIES that contradict the Infallible Word of God.

I challenge you and all those who hold your views on salvation, to show from John 3:16-18, that God does not love the entire human race, with a SAVING LOVE, which is what this passage is about. Try IF you can!

 

So...the world of the ungodly that were destroyed by the flood, was God using that to save them?
How about those sodomites ,did the fire and brimstone help them out.
How can you even suggest a thought like this?

 

Dude WHY do you think that God saved you? You Reformed are so full of nonsense as you suppose that somehow God owes you salvation and damns the majority of the human race!

Praise the Lord that He is NOT "Reformed"

 

God for His own reasons has elected a multitude of sinners to be the object of His saving Covenant love.
I am a sinner so I qualified.
Why do you not trust God, that He has a perfect plan?
I believe God will do what He promised.

 

Paul says that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Period. Not some or most but every single one. Which is why God Commands all people everywhere to repent

 

If they do not agree with the bible then they are wrong or do you think the bible has to agree with them?

 

Are you asking me

 

Gee I don't know, perhaps we should see what the bible says,
Joh 16:8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
Joh 16:9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me;

Sure seems like He convicts everyone, that is unless you think that the world is only the elect of calvinism. Which I am sure you do.

 

Romans 2:29 - Nevertheless, he is still a Jew and in this chapter and context Paul is addressing the Jew as opposed to the gentile and the law that the Jews boast in as opposed to the conscience that drives the gentiles to do the things by nature that the law demands.

Verse 13 for not the hearers are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. 14 For when the gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 30 which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.

In verse 29 God is not saying a gentile becomes a Jew, he is not even addressing gentiles here. He is contrasting a Jew who has the law of God and who boasts about keeping the law by the power of the flesh, works, and the one who keeps the law because of the circumcision of the heart, circumcision, the physical figure for the indwelling Spirit with the flesh cut away who leads the spiritual Jew who has been born again. This is the Jew God recognizes and blesses and considers his. (you might want to read the Palestinian covenant of Israel here. It is in Duet 30).

The context is clear. It is an error to use this verse in the way the Reformed shades it.

 

You have yet to establish that world means every individual. It doesn't.

 

You are the one not agreeing with the Bible.

 

This less violent significance, usually present in helko, but always absent from suro, is seen in the metaphorical use of helko, to signify "drawing" by inward power, by divine impulse, Joh_6:44; Joh_12:32. So in the Sept., e.g., Son_1:4, and Jer_31:3, "with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." It is used of a more vigorous action, in Joh_18:10, of "drawing" a sword; in Act_16:19; Act_21:30, of forcibly "drawing" men to or from a place; so in Jas_2:6
{Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words}

helkúō (G1670), to draw with affection and attraction as contrasted to katasúrō and súrō which involve compulsion.
{The Complete Word Study Dictionary}

In the OT helkein denotes a powerful impulse, as in Son_1:4, which is obscure but expresses the force of love. This is the point in the two important passages in Joh_6:44; Joh_12:32. There is no thought here of force or magic. The term figuratively expresses the supernatural power of the love of God of Christ which goes out to all (Joh_12:32) but without which no one can come (Joh_6:44).
{Theological Dictionary of the New Testament}

So you know better than Vine's, WSD or the TDNT (little kittle).

Did I say that Christ Jesus drawing all people to Himself necessitate all individuals be saved, NO. That is just you adding in your calvinist theology.

I can see why you have to see drag in G1670. That is the only way your theology works, God forces people to come to Him. But that is not what the bible says is it, well it does if you remove the calvinist glasses.

 

My calvinist theology necessitates all be saved? What an asinine comment. And yes, the Bible does say the Father must draw them, and ALL the Father gives comes to Christ. Or was Jesus a liar? Has nothing to do with Calvinist glasses, it has to do with you denying what Scripture actually states. It states nobody seeks God.

 

1Ti 2:3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,
1Ti 2:4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Now you will have a problem with this text as it does not say "desires the elect to be saved". And God is not forcing them to be saved as some on here think. God desires that all be saved but only those that choose to come to Him in faith will be saved.

Calvinists love to thrown out all these over the top comments but you run from the truth of scripture if it does not smack of calvinism. Get your head out of your calvinist books and learn to read the bible for what it says.

 

No, that was a response to reformed1689.

 

You have yet to establish that it does not. The bible is clear but you cannot or rather will not accept what it says.