Featured The Reformers - The Doctrine of Drawing - And Serious Error?

Thanks Dave, I would like to see the scriptures saying this. Remember, the gospel comes through a preacher and his own testimony. It is a "seed" that produces life when conditions are right (1 peter 1). The spiritual like all other doctrines of God are prefigured by the physical. In the spiritual realm the seed enters through the ear. The properties of the birth are allike. There is a seed. The properties of the conception and birth are alike. It takes two for a birth to occur.

Watch this confirmation. I will give you two passages for your consideration.

1 Corinthians 4:15
For though ye have ten thousand instructers in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.

Titus 1:4
To Titus, mine own son after the common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Consider this. Meditate on it.

 

I am commenting in this post on your comment above that I have highlighted.

Dave, I am sorry but you just gave your opinion. You did not make a scriptural case for your position. If you can quote a few verses in the context of salvation where this is taught, it would be helpful.

The Jews asked the question after they heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. This chapter, Acts 2, actually is a basis for the position I take. All the work the Spirit was doing was in the preachers, not a mention about the hearers.

Ac 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

The promise that is being poured out from God is the promise of the Spirit. We learn in other passages that he is poured out in such abundance that the nation is immersed in him. The analogy for the Spirit is rain water. He comes from heaven at the Father's behest as water does and he is over the heads of all Israel. But he does not save any of them by being on the outside of them, he must be on the inside to give them life. The properties of the rain water and the Spirit are the same. The water can cleanse the out side, but it must be ingested to give life. This is called by God the baptism of the Spirit but it is not salvation. It illustrates the cleansing power of the water from heaven. Remember, the blood of Jesus Christ washed their sins away when he died on the cross. This water baptism is symbolic of the cleansing of the body from it's filth and receiving the Spirit into the heart effects the change of the man. Salvation is a two-fold proposition. Repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ.

1 Pet 3:21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
22 Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.
1 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;
2 That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.

Let me help you with this because I know you will not get the meaning of these words.

First of all they are in an epistle written by Peter. He wrote to the strangers scattered in Asia Minor. These were the dispersed ten tribes that had been dislodged from their land grant in 722 BC. This was because of their filthy sins created in the body. Another thing that you need to see here is that the whole house of Israel was 12 tribes. When Peter wrote this Judah was still a nation and national covenants were still in play for them. It was God's intention to get them saved by cleansing them from their unrighteousness and give them the Spirit to indwell them, thus making them children of God.

One must understand that God views corporate Israel as his firstborn son. He is born of the flesh. He will need to be born again of the Spirit. I am not making this up. God himself tells us this.

Ex 4:22 And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:
23 And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.

Notice what he said to these ten tribes about conversion in the future.

8 Now when she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son.
9 Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.
10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.
11 Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

To be sons there must be a birth. In exodus 4 the corporate whole was the firstborn son. Here the promise is that they will be sons of God individually, yet one collectively. So here is another trinitarian signature when that occurs in the future, Juda, Israel and the Spirit. Three in one and one in three, a trinity.

Something Calvinists cannot see is how God ministers to and loves Israel. In Acts 2 God calls upon every one of them to be baptized in water as a symbol of the sins he put away and by receiving the Spirit who was sent down to give them life from above. And he warns that those who will not come will be destroyed when he returns. Read it yourself.

Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

What if some did not do this?

22 For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.
23 And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.

Lk 19:11 And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.
12 He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return.
13 And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.
14 But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.

Lu 19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Ro 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

I do not expect you will understand this but it proves the Spirit does not work inside an unsaved man but the word sure does.

 

Not sure what you mean by this but and how it relates to the drawing of God the Father used only once in all the Bible but I see now that it is school time where I will need to stamp out some ignorance. (you know I am using that word in a strict academic manner). It is not your fault, kyred. We will blame it on your teachers.

First of all, John 6 has nothing to do with you and me except to teach us the transitions of God. For instance, in the gospels he is making himself known as the Father God. You remember what Jesus said; "he that has seen me has seen the Father."

If the Jews had not known him as the Father then we gentiles would not have any opportunity to be saved. Why, you ask. Because, "salvation is of the Jews," so Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well (where the water comes out) in Jn 4.

Break here and meditate.

How many times in the NT does it say "to the Jew first and also to the Greek, or gentile?" The word "also" is an addition. God has always planned on showing mercy and salvation to gentiles through the Jews. God told Abraham, one of the three fathers of Israel the nation, that in his family shall all the families of the earth will be blessed. Isaac and Jacob were the other two fathers. Abrahams seed that would do the blessing did not appear in his family until Matt 1:1. He was killed by those he came to be the recipients of yhe blessing first. After this decision was made, blessing was off the table for them, at least for a while. Logic and reason: If he was to show grace to the families of the gentiles through the Jews, then the Jews must be blessed first. How hard is this to figure?

Break here and meditate.

So, the "house, or family" of Israel became desolate and Jesus said he would not commune with them until he eats it new in the kingdom of God. We keep reading after the cross and the physical family of Abraham rejected Jesus Christ. This makes them the rejecters as a family of Jesus Christ on both sides of the cross, before his resurrection and also after it. So what did he do? He blessed the gentiles through the small remnant of the Jews who believed in Jesus Christ. He would take this remnant as the foundation of a brand new family and when it was fully established, he would invite the gentiles in. This was important to God because he had arranged a marriage for his son. He intended for it to be a Jewish bride but they would not come, even though he said all things are now ready and sent his servants out with the message to come. So, instead of getting his wife from Judea, he had to go into the world and few proportionately would come. But his house (family) must be full. Each member of this family must be born into it by the Spirit of God. There is no other way to get into it. This has taken awhile to complete.

Break right here and meditate;

It does not matter how one looks at this age we are now in, it is in all cases full of "mystery." If one ignores that in his theological construct he might as well turn all the lights off and put a blanket over his head. What makes it a mystery age? It is a mystery age because it was not written in the OT scriptures except in typology that could never be discerned without the fulfillment of the events and a divine explanation. Nowhere in the OT was there any thing about the Jews and gentiles being born into one family and being equal in stature and inheritance. this family has an head, often referred to as the "householder." and his name is Jesus Christ and in Co 1:18 he is the beginning of the family and the first born in it. This family has a destiny to be glorified in bodies like the glorious body of the resurrected Jesus Christ and the inheritance of this family is in heaven where we are all joint heirs with Jesus Christ. This glorification is not as much the mystery as how and when it is accomplished.

Break here and meditate for a while

Everything about this family is new. It began on a new day, the day after the sabbath, the first day of a new week. Those who are in this family are made new creatures in Christ by a new birth. It has a New Testament in the blood of Christ. It is a new man with a destiny to live in the new Jerusalem in the New heaven where God makes all things new. The families of the earth will be blessed by the seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ but they will not be in this heavenly family that God is forming for his son now. The marriage supper of the Lamb is still in the future because the house is not full yet and the sixth day is not ended.

Break here and meditate one last time

Israel has been dead (death means separation) since the rejection of her King by the rulers of Israel and she has been buried since 70 AD. Time has not passed for her. She has been in the grave for two whole days as God counts days and we are nearing the beginning of the third day when at some point, very early in it, God, having raised her from the dead will give her his Spirit, who is eternal. After this bride of Christ, the church, are gathered together and taken out, then God will purge the earth of all rebels, including those of his own family of Jacob, and will purify them with fiery judgements, totaling seven, and he says when it is all done and he returns there will be few men left on the earth but they will all be saved. He will be King over all the earth and will reign for a thousand years over a realm who has chosen his rule, the glorified church reigning with him.


The prophet says this to Israel;
Hosea 6:1 Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
2 After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.
3 Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.

Revive means to give life to. Israel has been in the graves for 2 days as God counts time. The nation has been raised up without the spirit in 1948. They have not been given the Spirit as a collective yet, but they will at some point in the future.

The former rain is in Acts 2. The latter rain will be in the day of the Lord. Rain is the symbol for the Spirit coming down from God out of heaven to give life to all who will drink..Re 22:17

Meditate, kyred. There is nothing wrong with changing directions.

 

Dave, I am not going to answer you point by point or by your two or three supporting scriptures for your argument. Suffice it to say that you are arguing a point that is not true according to the scriptures. God is appealing in John 6 to these Jews outwardly. He is appealing to them on the basis of their intellect, reason, and will. These men were all fully aware of the manna of the OT and the reason it was sent down from heaven, it was sent by God because they had no bread to keep them alive as they wandered in the wilderness. They must eat it every day because it was not eternal. It was for the physical. But God the Father did not send someone down from heaven to give Israel the spiritual and eternal bread that was to be eaten one time so they could live forever. Jesus Christ was the actual bread that the Father sent down from heaven, that if a man eat, he will live forever.

Our Lord Jesus would get to the point that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood before this conversation ended. As a matter of fact, this comment is what ended the conversation. Jesus claimed he came down from heaven and that God was his Father. This is the sticky point in this John chapter 6.

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.
41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
42 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?

To believe this is a fundamental doctrine of the faith. The Father is drawing all Israel to his son as the manna from heaven. They must believe this doctrine of God in order to have eternal life. All who believe it is given the promise of eternal life.

Joh 20:30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book:
31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing (that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God) ye might have life through his name.

The Father is drawing the Jews to Jesus by his prophetic words in the OT. Hence the mention of the manna and applying that prophecy to the person of Jesus Christ. There is no mention in John 6 of the Spirit of God. If you taught that it was he who was drawing you would have to make it up.

Here is the only mention of the spirit in Jn 6 and it is not capitalized. It is a reference to the words of Jesus. It is defined in the verse. Believing his words gives life. That is what quickening means.

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

No one in that crowd, including the apostles, believed that Jesus Christ came to die for their sins, be buried, and rise from the dead. Eleven of the apostles did believe that his words were eternal life if they believed them.

67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
69 And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
70 Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?
71 He spake of Judas Iscariot [the son] of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.

Dave, I say that one cannot make a doctrine out of what the scriptures don't say. The dynamics changed after the cross and resurrection and it was then that all men would be drawn by Jesus on the cross to himself, but not at the same time. Therefore it is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ that draws them, which is words of a preacher. The door of faith was opened to Jews and gentiles at different times in the Acts.

 

There is nothing wrong with the will, Dave, it is the heart that is at odds with God and is the precise reason that sinners are called upon to repent. Repentance is a verb and requires the will of man acting upon a command. It is repentance towards God, who is the offended party and faith in Jesus Christ, who is the one who has washed away our sins and in whose name we come. In John 6 God called on the Jews to repent and to believe in Jesus as the Christ, the son of God.

This is an error of the Reformed. Men know right and wrong through their conscience whether they ever hear the gospel. But the word of God through the gospel forces a man to consider the consequences of his sin, which is what our Lord Jesus, who was sent by the Father to suffer our punishment on the cross, is forced to come face to face with. Those who willingly allow themselves to think about it and meditate on it will likely believe and come to God through Christ. Others will put it out of their mind and refuse to think about it because of repentance. Jesus our Lord said this;

Jn 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

Joh 5:40 And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.

Jesus Christ put the whole responsibility on these unbelievers, who have been given the evidence of who he is, by John the Baptist, the voice of God from heaven, the miracles he did, and the OT scriptures.

When you say the scriptures must be viewed as saying exactly what they say, the Reformed are not willing to do that. This is one thing I have against this system. Case in point;

Joh 6:40 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.

Now if I asked you if you have ever seen the son you will have to answer no. But Jesus ministered in the boundaries of Judah and Israel for three and one half years and most if not all saw him at some point. Of course Paul never saw him but in addition to being an apostle, he is also a type of Israel believers when Christ returns and saves the nation. Therefore to be consistent with our doctrine we must understand that Israel only is being addressed here and this is not an eternal church doctrine that is being presented and established.

The Calvinists and the Reformed will not believe the power of the word of God. In all places the nature of it is dealt with in scripture it is said to be alive. It is a living word. It is likened to the seed in the physical realm that is planted and brings forth another person. The seed is alive every time. If conception does not take place every time and produce fruit, it is not because of the seed. The properties in the physical and the spiritual are alike. The word of God is called "seed." The seed must goe into the body, the consciousness, through the ear. That is the reason the scriptures says that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, and how can they hear without a preacher. Jesus Christ is not present physically and we cannot see him now, but there is life in his word.

22 Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:
23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:
25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
1 Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,
2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:

The gospel gives life and the written words gives maturity.
3 If so be ye have tasted that the Lord [is] gracious.