There are two strong indications in this text that not all is as clear as the Calvinist would have us believe.
The first indication is in John 6:66 when some of those who were following Jesus did in fact turn away and stop following.
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
The second indication that something else might be going on is found in John 6:70. Calvinists who like to cite John 6:44 and some of the other verses in this chapter as proof for their doctrine of Unconditional Election almost never cite John 6:70.
Then Jesus replied, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!”
If they do quote the verse, they usually only quote the first half of John 6:70. Those who quote the whole verse often do so in an attempt to prove reprobation, that God chooses some for eternal damnation.
Divine Sovereignty- John 6:44
Andy Woods
Take a look at John 6:44. What do we mean by divine sovereignty? What we mean is God chooses us, and I’ll show you Scriptures for these points. What I’m talking about is a pre-temporal choice (pre-temporal means ahead of time), in other words, before time existed God made a decision to unilaterally make a move of grace towards you. It’s a pre-temporal choice of God as to who would be saved, and the passing by of others.
This is, as I tried to show you with God’s working with Israel, the way it’s presented in the Bible is I believe it’s unconditional, meaning God in eternity past didn’t look at me and said well, you know Andy, I know you’re going to grow up and you’re going to become the pastor at Sugar Land Bible Church so I’ll choose you, because there’s some kind of quality in you that’s admirable. NO, that would make God’s choice of me conditional, right? Conditioned in something in me. And what I think the Scripture teaches is an unconditional choice that He has made towards us.
Now let me give you some verses that I think support this. There are several in the Gospel of John. John 6:44, I’m going to give you some of the strongest divine sovereignty verses that I know of in the Scripture. John 6:44, Jesus is speaking, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him….” Now this word “draw” is helkyō and it’s the same verb that’s used in John 21:6 and verse 11, regarding the miraculous catch of fish. [John 21:6, “And He said to them, ‘Cast the net on the right-hand side of the boat and you will find a catch’… John 21:11, “Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land, full of large fish….”]
Remember what was happening, they were dragging (that’s the word “draw” there), they were dragging the fish into the boat with resistance. So if the word is used the same way here in John 6:44, what God has done is he has drawn you to Himself. In fact, if God did not exercise grace towards you and draw you to Himself you really couldn’t come because Romans 3:11 says no one seeks God. [Romans 3:11, “There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God.”]
You’ll see the same thing down in John 6:65, “‘For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.’” John 6:69-70, “‘We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.’ [70] Jesus answered them, ‘Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?’” So the apostle said we made a choice towards You God, and Jesus comes back and says I made a choice toward you before you made a choice towards Me.
Take a look at John 15:16 for a minute, at the very beginning of Christ’s ministry Jesus called the disciples, and as you’re going there I’m going to read to you Matthew 4:20, “And He said to them, ‘Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Verse 20 of Matthew 4 says, “Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.” See how it’s putting the action of their part?
So His ministry lasted, Christ’s ministry lasted about three years and at the beginning of the ministry they probably thought they chose Christ, which they did. They did choose Him, “they left their nets and followed Him.” Then at the very end of Christ’s ministry, in the Upper Room, three years have passed, and Jesus pulls this whammy on them. John 15:16, “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you…” and so forth. So these disciples thought that they chose the Lord, I’m not denying that they did, but in reality what you discover is God did something for them, to them, and He made some kind of action towards them ahead of time.
Matthew 16, let’s look at this real quick, one day Peter had a thought, Jesus said who do men say that I am? Peter raised his hand… the Bible doesn’t say He raised his hand, but he gave the right answer. Matthew 16:15, “He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’” [16] Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Now Peter probably thought that he had those thoughts all on his own initiative, he was the smartest guy in the room, right?
But then Jesus, in verse 17, “said to Him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.’” So Peter, you just had the wonderful thought that you had because My Father made some sort of move towards you and allowed you to have that particular thought. See, these are all verses, you start putting these together and you see God is doing things in our past, sometimes without even us being aware of them.
http://www.spiritandtruth.org/teaching/Soteriology_by_Andy_Woods/02_Election_and_Free_Will/20160113_election_transcript.htm?x=x
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Both Covenant Calvinists and all sovereign grace Dispensationalists (including Miles Stanford) affirm the truth that "No one can come to Me [Christ] unless the Father who sent Me draws him." John 6:44.
However, Calvinists view this action of God drawing the sinner to the Savior as evidence of regeneration--the new birth. Representative of this emphasis, Dr. Bob Wright writes:
"The doctrine of total depravity states that fallen human nature is morally incapable of responding to the gospel without being caused to do so by divine intervention (1 Cor. 2:12-15). Once the soul is sovereignly regenerated, it willingly responds in saving faith to God's command to repent and believe the gospel, but not before."
"God regenerates each elect person so that he or she invariably responds willingly to the gospel."
Similarly, Reformed Baptist Phil Johnson states:
The effectual call, sometimes known as the internal call, is the regenerating work of God in the hearts of His elect, whereby He draws them to Christ and opens their hearts unto faith.
Despite the many examples from the Scriptures of God controlling the actions of unregenerates, the Reformed require an "initial infusion of the resurrection life of Christ into the human soul" for John 6:44 to be effective. Anyone who refuses to accept their salvation model is a synergist--a pejorative term used historically by Protestants to describe the semi-Pelagian views of Roman Catholics.
But think for a moment about the 22nd chapter of Numbers. The false prophet Balaam heard the Lord speak, his donkey spoke, and both he and his donkey saw the "Angel of the Lord" (Christ) all without the benefit of Calvinistic regeneration. Supernatural? yes! Regeneration? no. Strangely, while the Calvinist prides himself in being a stalwart defender of God's sovereignty, he limits what God the Father is capable of doing. He erroneously requires that the doctrine of effectual calling be made synonymous with the new birth. Cannot the Father supernaturally enable the sinner to "believe the Word in order to accept the Savior." Cannot His work of drawing unregenerate sinners be kept separate and not confused with the New Birth itself? Apparently not for those of the Reformed tradition!
At issue are the serious spiritual ramifications of a broad and sweeping use of theological terminology; a chronic problem for those whose tradition prescribes an over-riding continuity on the sixty-six books of the Bible. The obsessive emphasis upon continuity contributes to their use of all-inclusive theological terms. As shown above, Reformed authors typically use the term regeneration to describe any supernatural activity on or within an elect individual. No differentiation is made for different ages (e.g., earthly dispensations) or for differentiated elect (Israel and Church), since for them redemptive history is largely unitary.
While both camps correctly see that lost sinners are "dead in trespasses and sins", nearly all Reformed theologians, as Stanford points out, view this death as a form of annihilationism rather than separation. The Calvinist's system often devalues, then obscures, the biblical truths of volition, responsibility, and particularly the believer's Adamic natures. Sadly, their flawed soteriology was forged in the heat of century-old battles with the heretical, religious humanism of Roman Catholicism. This contributes heavily to a insularity in their theological perspective. --- Dan R. Smedra.
SOVEREIGNTY PLUS RESPONSIBILITY
Miles J. Stanford
Concerning God's sovereignty and man's responsibility in the realm of soteriology, Covenant theology stresses God's sovereignty, and eliminates man's responsibility. [1]
Covenant Calvinism correctly maintains the doctrine of Total Depravity: "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing" (Rom. 7:18). But their definition of total depravity is "total inability."
For this their proof text is Ephesians 2:1: "And you hath He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins." Their illustration of this total inability is a man physically dead, who cannot see, hear, speak or move. Hence he is totally unable to respond to God in any way--he cannot believe. [2]
Chapter IX, Section 3, of the Westminster Confession of Faith, makes it official:
Man, by his fall into the state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability to will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from good, and dead in sin, he is not able by his own strength, to correct himself, or to prepare himself thereto.
The Reformed solution to this self-inflicted error is regeneration. [Regeneration: (Gr. paliggenesia, a being born again), the spiritual change wrought in a man by the Holy Spirit, by which he becomes possessor of a newly-created life (Unger's Bible Dictionary, p. 916)].
Covenantism teaches that the Holy Spirit first regenerates those whom God has elected. Israel's New Covenant is erroneously resorted to for this "regeneration." "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you" (Ezek. 36:26). It is supposed that God thereby gives one the new life so that he is enabled to exercise faith, and live. In other words, according to Calvinism, one must be born again in order to be born again!
In their book titled The Five Points of Calvinism, Defined, Defended, and Documented (Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Company, 1971), Drs. D. Steele and C. Thomas wrote:
The Holy Spirit creates within the elect sinner a new heart and a new nature. This is accomplished through regeneration--or the new birth by which the sinner is made a child of God and is given spiritual life.
Because he is given a new nature so that he loves righteousness, and because his mind is enlightened so that he understands and believes the biblical gospel, the renewed sinner freely and willingly turns to Christ by the inward supernatural call of the Spirit, who through regeneration makes alive and creates within him faith and repentance.
The late Dr. John Murray, professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton is Seminary and then Westminster Seminary, taught the same error:
It should be especially noted that even faith that Jesus is the Christ is the effect of regeneration. We are not born again by faith or repentance or conversion; we repent and believe because we have been regenerated (Redemption Accomplished & Applied, p. 103).
Regeneration is that which is wrought inwardly by God's grace in order that we yield to God's call with the appropriate and necessary response. In that case the new birth would come after the call and prior to the response on our part. It provides the link between the call and the response on the part of the person called (Ibid., p. 94).
The venerable Plymouth Brethren, Dr. Samuel Ridout, stood against this error:
"Being born again [regenerated], not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever" (1 Pet. 1:23). The new birth is "by the Word of God." That it is a sovereign act of God, by the Spirit, none can question. But this verse forbids us to separate, as is often done, new birth from faith in the Gospel.
It is being taught that new birth precedes faith, but here we are told that the Word of God is the instrument in the new birth. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God"; "the Word by the Gospel is preached." John 3:3 and 3:16 must ever go together. There is no such anomaly possible as a man born again, but who has not yet believed the Gospel.
As Dr. John F. Walvoord put it, in his book, The Holy Spirit, (p. 132):
The important fact, never to be forgotten in the doctrine of regeneration, is that the believer in Christ has received eternal life. This fact must be kept free from all confusion of thought arising from the concept of regeneration which makes it merely an antecedent of salvation, or a primary quickening to enable the soul to believe.
Although the sinner is dead in sins, he is not an unresponsive corpse, he is not annihilated; rather, he is separated from God. He is certainly alive [3] enough to adamantly reject the Saviour! Although dead to God, the Holy Spirit enables him to believe the Word in order to accept the Saviour and thereby be regenerated--born again. The Word of God is perfectly clear as to the sequence of salvation!
"As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His name" (John 1:12).
"By the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" (1 Cor. 1:21).
"Of His own will begat He us with the Word of truth" (James 1: 18).
If the Word of God is not presented in its proper sequence, and if it is not rightly divided, the result could be ruinous. Therefore, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15).
Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer totally repudiated the Calvinistic error as to Sovereignty and Responsibility in the realm of Soteriology. He clearly did so in his classic Systematic Theology:
The Bible clearly asserts that the influence of God upon the unsaved must be exercised if ever they are to turn to Him in saving faith. Christ declared, "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him" (John 6:44). The will of man is a creation of God and in relation to it He sustains no timidity or uncertainty. He made man's will as an instrument by which He might accomplish His sovereign purpose and it is inconceivable that it should ever thwart His purpose.
When exercising his will, man is conscious only of his freedom of action. He determines his course by circumstances, but God is the author of circumstances. Man is impelled by emotions, but God is able to originate and control every human emotion. Man prides himself that he is governed by experienced judgment, but God is able to foster each and every thought or determination of the human mind. God will mold and direct in all secondary causes until His own eternal purpose is realized.
How else could He fulfill His covenants which commit Him to the control of the actions and destinies of men to the end of time and into eternity? His election is sure; for whom He predestinates, them--not more nor less--He calls; and whom He calls, them--not more nor less--He justifies; and whom He justifies, them--not more nor less--He glorifies. When predestinating, He assumes the responsibility of creating, calling, saving, and completing according to His own purpose.
In calling He moves those to believe to the saving of their souls, whom He has chosen. In justifying He provides a substitutionary, efficacious Saviour by whose death, resurrection, and ascension He is legally able to place the chief of sinners in as perfect a relation to Himself as that of His own Beloved Son.
And in glorifying He perfects all that infinite love has designed. The precise number that will be glorified will be the precise number and the same individuals--not more nor less--that he predestinated. Each one will have believed, have been saved, have been perfected and presented like Christ in glory.
Men enter consciously into this great undertaking only at the point of believing, or responding to the efficacious call. Naturally, it seems to them that they, acting in freedom within the restricted sphere of their consciousness, determine everything. Their action is vital, for no link in God's chain can be lacking.
The point where misunderstanding arises is with reference to the fact that, so far as their cognizance serves them, they are certain that they act freely; yet every truly regenerated person will testify that he would not have turned to God apart from that all-important divine drawing of his heart.
Divine election is absolute. If this seems to come to be taking things out of the hands of men and committing them into the hands of God, it will at least be conceded that, when thus committed to God, things are in better hands and this, after all, is God's own universe in which He has sovereign right to do after the dictates of His own blessed will.
It will also be conceded that the sphere of human action, so far as it can mean anything in the sphere of human consciousness, is left in perfect freedom of action. It should be deemed no crime on the part of God that He discloses to His own elect that His sovereign power and purpose are working through and over all human forces and secondary causes (1:241,242).
"Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, then He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth" (Rom. 8:30-33).
It is certain that, in the vast range of creation, God has manifold purposes and there will be no question raised about whether His will is done in other spheres. It is only within the restricted realm of certain human beings that doubt is engendered relative to the sovereignty of God; and it is significant that such doubt springs from men and not from God.
His Word may be taken as the declaration of what He deems to be true, and He asserts His own sovereignty with no condition of qualification. After all, the opinions of men, who are steeped in self-exalting prejudice and afflicted with satanic independence of God, are of no value whatsoever. The entire theme of predestination is outside the human horizon.
In the verses cited above, the Holy Spirit, the divine Author, asserts that precisely what God purposes He brings to glorious fruition. By specific steps and by wholly adequate means God realizes what He purposes. Whom He predestinates, He calls; whom He calls, He justifies; and whom He justifies, He glorifies. These are among the things which "work together for good" to those who are the called according to His purpose.
The divine call not only invites with a Gospel appeal, but inclines the mind and heart of the one called to accept divine grace. Here the human will--a secondary cause--is recognized. The will of man is guided by what he knows and what he desires.
The divine method of reaching the will is by increasing man's knowledge and by stimulating his desires, while on the divine side of this method there remains not a shadow of possible failure. The end is as certain as any eternal reality in God.
On the human side, man is conscious of doing only what he actually does; he chooses in an act of his own volition to receive the grace God offers in Christ Jesus. It is a problem to the mind of man how God can predetermine and realize the eternal salvation of a precise number which no human being has ever counted, and guarantee that not one will fail, and yet each one of that incomprehensible company is allowed the free exercise of his own will, and could, if he so determined, reject every offer of divine grace.
By loving persuasion and gracious enlightenment God realizes His purpose to the point of infinite completeness; yet no human will has been coerced, nor will one ever be. God's call is efficacious, for all who are called are justified and glorified.
All that enters into the problem of qualifying a sinner for heaven's holy associations is perfected in justification, it being the consummation of all that enters into salvation both as a dealing with demerit and as a provision of infinite merit before God--the very merit of the Lord Jesus Christ.
As a divine undertaking, justification, which is secured without reference to any human cause (Rom. 3:24), incorporates, as essential to it, not only the value of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, but every step of that which justification incorporates that leads the Apostle to declare, as he does in verse 31 and 32, that God is "for us."
This is a marvelous truth and His attitude of love is demonstrated by the fact that He did not spare the supreme gift of His Son, but delivered Him up for us all. Having given the supreme Gift, all else will easily and naturally be included. God gives unqualified assurance that He justifies all whom He predestinates and He bases that justification on the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, which basis renders it at once a divine act altogether righteous in itself--even to the point of infinity.
"Who shall lay anything to God's elect?" is "It is God that justifieth." That is, the very thing which would serve as a charge against the believer has been so dealt with already that there can be no charge recognized.
From the standpoint of infinite holiness, it is no slight achievement for God to justify eternally an ungodly enemy who himself does no more than believe on Jesus, and to do this in such a manner as to shield the One who justified from every complication which mere leniency with sin and unworthiness would engender.
This is not a human disagreement where one believer is charging another with evil; it is an issue of far greater proportions. It is God who is challenged to take account of the sin of His elect. The Arminian contends that God must judge and condemn the one He has saved if there is ought to charge against him.
Over against this notion, which notion seems never to have comprehended the workings of divine grace, is the clear assertion that God has already justified the one who has given full proof of his election by believing on Christ, and this in spite of not just one evil being charged against him, but in spite of every sin--past, present, and future (Vol. 3, pages 350,351).
No human will was ever created to defeat the will of God, but rather the human will is one of the instruments by which God realizes His purposes for humanity. It has always been thus and must be so of necessity, since God is what He is. The one who meditates on the Person of God, the eternity of God, the omnipotence of God, the sovereignty of God as Creator of, the Ruler over, all things, and the elective purpose of God, will be fortified against that form of rationalism--subtle in character and natural to the human heart--which imagines that, in his creation, God has unwittingly so tied His hands that He cannot with that absoluteness which belongs to infinity realize His eternal purpose (Vol. 1, page 235).
Having designed that man shall be possessed of an independent will, no step can be taken in the accomplishment of God's sovereign purpose which will even tend to coerce the human volition. God does awaken the mind of man to spiritual sanity and bring before him the desirability of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ.
If by His power, God creates new visions of the reality of sin and of the blessedness of Christ as Saviour, and under this enlightenment men choose to be saved, their will is not coerced nor are they deprived of the action of any part of their own beings (Vol. 3, page 284).
When God by His Spirit inclines one to Christ, that one, in so doing, acts only in the consciousness of his own choice. It is obvious that to present a convincing argument to a person which leads that one to make a decision, does not partake of the nature of a coercion of the will. In such a case, every function of the will is preserved and, in relation to the Gospel, it remains true that "whosoever will may come"; yet back of this truth is the deeper revelation that no fallen men will to accept Christ until enlightened [not regenerated] by the Holy Spirit (John 16:7-11).
If God fore-ordained certain actions, and placed man in such circumstances that the actions would certainly take place agreeably to the laws of the mind, men are nevertheless moral agents, because they act voluntarily, and are responsible for the actions which consent has made their own.
Liberty does not consist in the power of acting or not acting, but in acting from choice. The choice is determined by something in the mind itself, or by something external influencing the mind; but, whatever is the cause, the choice makes the action free, and the agent is responsible. --Dr. John Dick (Lectures on Theology, p. 186).
[1] Some may feel that this statement is unfair and that all Covenant Calvinists affirm human responsibility. However, Calvinists like John G. Reisinger acknowledge that "Hyper-Calvinism denies the necessity of human action." Mr. Reisinger states, "The Scriptures clearly show that faith and repentance are the evidences and not the cause of regeneration." See God's Part and Man's Part in Salvation. But no! By the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit, Scriptures show that faith and repentance are neither the evidences nor the cause of the new birth.
Reformed Baptist Phil R. Johnson (Grace to You - John MacArthur) also attempts to battle the problem of the Reformed tradition sliding into hyper varieties of Calvinism. He states, "Virtually every revival of true Calvinism since the Puritan era has been hijacked, crippled, or ultimately killed by hyper-Calvinist influences." See A Primer on Hyper-Calvinism. Sadly, brother Phil is currently at a loss to explain the theological phenomenon he calls the "hyper-Calvinistic tendency."
The following statement from the article God Ordains All Things by Dr. John S. Feinberg of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in PREDESTINATION & FREE WILL, Four Views of Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom, 1986, InterVarsity Press, may help explain the problem:
Indeterminists, of course, assume that causal determinism automatically rules out free human action. But indeterminists usually think no other definition of freedom than their own is possible. That commits the logical error known as 'begging the question' or 'arguing in a circle'. Many determinists also claim that their view rules out freedom. Moreover, since an agent is only considered morally responsible if he or she is free, such determinists claim that no agent is morally responsible. Likewise, many social scientists [and unethical lawyers] argue that since we are all products of our heredity and environment, we are not free and thus are not morally responsible for what we do. Such views, however, represent a very hard form of determinism.
Unfortunately, some Calvinists, because of their understanding of God's sovereignty, have denied that humans are free. Yet some of those Calvinists maintain that we are morally responsible for our sin, while God, who decreed our sin, is not morally accountable. When asked how this can be true, they respond that it is a paradox which nonetheless must be true because Scripture demands it.
I do not affirm this paradox. Instead, like many other determinists, I claim that there is room for a genuine sense of free human action, even though such action is causally determined. [p. 24]
[bracketed comments mine]
[2] This emphasis became one of the tragic side-effects of the battle between the Protestant/Reformed and Catholics. At the heart of the conflict was the Reformation's effort to expose the semi-Pelagian foundation of medieval Romanism and later the theologies of the Arminian tradition. Catholicism would not and could not yield ground upon which its entire meritorious system was built--free will and the ability of man to make a first move toward God. O. R. Johnson wrote:
Erasmus [on behalf of Catholicism] championed the view that, though sin has weakened man, it has not made him utterly incapable of meritorious action; in fact, says, Erasmus, the salvation of those who are saved is actually determined by a particular meritorious act which they perform in their own strength, without Divine assistance. There is, he affirms, a power in the human will (though, admittedly, a very little power only) "by which man may apply himself to those things that lead to eternal salvation," and thereby gain merit (though, admittedly, a very little merit only). It is by this meritorious application to spiritual concerns that salvation is secured.
...denial of 'free-will' was to Luther the foundation of the Biblical doctrine of grace, and a hearty endorsement of that denial was the first step for anyone who would understand the gospel and come to faith in God.
...Luther's [and some Reformed theologians] denial of 'free-will' has nothing to do with the psychology of action. That human choices are spontaneous and not forced he knows and affirms; it is, indeed, fundamental to his position to do so. It was man's total inability to save himself, and the sovereignty of Divine grace in his salvation, that Luther was affirming when he denied 'free-will', and it was the contrary that Erasmus was affirming when he maintained 'free-will'. The 'free-will' in question was 'free-will' in relation to God and the things of God. Erasmus defined it as "a power of the human will by which man may apply himself to those things that lead to eternal salvation, or turn away from the same." It is this that Luther denies. He does not say that man through sin has ceased to be man (which was Erasmus' persistent misconception of his meaning), but that man through sin has ceased to be good. He has now no power to please God.
All ideas of merit, Luther insists, whatever names you give them and whatever distinctions you draw between them, come to the same thing--man performs some action independently of God which does in fact elicit a reward from God.
[bracketed comments mine]
[3] Again, some comments by Dr. Feinberg may prove helpful:
...determinists who hold to free will [volition] distinguish two kinds of causes which influence and determine actions. On the one hand, there are constraining causes which force an agent to act against his will. On the other hand, there are nonconstraining causes. These are sufficient to bring about an action, but they do not force a person to act against his will, desires or wishes. According to determinists such as myself, an action is free even if causally determined so long as the causes are nonconstraining. This view is often referred to as soft determinism or compatibilism, for genuinely free human action is seen as compatible with nonconstraining sufficient conditions which incline the will decisively in one way or another. [p. 24-25].
[bracketed comments and bold emphasis mine]
Let me re-phrase Dr. Feinberg. As sinners in the first Adam, the "law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2) operates upon the basis of 'nonconstraining causes' and in no way mitigates our accountability to God. Our rebellion is consistently reflected in our will, desires, and wishes. As saints positioned in the Last Adam, the "law of the Spirit of life" operates upon the basis of 'nonconstraining causes' as well. Thus, mankind retains volition while the will is inclined decisively in one way or another.
http://withchrist.org/sovereignty.htm
By
John 6 contains some of the most important texts on the topic of election. It is not uncommon for Calvinists to frequently reference some of the texts of John 6 in their defense of Unconditional Election. Here is what these verses say:
All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out (John 6:37).
This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day (John 6:39).
No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:44).
And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father” (John 6:65).
Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” (John 6:70).
As can be seen, several of these texts seem to pretty clearly state that God sovereignly chooses who will come to Jesus.
How a Calvinist understands John 6:44
John 6:44 is especially strong, for Jesus says that no one comes to Jesus unless it has been granted to him by the Father. Palmer explains these texts in this way:
It is clearly seen that those who will be raised up at the last day—all true believers—are given to Christ by the Father. And only those whom the Father gives to Christ can come to Him. Salvation lies entirely in the hands of the Father. He it is who gives them to Jesus to be saved. … This is nothing else than unconditional election (Palmer, Five Points of Calvinism, 27).
In a similar vein, though with much stronger words, the Calvinistic author Spencer writes this regarding his belief about what Jesus is saying:
It is tantamount to blasphemy for anyone to argue that man is capable, of his own free will, to make a decision for Christ, when the Son of God says in words that cannot be misunderstood, “No man can come to me, except the Father … draw him” (Spencer, TULIP, 42).
John 6:44 and the Choice of Jesus
Despite the risk of being accused of blasphemy for disagreeing with Spencer, there are two strong indications in this text that not all is as clear as the Calvinist would have us believe.
The first indication is in John 6:66 when some of those who were following Jesus did in fact turn away and stop following. If Jesus loses none of those who come to Him, how is it that some of those who came to Him stopped following Him? Did Jesus lose them or did He not? Or, as a third option, maybe something else entirely is going on in this text.
The second indication that something else might be going on is found in John 6:70. Calvinists who like to cite John 6:44 and some of the other verses in this chapter as proof for their doctrine of Unconditional Election almost never cite John 6:70.
If they do quote the verse, they usually only quote the first half of John 6:70. Those who quote the whole verse often do so in an attempt to prove reprobation, that God chooses some for eternal damnation.
In this text, Jesus says that He has chosen all twelve of His disciples, but one of them is a devil.
Understandably, this verse causes great problems for those who teach that God’s election is only to eternal life. Jesus clearly chooses Judas, just as He chooses the other eleven. And yet, Judas “is a devil.” This text either proves that reprobation is true, or that the choice, or election, of Jesus is not regarding the eternal destiny of people.
And in fact, since this entire chapter is about how followers of God become followers of Jesus, and since we have consistently seen in previous posts that election is to service, it is better to understand John 6:70 in this regard, as well as the other verses in this chapter about those who come to Jesus.
The Choice of Jesus in John 6 cannot be to eternal life
If election is to eternal life as the Calvinist presumes, then John 6:70 contains the strange teaching that Jesus elected Judas to eternal life, knowing that Judas was (or will be) controlled by the devil.
Very few Calvinists would like to admit that Judas was elect, yet in John 6:70, Jesus clearly states that He chose all twelve, including Judas (cf. Luke 6:13). It makes much more sense to realize that election is not to eternal life, but to purpose and to service.
Only in this way can we allow for Judas to be chosen, or “elected” by Jesus, for Judas did in fact serve a very special role and purpose within the ministry and mission of Jesus. All the apostles were chosen for a vocation—including Judas. “Unquestionably Judas shared the election of the other eleven (Luke 6:13; John 6:70)” (Klein, The New Chosen People, 270).
Jesus does not say, “I have chosen eleven of you but the other is a devil.” The election of Judas was no different from that of the others. … Election was not about whether a person went to heaven or to hell; it was the bestowal of an office and a task (Marston and Forster, God’s Strategy in Human History, 138).
So how then are we to understand what Jesus is teaching in John 6?
While Jesus does explain how a person receivers eternal life (cf. John 6:40, 47), the reception of eternal life is not itself connected with a sovereign decree or election of God.
Quite to the contrary, in the overall context of John 6, Jesus is explaining why some people follow Him as disciples and others do not (cf. John 6:60-71).
So while the reception of eternal life by faith is mentioned in this passage, the overall theme is about discipleship. To be a disciple, of course, simply means to be a student, learner, follower, or apprentice. To be a disciple means to be taught by God, which is exactly what Jesus says in John 6:45.
Not all who have eternal life consistently follow Jesus in discipleship, and not all who are disciples of Jesus have eternal life. While it would be ideal for all believers to be disciples and all disciples to be believers, it does not always work out this way, as John 6 clearly reveals.
The various groups of John 6 could be pictured with a Venn diagram, where there is a group of people who believe in Jesus for eternal life but choose not to follow Him (John 6:60, 66), and there is a group who follow Him but who do not believe in Him for eternal life (John 6:70-71), but there is one overlapping group of people who both believe in Him and follow Him (John 6:68-69).
This sort of division in people’s response to Jesus can be seen throughout the Gospel of John. (Of course, there is also a fourth group in John, which neither believes in Jesus nor follows Him.)
John 6, however, is not just about these various groups.
Those given to Jesus by the Father
In the events described in John 6, Jesus also explains why it is that some come to follow Him while others do not. Jesus states repeatedly in this passage that those who come to follow Him were given to Him by God the Father (John 6:37, 39, 44, 65).
These are the texts that Calvinists often cite as evidence for the doctrine of Unconditional Election.
But note that none of these texts are in reference to the people who believe in Jesus for eternal life. Jesus is speaking about those who become His disciples.
Note as well that the ones about whom Jesus is speaking in John 6 are all Jewish. Jesus is not making a blanket statement about all people everywhere who will come to Jesus. Instead, He is speaking specifically about why certain Jews follow Him while others do not. Jesus’ explanation is that those Jewish people who come to Him are those who previously worshipped the Father. And now that the Father has sent His Son into the world, those who used to worship the Father are now directed by the Father to worship the Son.
In other words, God is giving His worshippers to Jesus. It is much like how the disciples of John stopped following him and became disciples of Jesus instead (cf. John 1:37-39; 3:25-30).
John 6 is a chapter about transition.
Jesus is explaining that those who hear and learn from the Father, will be instructed by the Father to hear and learn from Jesus (John 6:45).
Those who used to be disciples of God the Father, are now given to Jesus to be His disciples. In other words, those Jewish people who do not follow Jesus, simply indicate that they were not truly following God. They do not have eternal life, not because they were not elect, but because they would not come to Jesus in faith (cf. John 5:40).
Since Jesus is sent from God, those who follow God will now follow Jesus, and Jesus will not drop, reject, or lose anyone who comes to Him from God (John 6:39). All of this is reiterated and clarified in John 10 (which will be looked at in a future post), and the prayer of Jesus in John 17:2-24.
John 6 compared to John 17
In John 17, Jesus uses very similar language as He uses here in John 6, but in John 17, He is speaking primarily about the apostles. These twelve were chosen to receive special revelation about God through Jesus Christ (John 17:6). They belonged to God, but were given to Jesus by God (John 17:9) so that they might behold the glory of God in Jesus Christ (John 17:24). And though they were given to Him, Jesus lost none of them, except for Judas (John 17:12).
Over and over again, using terminology very similar to that used in John 6, Jesus speaks of His twelve apostles and the special purpose, privilege, and service to which they were called. The primary subject of Jesus’ teaching in John 6, 10, and 17 regarding the people whom God has given to Jesus are His apostles. “A definite group is being given to Christ during his earthly ministry—not before the foundation of the world. The ones given are Jewish disciples” (Vance, Other Side of Calvinism, 344).
They previously belonged to God as His followers, but God gave them to Jesus so that Jesus could fulfill and complete His earthly ministry. Even Judas, though he was unregenerate, had a role to play. Judas too was chosen by Jesus. He too had a task or ministry to perform (Klein, The New Chosen People, 129).
Eternal life and Being Chosen for Service
Nevertheless, we cannot ignore that in the context of Jesus’ teaching about those whom He chooses for service, He mentions the fact that He gives eternal life to those who believe in Him for it (John 6:40, 47). What is the connection between receiving eternal life by faith, and being chosen by Jesus for service?
It is this: While God sometimes sovereignly chooses individuals to serve Him in some special way, everyone and anyone who simply and only believes in Jesus for eternal life, will be accepted by God and given to Jesus for inclusion in His purposes in this world.
In other words, Jesus is saying that if someone wants to be chosen by God and given to Jesus, that person can simply believe in Jesus for eternal life. God will give such people to Jesus, and Jesus will lose none of them, but will raise all of them on the last day (John 6:40, 44).
Jesus teaches that a group of people are en route to a grand and glorious destination—resurrection to life everlasting. The Father has them in his care, and he has entrusted them to Jesus. They come to Jesus, and he will not turn them away.
Jesus assures his disciples that he will not lose any of these special ones; they will attain the resurrection. This is assured and even (pre)destined in the sense that God’s will has determined it all. But when we come to answer the question, Who is in this group? Jesus’ response is, “everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him” (John 6:40).
God gives to Jesus the company of believers. Jesus will never reject on who comes to him in faith. This is God’s will.
The Drawing of John 6:44
But what are we to make of the word “draw” in John 6:44?
We discussed this text earlier in a post about Total Depravity, but a few additional comments are appropriate here as well.
Calvinists often point to this text, and then make the comparison between it and passages like James 2:6 and Acts 16:19 which uses the same word for “dragging” or “compelling” people to go where they do not want to go. Some scholars also point out that the word is used in classical Greek to refer to drawing water from a well. They then point out that nobody can “woo” or “entice” water from a well; it has to be drawn up irresistibly (Sproul, Grace Unknown, 36).
Yet they fail to mention that the same word is used as well over in John 12:32 where Jesus says He will draw all men to Himself.
If the Calvinist really wants to say that the word “draw” means that God irresistibly drags all the elect into eternal life, then they must also say that all men are irresistibly dragged into eternal life, which would make the Calvinist a universalist as well.
So which definition is correct? Does God irresistibly drag, or does God woo and entice?
The truth is that context helps determine which type of drawing in in view. Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says this:
There is no thought here of force or magic. The term figuratively expresses the supernatural power of the love of God or Christ which goes out to all (12:32) but without which no one can come (John 6:44). The apparent contradiction shows that both the election and the universality of grace must be taken seriously; the compulsion is not automatic (Kittel, TDNT, 227).
Regarding the specific context of John 6, William Klein adds this insight:
Jesus issues an invitation in John 6:45 that clarifies the “drawing” of John 6:44. Everyone (pas) who listens and learns from God comes to Jesus. God’s drawing is not selective nor irresistible. The “drawing” stand right in their midst; in effect, Jesus is saying, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). The attraction, the reasons, arguments, and features are all there. The question is: will the Jews really listen and learn from God? (Klein, The New Chosen People, 143).
Conclusions about John 6
When everything is put together, John 6 clearly teaches that being elected or chosen by God is not an Unconditional Election by God in eternity past to eternal life. Rather, election is to service.
Furthermore, one condition to being chosen by Jesus was to have previously been a faithful servant of God. Only those who belonged to God in this way were then given by God to Jesus for continued service. Jesus had a special task to fulfill, and God gave Him helpers to aid in that task.
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