[Mr Rogers]

” We are, again, back into these same verses which you will not deal with in any substantive way. And they are these:

But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” (Joh 6:64-65)”

I have dealt with 6:37 ad nauseaum. There is nothing in 6:37 remotely suggesting Calvin’s theory of election. It simply says those the Father gives the Son, while not specifying ANY constraint IN THAT VERSE on who those may be. However, the 3rd sentence after that one DOES say: “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.””

If you will not pay attention to verses separated by just 2 sentences, then I doubt I will have much luck explaining anything involving paragraphs or pages. However, verses 64 & 65 are right next to each other, so let’s try:

” 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

So we know why he said “no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” - because “Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him”.

Yep, he knew, from before time, that Judas would betray him. And Judas was among the 12.

Are there men whom God has given over to destruction, and whom he will not give any chance of repenting?

Yes. In Romans 1, we read:

“Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all! 21 They know God, but they do not give him the honor that belongs to him, nor do they thank him. Instead, their thoughts have become complete nonsense, and their empty minds are filled with darkness. 22 They say they are wise, but they are fools; 23 instead of worshiping the immortal God, they worship images made to look like mortals or birds or animals or reptiles.

24 And so God has given those people over to do the filthy things their hearts desire...Because those people refuse to keep in mind the true knowledge about God, he has given them over to corrupted minds, so that they do the things that they should not do. 29 They are filled with all kinds of wickedness...”

God knows the future before it happens, but these verses go much further. They say God knows each individual’s heart as we cannot. We cannot say Saul is lost forever, because we don’t know the road to Damascus lies ahead of him...but God does know. And God apparently does abandon men, possibly in large numbers. If you look at the result of being abandoned by God you see:

“29 They are filled with all kinds of wickedness, evil, greed, and vice; they are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, deceit, and malice. They gossip 30 and speak evil of one another; they are hateful to God, insolent, proud, and boastful; they think of more ways to do evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no conscience; they do not keep their promises, and they show no kindness or pity for others.”

That sounds like a lot of Americans, in increasing numbers since our nation turned its collective back on God and gave God the middle finger salute. This may have something to do with Gamecock’s question about the lost, although no human can say with certainty.

God can and does give men over to their sin, and the phrase ‘hardens their hearts’ suggests he pushes them further in the direction they want to go, so that their evil will be apparent to all.

In John 6, Jesus knew full well that much of his audience had no intention of EVER following him. John 6 shows God hardening their hearts - nudging them on until it is apparent on the outside what was already on the inside. And He was and is just to do so, because God KNOWS!

Have you ever witnessed to someone, and felt the Holy Spirit tell you to walk away? Have you ever witnessed to someone, and been almost surprised to hear your words pushing them into greater resistance? While that could be our carnal flesh rising to the surface, it is not always. Consider Acts 13:

36 For David served God’s purposes in his own time, and then he died, was buried with his ancestors, and his body rotted in the grave. 37 But this did not happen to the one whom God raised from death. 38-39 All of you, my fellow Israelites, are to know for sure that it is through Jesus that the message about forgiveness of sins is preached to you; you are to know that everyone who believes in him is set free from all the sins from which the Law of Moses could not set you free. 40 Take care, then, so that what the prophets said may not happen to you:

41 ‘Look, you scoffers! Be astonished and die!
For what I am doing today
is something that you will not believe,
even when someone explains it to you!’”

{A week later]: But Paul and Barnabas spoke out even more boldly: “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. But since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we will leave you and go to the Gentiles.”

Those were not the modern church, trying to sweet-talk everyone to Jesus. Nor can we, and nor should we try. We should stay true to the message the Lord has given in His Word, and follow the Holy Spirit. If our words then give offense...well, many people have been abandoned by God, whose perfect knowledge allows Him to do so.

At some point it may well be true of most men, and maybe from before birth since God knows all: there are men God will no longer try to save.

Please remember that a part of my argument is that conversion ALWAYS starts with God’s initiative, by God revealing Himself to man. And if God has decided that someone - or even some tribe, or some peoples somewhere - will not repent, then God can and does justly give those people over to their own sin.

Indeed, we are warned to take care ourselves:

“My friends, be careful that none of you have a heart so evil and unbelieving that you will turn away from the living God. 13 Instead, in order that none of you be deceived by sin and become stubborn, you must help one another every day, as long as the word “Today” in the scripture applies to us. 14 For we are all partners with Christ if we hold firmly to the end the confidence we had at the beginning.

15 This is what the scripture says:

“If you hear God’s voice today,
do not be stubborn, as your ancestors were
when they rebelled against God.”

16 Who were the people who heard God’s voice and rebelled against him? All those who were led out of Egypt by Moses. 17 With whom was God angry for forty years? With the people who sinned, who fell down dead in the desert.”

It also says:

“For how can those who abandon their faith be brought back to repent again? They were once in God’s light; they tasted heaven’s gift and received their share of the Holy Spirit; 5 they knew from experience that God’s word is good, and they had felt the powers of the coming age. 6 And then they abandoned their faith! It is impossible to bring them back to repent again, because they are again crucifying the Son of God and exposing him to public shame.

7 God blesses the soil which drinks in the rain that often falls on it and which grows plants that are useful to those for whom it is cultivated. 8 But if it grows thorns and weeds, it is worth nothing; it is in danger of being cursed by God and will be destroyed by fire.”

In this sense, it is absolutely true that there are men long past salvation. God will not try to draw them, but will save them up for destruction. But this is not because God has a List of Names, with those He will save and give life to independent of their repentance and believing. They will go to hell, not because God refused to put their names on list, but because God knows there is no hope of repentance in them. They are ‘bad soil’, if you will.

No one CAN come to the Son unless the Father reaches out to them first, and reveals Himself to them and draws (urges, entices - not compulsion) them to Jesus. Everyone has had at least SOME knowledge of God to draw them - the natural revelation Paul speaks of in Romans 1. No one has any excuse for not realizing that there must be a god somewhere who has created order and who is worthy of our worship.

But the extent to which God gives more detailed revelation of Himself to individual men is up to God, not to us. Scripture doesn’t give us a detailed accounting because scripture is not a systematic theology text. It is there to give life to men, not to make them proud of their knowledge. Its purpose is to convict and convince, not to make us vain and boastful.

None of this suggests Calvinism’s predestination, where God’s List of Names has nothing to do with the man himself, only with God deciding to save some (and therefor give them life, and after that faith) while choosing to damn others for His pleasure.

However, it is consistent with God drawing some [“figuratively, of a strong pull in the mental or moral life draw, attract (JN 6.44)”]. And those who believe (verse 40, after verse 37: “everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life”) DO come, and are placed “in Christ”, and are grafted into the Chosen People of God.

However, even in grafting we are warned: “Here we see how kind and how severe God is. He is severe toward those who have fallen, but kind to you—if you continue in his kindness. But if you do not, you too will be broken off. 23 And if the Jews abandon their unbelief, they will be put back in the place where they were; for God is able to do that. 24 You Gentiles are like the branch of a wild olive tree that is broken off and then, contrary to nature, is joined to a cultivated olive tree. The Jews are like this cultivated tree; and it will be much easier for God to join these broken-off branches to their own tree again.”

Those verses make no sense under Calvinism, but make total sense in the context of the entire Bible.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

So we know why he said “no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” - because “Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him”. Yep, he knew, from before time, that Judas would betray him. And Judas was among the 12.

The verse does not say that Christ's explanation for their unbelief is "because" He foreknew anything. The parenthesis is not Christ's words, but John explaining how He could know that they were unbelievers:

Joh 6:64 But there are some of you who do not believe." (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) Joh 6:65 And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."

Christ's statements to the unbelievers is exactly this: "There are some of you who do not believe... This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father." Christ knew that they did not believe, and that is why He told them what He did. The parenthesis is not an explanation for what He told them. It is an explanation for how He knew they were unbelievers, since none had yet walked away.

I have dealt with 6:37 ad nauseaum. There is nothing in 6:37 remotely suggesting Calvin’s theory of election. It simply says those the Father gives the Son, while not specifying ANY constraint IN THAT VERSE on who those may be.

John 6:37 constrains all those who come to the Son as having been given by the Father, and that this "giving" by the Father is infallible. All of them do come and are not cast out. It is a promise that they will be drawn, and, once drawn, will not be dangled loose and off into the dump somewhere. Hence Christ in the following verses then promises that He will "raise them up," and that He will raise up all those who are given to Him.

And God apparently does abandon men, possibly in large numbers. If you look at the result of being abandoned by God you see:

That sounds like a lot of Americans, in increasing numbers since our nation turned its collective back on God...

These verses aren't about Americans. They are about the whole human race. Hence "all have sinned and come short of God," and "there are none who seek or understand God," and "None are righteous, no not one." This is a wickedness that we have already in the womb, not after some later sin. Gamecock's question is about those who have never heard the Gospel, and therefore they could not have turned their back on a God they've never heard of.

In John 6, Jesus knew full well that much of his audience had no intention of EVER following him....In this sense, it is absolutely true that there are men long past salvation. God will not try to draw them, but will save them up for destruction.

Just to confirm: You are saying that Christ does not "draw" or "grant" it to all men, because He foreknows they would reject it anyway? This changes your view on John 6:37 and 64-65, as it agrees with my view entirely, except you are inserting foreknowledge as an artificial explanation for why my view is correct.