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To: Mr Rogers; metmom; Gamecock; Elsie; .45 Long Colt
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.

124 posted on 05/10/2014 9:49:57 AM PDT by Greetings_Puny_Humans (I mostly come out at night... mostly.)
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To: Greetings_Puny_Humans; metmom; Gamecock; Elsie; .45 Long Colt

“And he said, “This is why...”

Yep, no explanation there at all. “This is why...” was tossed in for no good reason. Right!

Here is verse 37 in context:

““Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who believe in me will never be thirsty. 36 Now, I told you that you have seen me but will not believe. 37 Everyone whom my Father gives me will come to me. I will never turn away anyone who comes to me, 38 because I have come down from heaven to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And it is the will of him who sent me that I should not lose any of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them all to life on the last day. 40 For what my Father wants is that all who see the Son and believe in him should have eternal life. And I will raise them to life on the last day.”

It is about believing, not about being pre-selected before time, with no regard to your response to God’s initiative. The Father gives the Son those who believe. Why? Because that is what the paragraph is about: believing!

“These verses aren’t about Americans. They are about the whole human race.”

Golly! You mean Paul wasn’t specifically writing about 2014 America? No kidding!

“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...”

It does NOT agree with Calvin, because Calvin rejected God’s knowledge of a man’s willingness to repent as a reason why some are saved and others are not. Do you now agree with Arminius, that those saved are saved because they responded to God’s initiative by believing, and believing, they were given life?


3. Do you believe that a person can resist the convicting power of God’s grace?

• If you answered yes, then again you affirm another one of the central tenets of Arminianism, as reflected in Jesus’ words, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I have longed to gather your children together…but you were not willing” (Matt 23:37)
• Calvinists argue that God has determined which individuals will believe; to make their faith possible, he calls them to salvation in such a way that their own wills are overpowered so that they cannot possibly resist the call to salvation
• Arminians believe that God truly wants every one to believe; but when God enables a person to believe, he does so in such a way that the individual still can resist the convicting power of the Spirit–faith is not a necessary outcome of God’s enabling grace

4. Do you believe that you are born again when you put your faith in Jesus?

• If you answered yes, then you hold to a major tenet of Arminianism and you probably are not a Calvinist
• Calvinists believe that God must first give a person new life to enable faith; without first being made to share the new life, they think that a person cannot believe
• Arminians argue that people are not given the gift of the new life until they believe
• Arminians hold that when a person believes, he is united with Christ and only then does he partake of the new life and is born again; a person does not share in the new life without first being united with Christ by faith, for “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)

5. Do you believe in election?

• If you answered yes, then you might be an Arminian
• Calvinists believe in an election independent of faith
• Arminians believe that election is “in Christ;” i.e., anyone who is “in Christ” is elect, but that faith is essential to become united with Christ. Therefore, election is conditioned upon faith

6. Do you believe in predestination?

• If you answered yes, then you might be an Arminian
• Arminians assert that believers are predestined to final salvation, not that people are predestined to believe

http://evangelicalarminians.org/survey-are-you-an-arminian-and-dont-even-know-it-2/


125 posted on 05/10/2014 10:48:15 AM PDT by Mr Rogers (I sooooo miss America!)
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