John 6.38-51 God Draws All According to His Timing
Quote:
Originally Posted by bovar
You seem to be well read and someone who depends on logic and reason to find the truth. Would you please help me understand your theology and give me your exposition of the following passage?
John 6
For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 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. 40 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."
41 The Jews then complained about 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 says, 'I have come down from heaven'?"
43 Jesus therefore answered and said to them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. 47 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."
"But you haven't believed in me even though you have seen me" (John 6.36). - Free will.
"For people can't come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me" (v.44). - God does the drawing though not all drawn come, because many "draw back to perdition" (Heb. 10.39). Everyone God gives to the Son was drawn, but not all drawn are given unto new birth.
"As it is written in the Scriptures, `They will all be taught by God.'" (v.45; cf. Is. 54.13). - Sufficient grace to all.
"Everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to me" (v.45) and words like "eats it" (v.51) it is repentant heart that precedes faith to be regenerated (given new life-a child of God).
Jesus says "Come to me" (Matt. 11.28) because you have the choice and are not Totally depraved. That's the lie, the rub of Calvinism, that gets a person to cling to a selfish salvation that is assumed irresistibly, but is ineffective at overcoming the sin nature just like the Southern Baptist ex-Calvinist who for years was a Calvinist and a Preacher, but then repented of Calvinism and gave his life to Christ for real, because of the love of God in which his wife and his parent's wife prayed for him daily to believe in the One True God in Christ and not the "false Christ" of Calvinism.
You've heard the phrases "you get to have your cake and eat it too" and "stacked deck." That's Calvinism. Their false Christ will eat away at your conscience if you remain a Calvinist and will hardened your heart like God did to the Pharaoh, for the Pharaoh hardened his own heart first.
