Mark

Cheryl,

I think you are misunderstanding me since it seems that you think i am saying that people can recieve eternal life apart from the atoning death of Christ. Like i said earlier that is not what i believe. People can only recieve eternal life by being reconciled in Christ. That is precisely why ‘life’ can only be ‘given’ to God’s elect, because only God’s elect have their sins ‘atoned’ for.

Your last lot of comments have diverged again. PLease stick with the verse in question. To show how you do this you asked me if i disagree with the ‘calvinists’ you quote, but neither of the quotes were dealing with the verse we are discussing. You are discussing ‘responses’, flesh and bread etc, none of which is dealing with the verse.

Perhaps we should stop and give some definitions for the words in question.
What is ‘life’? In the context Jesus is talking about eternal life.
‘Bread’- is ‘he’ or Jesus.
‘World’- has to mean God’s elect for the following reasons.

It cannot be universal unless you hold to a doctrine of universalism. Eternal life is not ‘given’ to everybody. You may think it is ‘offered’ but the text is not saying offered, it is saying ‘given’. Now is eternal life ‘given’ to everybody, yes or no? The Bible says an emphatic no!

You can’t argue all you like about offers and sprinkling and all your other points, but that is not dealing with the verse. Do you believe that eternal life is given to every single person? Not offered but given as the verse says? The reality is, eternal life is only ‘given’ to those who trust in Christ- it is not given universally. So the only way to understand ‘world’ has to be in regards to those who trust in Christ- God’s elect.