Mark

Your exegesis from #303

“Jesus said that the crowd had “seen” him (they had been a witness and experienced or caught sight of his miracles) yet they did not believe in Him. Now we are going to find out why.”

I agree that the crowd had seen all Jesus miracles (feeding the five thousand etc). I like that you pointed out that now we find out.

“Joh 6:37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”

And then you said “Jesus says that “all” (not some, but all) that the Father “gives” Him will (not maybe, but will) come to Him. He also assures them that the one who comes to Him will not be cast out as a rejected one.”

So I was a bit disappointed because you didn’t actually address why they didn’t believe- you missed it. It is obvious that the reason they do not believe/come is because the Father has not ‘given’ them to Jesus. So although they had seen all his miracles they were unable to be saved because God the Father did not allow them to come/ believe in Jesus- they were unregenerate.
You are correct that the verse says ‘all who the Father gives will come… but that is far different from the text saying that ‘the Father gives all to come’. The meaning changes completely, so this text does not support a prevenient grace theology. I like that you emphasised ‘will’ come. That is they ‘will believe’ (since we agree on the synonymous words)- this is a clear text to support irresistible grace. Those that the Father gives to Jesus will believe- God’s elect cannot resist the Father’s grace. Also I like the way you emphasises that Jesus will never cast out those who come/believe. It is important to realise that true believers can never lose their salvation as Jesus rightly points out.

Regarding this verse I was abit concerned about how you swapped the ‘Father giving’ with those unregenerate who ‘feared God’. I don’t think this verse supports that at all. Those who the Father foreknows are those who the Father gives. To make it conditional on one’s ability as an unregenerate person to fear God concerns me. You are reading way to much into the verse. For example you conclude

“The requirement then to be “given” to Jesus is that they believed the Father first.”

I do not believe this at all. Salvation in Jesus is not ‘conditional’ on anything we do beforehand- it is a gracious gift of God. To say that one had to ‘do’ something before they were able to come to Jesus is outrageous- you are essentially saying people had to work their way to be given to Jesus. The verse clearly says that ‘all the Father gives me will come to me’. We agreed that ‘coming’ is synonymous for believing, but now you are saying that they had to ‘believe’ the Father BEFORE they could believe in the Son. It seems like you are only applying these verses to first century Jews- is that a fair statement? Since only they could fear the Father before the Son became incarnate. We post incarnate do not have that ability right?

“We can confidently know that the crowd of unbelievers were not given to Jesus because they did not first belong to the Father. To belong to the Father one must believe the Father. They did not believe the Father so they did not believe Jesus.”
It seems like you are contradicting yourself. You have said that the crowd were ’seeking’ for everlasting bread, but now you are saying that they did not believe the Father (by the way what did they have to believe about the Father to qualify to be given to Jesus. Maybe you can point it out from the text). I don’t think you can have it both ways. You can’t say these people were seeking for everlasting bread and then say that they didn’t believe the Father.

John 6:38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

I’m not even going to go into the ‘will’ debate at the moment. There is too much other stuff for us to discuss at the present time. But it is interesting how Jesus relates ‘his will’ to ‘heaven’ not just the incarnation. Food for thought!

More on your other exegesis tomorrow or the next day.