Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
You said:

“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.

Sorry to disappoint you. The reason that they do not come to him is later in the passage. I meant to express that the passage will tell us, but we haven’t come to it yet.

Yes, it is obvious that the reason that they do not believe in Jesus is the Father has not given to Jesus, but the reason that they are not given to Jesus will be clearly shown later. However even in this passage we can understand that they are not given to Jesus because they do not belong to the Father. All those who belong to the Father will be given 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.

This is not what the passage says. We learn the reason in verse 45 and later.

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.

There is a difference between giving of the person and enabling them to believe. In the passage we are discussing, it is people who are given to Jesus. The passages that I quoted you show that all are commanded to come. Commanding cannot be done without God enabling. We cannot come on our own.

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.

No, it doesn’t support irrestistible grace. It supports the teaching that these people had listened to and learned from the Father. Those who already submitted themselves to the Father will also submit to the Son. They have already received grace from the Father and anyone who loves the Father will love the Son.

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.

Those who fear God and who continue in their faith will never be cast 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.

Sorry, Mark but the verse does not say that those whom the Father foreknows are the ones given to Jesus:

John 6:37 (NASB)
37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.

We haven’t come to verse 45 yet, but it is important to look at right now in our discussion.

John 6:45 (NASB)
45 “It is written in the prophets, ‘AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.

Jesus didn’t say that all that the Father foreknew would be given to Jesus. He said that all who had heard and learned from the Father would come to Jesus. It is therefore important to understand that those who heard and learned from the Father belonged to the Father. They could be given to Jesus because they were the Father’s to give. The Father never gave haters of God to Jesus. Those ones didn’t belong to the Father, so they couldn’t be given to Jesus.

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.

God commanded people to fear Him and many did. Just a brief check of the words “fear God” or “feared God” in the OT produces many amazing verses and nowhere does it say that those who feared God had to be made regenerate before they could fear.

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.”

This is what John 6:45 says. I believe it. Apparently you do not.

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.

There you go making faith in God a “work”. Scripture never calls it a work. You see I don’t have any presuppositions that would require me to disbelieve this verse:

John 6:45 (NASB)
45 “It is written in the prophets, ‘AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.

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.

Jesus said that the Pharisees did not believe God’s word through Moses. Because they didn’t believe the Father’s word, they could not believe Jesus’ words.

John 5:46–47 (NASB)
46 “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me.
47 “But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

You said:

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?

No, not true. We are all commanded to fear God and God is righteous enough to give us the ability to fear Him.

“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).

No, I didn’t say that the crowd was “seeking” for everlasting bread. I said that they asked Jesus for what He said He had to give. The crowd had to believe the words of the Father in the OT Scriptures. Jesus said that those who heard the words of God was “of God”.

John 8:47 (NASB)
47 “He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”

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.

Like I said, I didn’t say that.

The crowd was not “of God” since they did not learn from the Father and listen to Him.

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!

Jesus came to do His Father’s will. He recognized every one that had been given to Him by His Father. Here is another one who Jesus recognized belonged to the Father:

John 1:47–49 (NASB)
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”
48 Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
49 Nathanael answered Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.”