Peter McKenzie

He found mercy not because he belonged to the Father, but because he acted ignorantly in unbelief. But this is in direct contradiction of your previous statement. Paul came to Jesus without having been one who was given to Jesus by the Father. Similarly, your example here of the centurion seem to work against what you previously said. I am confused. In these cases, you have people coming to faith without first “belonging to the Father”. Which was my point… The crux of our impasse is that it seems to me that you want to consider that passages that show the role of the Father – as in the case of the Lord opening Lydia’s heart, and insist that it is conclusive proof of that as the Father giving them to Jesus. On the other hand, my view doesn’t deny that there is active involvement by God in the process of salvation. But you seem to be insisting that the one means the other. I simply am saying that there is a difference between the giving as depicted in John 6 – and God working in someone’s life to bring them to salvation. I would point out that there was no guarantee that those given in John 6, would be saved. Salvation is determined at the last day and in at least 4 places in scripture – requires that one “continue” in the faith. There is, of course, a great likelihood that they will be saved – but that is yet to be determined in its entirety. In any case, it seems that you are importing the term “giving” and how it is defined there in John 6 and trying to force it into a universal blueprint. I am in disagreement with you solely on that point. I don’t disagree that God is active in the lives of people, whether or not they have some sort of prior truthful belief in God’s existence – no matter how large or small that may be. A simple push back in this regard – is that your view seems to hold no hope for an atheist to come to faith. The gospel holds no power for him/her to change his/her mind. To the contrary, I am sure a quick google search could reveal testimonies by former atheists. One other seeming fly in your ointment: what about those deceased OT believers who believed in the coming Messiah and who would have believed in Jesus had they lived long enough to see Him? It CANNOT be said of them that they “were given to Jesus” – in that they weren’t around to allow for the process of him caring for them. Can you see how this fact serves to limit the setting as well – only from the prior-to-Jesus-coming vantage point? The setting has an established start date and end date. Your argument with me here should not be on the setting which is clearly in view. Your argument is that the principle of the setting (that Jesus tells them) continues on. On that I disagree that it does. There are too many setting specific details that prevent a leap to a continued “giving” – as you suggest.