Peter McKenzie

Re Judas, I think it is possible to believe and to not follow. In James, he says that Satan believes and he shudders. It may be a point not worth harping on – but I was trying to differentiate between Judas and these unbelieving Jews. It is very possible to believe – in the sense that one believes the truth about a situation, and yet not follow that truth. That was what I was trying to convey about Judas. After he betrayed Jesus he killed himself because he knew that he had betrayed the very son of God. That knowledge came as a result of believing. In contrast, these unbelieving Jews did no possess that knowledge. They did not believe that Jesus was who He proclaimed to be. What I am NOT saying here is that, for believers in general, head knowledge believing is enough. A cursive reading of the passage reveals 2 groups of people – believers and unbelievers. The preaching of Jesus drove some away – as He knew it would. He was not unfamiliar with these ones. We are left to derive our own interpretation and inference from this outcome of the passage. You should know that I am likely as committed to scriptural truth as you are. Although you have now moved to trying to determine my motives (a place I hoped we could avoid) – by pondering whether I am a dispensationalist, and if my feelings are clouding my pursuit of truth, I can tell you that I LOVE truth more than anything myself. Re the grammar point that you make, I don’t think you are factoring the setting into your analysis of the grammar. Our particular dividing point is verse 37. When you read that verse, you are reading it through your own interpretive lens that tells you that there is an ongoing “giving of the Father” that continues to this day. In that regard, the “grammar” there clouds your reading of the following verses. But this wrong turn can be avoided if it is determined that the ones that the Father gave Jesus – and continued to give Jesus as He walked the earth as a human, are specific pre-existing people. I asked you before in what manner does the Father give people to Jesus today and still maintain a non-respecter-of-persons perspective but you did not answer me. I maintain that the “giving” only happened as a transitional process while Jesus did earthly ministry. I think the text bears that out. Only if you read your interpretation of the giving into the passage will you be able to come away with a giving that is still ongoing today. Remember what He says in verse 37 has to FIRST make sense to these hearers so they can make application to his message. They would have understood that they could not “come to Him” (in a purely motivated sense) without believing. “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away”. This is a then-specific situation – and not a universal truth embedded in a then-specific narrative. It is imperative that we do the consistent reading here. That is the first step if we are going to arrive at the truth that you desire as I do. It is critical to keep in mind that the “coming to Him” that is IN THE TEXT is an actual physical type of “coming”. This much is evident because they actually HAVE come to Him – and He is rebuking them for doing so. I should say that I have had very good success with Calvinists when I show them who the ones are that the Father gave Jesus. They were not concerned about the notion of an ongoing “giving” so that was a non-starter for them. The main thing that stopped them in their tracks was that they were forced to acknowledge that the “ones that the Father gave Jesus” was a specific group of pre-existing people – and not a class of people spanning across the time line of history. In actual fact, I think you may have more difficulty explaining your view and convincing them than I do. Because you are only coming half way on the text and your view (it seems to me) still seems to hold some degree of unconditional election and is a hybrid view in that regard. I say that will all due respect.