Cheryl Schatz

Peter, you are a LONG way from home! You wrote: IF you are right about John the Baptist’s status as an unbeliever, then you have a strong case. I appreciate you saying this. If each point I made is valid in the context and with Jesus’ words, it is a very strong case. You wrote: When Jesus uses John’t role as the greatest prophet of the OT era juxtaposed against the least person in the new covenant kingdom, he is not focusing on John there – rather using an example of the best of one thing being less than the least of another. IF this was correct then everything else that Jesus said would make no sense. Jesus puts John into the greatest of a category including all. Luke 7:28 “I say to you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” If Jesus wanted to limit this group to just prophets and John was the best prophet, His words far exceeded a limited group. And, if Jesus is just comparing different groups, then it makes no sense what Jesus said directly to John. In Luke 7:22 Jesus partially quotes from Isaiah 61:1. Right after that Jesus says that the one who is blessed is the one who does not take offense at Him. The term for offense is not a term of comparing two righteous groups. Why is John told there is a blessing for not taking offense after his doubt was openly declared to Jesus and the crowd? I think that Jesus again hits the nail on the head. Isaiah 61:1 is a bombshell as far as John the Baptist is concerned. Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners; This is a prophecy of the Messiah and note that the Messiah is said to bring FREEDOM TO THE CAPTIVES. Where was John? In prison. John would have known the prophecies about the Messiah and the role that he was to play in announcing the Messiah. Now that he was in prison, would the verse that Jesus quoted from have been important to him? He was a captive that needed to be freed but Jesus never helped him,. In fact when Jesus heard that John was in prison he did not go to John but he instead with into Galilee. Matthew 4:12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been taken into custody, He withdrew into Galilee; Jesus had told John’s disciples to take a message to him. Jesus was doing all the miracles from Isaiah 61:1 but He was not setting John the prisoner free. Jesus’ quote and the admonition to not be offended because of Him was and indication that John was offended because Jesus was helping others but not freeing him as a special messenger of His. In your view there is no explanation for the spiritual importance of faith vs offense. Lastly, John the Baptist was not in an “older” group, but he was in the time of the gospel. Luke 16:16 “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. The end of the Law and the Prophets was the coming of John. John was in the new covenant time and John preached the gospel of the kingdom. You wrote: In hermeneutics, if we try to draw a truth out of a text that the author is not making, there is no authority on that interpretation. Everything that Jesus said has meaning. If you are going to draw the meaning of a comparison of two righteous groups (OT prophets and those entering the kingdom), then you have to explain the words and quote of Jesus. None of it makes any sense and we cannot just ignore the words in the inspired text. Jesus said His words for a reason. You wrote: I could similarly say to you that Elijah was not a believer because of his wavering. I do not know what you are talking about. So God the Father speaking directly to John the Baptist and giving John the greatest witness of the Messiah that any man has received, and John seeing the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus, is now rejected by John and this is to be compared to what from Elijah so that you call him an unbeliever? You wrote: The reason I suggested that John the Baptist and Judas were not really relevant to our discussion is because they aren’t – in OUR discussion. I do understand that they are important to your argument with Calvinists. But the fact of the matter is that we are approaching that false doctrine from different angles (at least as it pertains to John 6). So our discussion is centered around the notion of the Father’s drawing. The issue is drawing but more so the giving to Jesus. Jesus concludes the passage with His reason for His words spoken precious in the chapter. Unbelief is tied directly into His words “no one can come to Me unless” John 6:64–65 64“But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. 65And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” You wrote: This is a passage that Calvinists to prove irresistible grace – more than unconditional election, although the 2 do tie together. I do not believe that John 6 is about unconditional election and I do not believe that it is about irresistible grace for unbelievers. You wrote: Re Judas, I think I made myself clear there, and made a good point – the main thing being that just because Jesus knew the purpose that Judas served, and in that regard, knew that Judas needed to keep following him – when the others didn’t. Judas didn’t need to keep following Jesus to betray Him. When you say the “purpose” that Judas served, that comes across as if you accept unconditional election. You wrote: Whether or not Judas had a knowledge of the truth of who Jesus was (whereas the others definitely did not) is immaterial to my premise – as I see it. Peter confessed what the disciples believed: John 6:69 “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” While Peter says “we have believed”, Jesus immediately showed that one of the disciples was not part of the “we” that believed. Jesus said: John 6:70–71 70 Jesus answered them, “Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?” 71 Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him. You wrote: I will point out that in John 17, a good case can be made for Judas as being included in the group of those given to Jesus by the Father. If you read the text, it seems that he was included but he was lost whereas the others weren’t. In John 17:12, Judas is show as the exception. The fact that Judas was identified as a habitual thief, he was identified as his heart known to Jesus “from the beginning”, that he was personally indwelt by Satan twice, and one who was said to be a devil and already was a “son of perdition” and already “perished”. Judas was not “given” to Jesus because Judas was never a repentant believer, but an unrepentant, habitual sinner. Judas was “lost” for sure, but he was “lost” from the beginning. He was the only unbeliever that Jesus picked as a disciple. He was someone so good at acting the part and so good at stealing with stealth and hiding himself and his sin that none of the other disciples even considered him as a possible candidate as the betrayer. So look again at John 17:12. Judas is listed as one who is lost but never listed as one given to Jesus as a believer. You wrote: If things were crystal clear, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion. However, because they are not clear, I could just as easily turn your argument around and point it back at you. IOW you are assuming that your reasoning is lacking assumption and human reasoning whereas mine is not. If you look at my Biblical reasoning, I quote the Scripture and use the exact words it says. I do agree that some of these things are not easy to see at first because we come with assumptions. We may excuses for John the Baptist because we like him and do not want to see him as an unbeliever because he has been such a powerful preacher of the gospel. However, I have taught classes where people originally rejected what I said and I brought out all the things that John the Baptist knew. We all looked at the list of things that the Bible says and the words that John spoke. We looked carefully and then we compared this to the words brought to Jesus of his doubt. Every single person saw it. They all said that he had NO reason to doubt the Father’s testimony about Jesus. They saw that Jesus’ words back to John had meaning. They saw that no change in John’s doubt was given and no change in his place outside the kingdom is given. It was a very sobering moment for them. What they said to me was that it was much easier to see when everything said about John was put in one place at one time. It then became very obvious to them and they acknowledged that what John said to Jesus in a very public manner through John’s disciples was a terrible thing to say by one who had been taught by the Father and given information to believe than anyone. It was clear and plain to them at that moment and they were very sad for John. They also realized that they too must do something with what they have been given because all of us are accountable to believe. The testimony about John is clear for anyone who is willing to hear the hard message of accountability and personal responsibility. You wrote; If I set my standard of proof so high that it disallowed any further discussion, almost zero progress could be made in these matters. All I ask is that you quote the Scripture and show what it says. You tend not to use Scripture inductively, but pick and choose to try to prove a point. You do not go through a passage or point to the grammar. If you wanted to get a point through, you would do well to work through a section and point out what each piece means in relation to the other verses. You wrote: Hopefully, it is not mere HUMAN reasoning as you mentioned – rather it is good, solid, Holy Spirit-enlightened reasoning. The reasoning that the Holy Spirit brings NEVER contradicts the Scripture. And I also believe that we should not ignore parts of the text because we don’t like the implications of that text. Judas is an integral part of John 6 because Jesus made him integrated in the text and the Holy Spirit highlights the words of Jesus as truth. We can leave Judas for the time being, but he will inevitably come up again in our discussion because Jesus saw fit to make His point using Judas. You wrote: I feel really satisfied by the reasoning that allows me to accept that the ones that the Father gave Jesus were OT regenerate Jews I don’t disagree with you. Where we disagree is that the ones that were included in the future giving of the Father. We also seem to disagree that Judas was not given to Jesus as a regenerate Jew. You believe Judas was a regenerate God-fearing man and I read the Scriptures that say that Judas was a son of perdition, an unregenerate, unrepentant, practicing thief. You wrote: and the care involved was a for-a-season situation, and therefore is not something that is occurring today. You haven’t asked me how I believe this is still occurring today. What I do see is that the Scripture does not outline an “end” to the giving so to attach an “end” would require assumption. That is unless I missed a Scripture that says the Father is no longer giving people to Jesus. I will just accept the on-going nature of the giving and I cannot see how believing that has any negative affect to my faith. You wrote: In that regard, I feel that most Calvinists, if they accept the argument as revealed in John 17, will see no need to continue to cling to an ongoing “giving of the Father”. Calvinists I have dialoged will fight an ongoing “giving of the Father”. They equate “giving” with “unconditional election” and they say that action happened in eternity past. Calvinist scholars do not like the present tense of “giving” and they reject that it has any relevant meaning, preferring to take it as a past action. Perhaps you can point to Calvinist scholars who argue that the “giving” is a present on-going action. You wrote: So, a cycle of error becomes evident. Instead of starting from the beginning and starting the process of re-thinking the intended meaning of a passage, they determine NOT to discard their original interpretation which was arrived at by way of a mistaken understanding of what the author meant. How many times have you been corrected and discarded your original interpretation? Perhaps the Calvinists that you dialog with need more Scriptural work from you to delve deeply into the Scripture to show exactly why the inspired words were used, how they relate to the context, and why the words were included in the text. If you want to change a person’s view you need to use the Scripture more. Then you need to include the context rather than give a conclusion without explaining the passage in detail. People are not persuaded when a person gives a conclusion based on how one thinks the person in the account is feeling rather than the determinative words that person said. I am not persuaded when you try to get into Jesus’ head. If you were to explain what He said to Judas and how that related to His earlier teaching and how the context easily supported the conclusion like fingers going into a glove, you would be far more effective. You wrote: This is evident in John 6. The context reveals that this is a descriptive matter that pertains to a specific people to whom Jesus was making specific argumentation. He is NOT disclosing a universal teaching that will be authoritative across the church age. You have not been successful at showing such a conclusion. If Jesus said “All that the Father GAVE Me will come to Me” you would be far more successful at showing your conclusion. But then so would the Calvinists who believe that the “giving” is a past action of unconditional predestination. I will wait to hear if you have comments about this part (the first two sections of my summary) and I will then move on to #3.