Featured Total Spiritual Inability

John 6:22-71

V22-26 this is the next day after jesus fed thousands. People began looking for him to get more food to eat. Use him for bread: bad motive

Verses 22-25 are non-germane to the topic. Verse 26 says people were seeking Jesus for the wrong reason. However, they were able to seek Jesus, and physically come near to Him to hear His message and see His miracles.

V27 jesus rebuked them for bad motives and told them to seek eternal food in Himself.

Agreed

V28-29. Therefore they asked how to do it, and jesus said to believe in Himself.

Agreed

V30-31 they ask jesus what works He was going to do to prove who He was and gave the example of Moses getting bread from heaven(forgetting that he miraculously fed over 5000 the previous day?)

Agreed

V32-33 at this point think, literally the day before God gave bread from heaven like moses, the exact sign these people seeking with wrong motives are asking for using moses as an example. Kind of odd and blind right? So jesus says (knowing He gave them food) that he is the point, the true bread given from God out of heaven to eat (to trust in faith to eternal life).

No need to engage in conjecture as to what was going on in Christ’s mind, He said the Father and not Moses provided the bread from heaven. This bread from heaven gives life to the world.

V34 they ask always for it not revealinv what they want clearly. Is it bread or jesus?

No they ask for Jesus to give them this bread of life.

Now van pay attention from this point on. Remember what has happened so far.

What has happen so far is people have been seeking the bread of life and have asked Jesus to give it to them.

V35- jesus literally tells them to come to Him and believe into eternal life. A free offer to all who choose to believe.

Jesus informs them that those who “come to Him” shall never hunger, and those who believe in Him shall never thirst. Clearly a person who came to see Him would hunger; they had eaten the loaves. So the meaning of “come to Me” is not just to come physically near Jesus. The idea is come and believe, together. Next, note that Jesus tells them to believe in Me, separately from come to Me, so come to Me does not mean come to Me in faith, or come to have faith in Me, because that would be redundant. So a good possibility is that Jesus is telling them those that come and see and believe in Jesus will never hunger and thirst after righteousness.

V36- BUT jesus says, you have seen me, even miraculously, and dont get it, you still dont believe. Now think Van, what is their problem? Yes its unbelief but there is an issue, they see jesus but dont see Him spiritually. What do they need?

In verse 36, Jesus tells them they came and saw but did not believe, so they had not obtained the righteousness of God.

V37- (this is big) they need the Father to save them from darkness. Jesus says that all the father gives him will come and never be cast out. This is jesus answer to the issue jesus pointed out in the previous verse.

The first word translated come in this verse means to arrive in Jesus, thus rather than addressing people physically coming near to Jesus to see and hear His message, Jesus is telling them that the Father decides who will obtain eternal life. Anyone the Father gives will arrive in Christ, and Christ will not cast him or her out.

That is enough for one post.

 

V38-39 jesus has come to do the Fathers will, that is to save those who THE FATHER has GIVEN him to save. Dont forget verse 37 showing that all who are given are saved. Therefore jesus is will is to come to those who are given to him.

Christ’s will is to save whoever the Father gives Him, and not lose any given to Him. The verse does not say Jesus only comes to those given Him, earlier in the passage we saw He is the bread of life to the world.

V40 everyone who believes will get eternal life according to the Fathers will. Stop for a moment Van and rethink all that has happened and how jesus is talking to these bad motived people. Are they getting it? We dont know yet, but he has told them they are not getting it and need the Father to have given them to the Son. Lets go on

No. lets stop, back up and revisit this assertion. The verse says the will of the Father is that everyone who comes, sees, hears and believes in Him will obtain eternal life and be resurrected when Christ returns. Thus those that come and see and hear and believe will be given to Him by the Father. There is nothing said about needing to be given by the Father to believe. The exact opposite is being said, they need to believe in order to be given by the Father.

Here is where we need to look at more than one verse at a time. Lets say "comes to me (arrives in Me) is because the Father gives the person to Christ. Now in verse 44 it says no one can come to me unless drawn by the Father. One view is to equate being drawn with being given. But lets look at the sequence in verse 45. You have to have heard and learned from the Father to come to Jesus. Thus the sequence is clear, those drawn have heard but not necessarily learned from the Father. Those that learned, believed in Him. Those that believed in Him are given by the Father to Christ. Christ will not cast them out, thus they obtain eternal life and will be resurrected on the last day.

 

We are saved by grace through faith, thus faith comes before saving irresistible grace.

In John 1:12-13 we have the sequence yet again. As many believe, He gave the right to become children of God. Now lets assume we become children of God physically when we are resurrected. And when do we get the right to be resurrected from our passage? After we are given and arrive in Christ. So we believe, and if God credits our faith as righteousness, He gives us the right to become children of God. Now when we are put in Christ we are regenerated, born anew, by the will of the Father who gave us to Christ. It all fits.

 

Truth is unsettling to those who believe in falsehood.

Unbiblical Calvinist order.

1) God chooses foreseen individuals before creation.
2) During their lifetime, He drags them irresistibly into Christ.
3) As He is dragging them, He compels them to willingly come to faith.
4) Since the spiritually dead people cannot come to faith, this action is called regeneration.

Why is this view unbiblical?

1) John 6:44 does not say everyone drawn by the Father comes to Jesus.
2) Mathew 23:13 says men were entering heaven yet were blocked by false teachers teaching false doctrine.
3) 2 Thessalonians 2:13 says God chooses individuals for salvation through faith in the truth. So our faith comes before being chosen.

The Biblical Order:
1) God chose those who the Redeemer would redeem corporately when He chose His Redeemer before the foundation of the world.
2) God reveals His redemption plan to mankind through the work of the Holy Spirit, which is the promise of eternal life for those that seek God and trust in Christ from the heart.
3) If our hearts have not been hardened by the practice of sin or by God for His purpose, we hear and understand the gospel. This is God setting before us the choice of life or death. He begs us to choose life. God draws us with His lovingkindness, but does not compel us.
4) Some reject the gospel, some accept it superficially, some put it into their heart, but do not toss out their worldly treasurers also embedded in their hearts, and some fully trust in Christ alone, selling everything for the treasure found in the field.
5) God who knows what is hidden in our hearts, credits as righteousness the faith of those whose faith is from the heart, who love Jesus more than anything in this world.
6) God gives these to Christ by placing them spiritually in Christ where they undergo the circumcision of Christ, and then arise in Christ a new creation, born anew, made alive from being spiritually dead by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit,
7) They are sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit forever as a pledge they will not be cast out and will be resurrected on the last day.

 

Note the generalized disparagement, "a simplistic perversion" without actually addressing what was inaccurate. That is because it was accurate. Calvinism is defended by claiming the opponents do not understand the TULIP. Just another fiction piled upon the fictions of the TULI.

So I say again, how did the OT saints come to faith before Christ arose from the dead if only those who follow Christ in the regeneration sit upon the 12 thrones in heaven? Get ready for another time travel evasion where the Biblical sequence is reversed to support Calvinism.

Why is the Calvinist view unbiblical?

1) John 6:44 does not say everyone drawn by the Father comes to Jesus.
2) Mathew 23:13 says men were entering heaven yet were blocked by false teachers teaching false doctrine.
3) 2 Thessalonians 2:13 says God chooses individuals for salvation through faith in the truth. So our faith comes before being chosen.