Why John 6:37 is grossly misunderstood and misapplied

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justbyfaith

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I would see it as happening the other way round; He draws and so we come.
Yes, we come because He draws; however His drawing of us does not guarantee that we will come; it only makes it possible.
 

Mjh29

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But you just stated that the result comes before the action. You said that it only makes [coming] possible. This does not align with what you just said.

Here's what I mean; your logic as you explained it (or at least as I understood it)

1.) We come because He draws, but his drawing does not guarantee that we will come
2.) Therefore, it is ultimately up to us to do the coming; our actual salvation, regardless of God's call, must rest on our shoulders
3.) We are the final determinant of our salvation; put it however you want, this is work's righteousness; that in the end we must choose, and this correct or incorrect choice (ie work) is what either grants or rejects righteousness in God's eyes.

Faith righteousness is still works righteousness when you believe it is up to you to get this faith. Faith is either a gift from God, and thus salvation is also, or it is attained by you and therefore so is the righteousness that follows.
 
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justbyfaith

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We are the final determinant of our salvation; put it however you want, this is work's righteousness;
I don't think it is. I believe that the choice we make to either receive or reject Christ is not a work.

We are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9); we are justified by faith, and have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand (Romans 5:1-2).

Do we go by the arguments of carnal minds or do we go by what the scripture says?

I believe that this is where you will get your answer.
 

justbyfaith

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Therefore, it is ultimately up to us to do the coming; our actual salvation, regardless of God's call, must rest on our shoulders
The salvation is wrought by the blood of Christ's cleansing power; but not without our permission.
 

Enoch111

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Faith righteousness is still works righteousness when you believe it is up to you to get this faith.
You should know by now that saving faith is generated through the preaching of the Gospel. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (the Gospel).

Now if saving faith were a gift of God, then every human being would receive this gift, since "God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

But when the Gospel is preached (or read) the Gospel itself becomes the power of God unto salvation, by generating faith within human hearts. And at the same time the Holy Spirit works on those hearts so that they are convicted and convinced to believe the Gospel. And that it why it is imperative that that Gospel be preached to every creature (Mk 16:15,16). But God does not play favorites by giving some the *gift* of faith while neglecting others.

As to the spiritual gift of faith, that is only given to the ones who are already saved and in Christ.
 

Mjh29

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I believe that the choice we make to either receive or reject Christ is not a work

work
noun
  1. 1.
    activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.
choice
noun
  1. 1.
    an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities.
By definition, a choice has to be a work. There is no possible way that it is not. I'm sorry, but this just cannot be true.

We are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Exactly! Notice the order of operations though; grace then faith. Faith is nothing but the tool of grace, the instrument which God uses to dispense His grace, not the object man uses to grab this grace for himself. And this verse, when applied to the following verse, shows that by grace we are given faith, which allows us to grasp the grace of God. .
Do we go by the arguments of carnal minds or do we go by what the scripture says?

I believe that this is where you will get your answer.

I couldn't agree more, and after showing that by definition your response cannot be true, I hope that we can come to an agreement.
 
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justbyfaith

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work
noun
  1. 1.
    activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.
choice
noun
  1. 1.
    an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities.
By definition, a choice has to be a work. There is no possible way that it is not. I'm sorry, but this just cannot be true.

So then, are you saying that placing faith in Jesus isn't a choice that we make?

Eph 2:8, For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9, Not of works, lest any man should boast.

We are saved by grace through faith; that means we go through faith in order to obtain the grace of our Lord. This is not of works by definition, so by the definitions you have given, faith in Jesus isn't a choice that we make.

However, I believe that faith must be the result of a conscious decision to receive Christ.

If work be involved, that does not make faith in itself a work.

Heb 4:11, Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

Here, work is accomplished in order that we might enter into the rest of faith.

Exactly! Notice the order of operations though; grace then faith.

We are saved by grace through faith. What does through mean to you? Think about what that word means in the English language.

Also, we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand (Romans 5:1-2).

This means that faith is the key to the door that opens into the room we call grace. And of course, the door is Jesus Himself (John 10). In order to enter into grace we must enter through the door using the key.
 

justbyfaith

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In my own testimony I was tempted to sell my soul to the devil over something that had happened, but I had previously heard the truth of God's word that

Mar 8:36, For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

My response was to say to God, "God, I don't know if You're real; but I am going to start reading Your word and doing what it says and I know that if You're real, You will reveal Yourself to me." Because I couldn't sit on the fence any longer.

God hardly waited a second more. He revealed Himself to me in a powerful way, washing over me in waves of liquid love.

So how does this apply to the current discussion?

Faith came by hearing and hearing by the word of God; but God did not show up until I made a decision.

The whole thing has to do with

Jhn 7:17, If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
 
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justbyfaith

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Notice that the Father was drawing me at that moment; and yet I had the option of going in the opposite direction. And I probably would have if I hadn't previously heard the verse in question.
 
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justbyfaith

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Faith is the key to the door by which we gain access into grace, according to Romans 5:1-2.

But according to some here one must have grace before they can have faith.

So one must begin inside the room in order to have access to the room (the key of faith opening the door that leads into the room called grace).

This means that the lost cannot be saved; but only the saved can go in and out and find pasture. Only those who begin with salvation can enter in through the door. However, Jesus said,

Luk 19:10, For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Therefore I reject the concept that we have access by grace into this faith wherein we stand; and accept the established order presented in Romans 5:1-2.

If anyone wants to insist that the other order presented is the way, then be my guest. You must be saved in order to have faith, which is your access to grace. Therefore salvation precedes receiving the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; and thus we are not saved by grace through faith.

Also, God therefore chose some to eternal damnation for that it is not based on man's choice; He saved some and then gave them faith. Others, who do not have faith, He did not save: and they also cannot save themselves.

Thus the following scripture is null and void:

Act 2:40, And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.

People have no choice in the matter of whether they will burn in hell for all of eternity: God simply set some people apart for hell and others to heaven. Good news if you know you are set apart from heaven; but if you do not know that, it could very well cause you to believe that God is some kind of unjust Monster because he created you for hell and gave you no option of avoiding it. He condemned you for your sin and never offered you a solution for your problem of sin; because even though the gospel may have been presented to you, you were told that your response to the gospel does not make a difference in the eternal scheme; you can only make a decision for Christ if you are already saved. And you are told that you begin unsaved (i.e. Total Depravity).

The conclusion I make from these things is that no one is able to make a valid decision for Christ unless God chooses them first; and this means that if God did not choose me, there is no hope for me even if I did make a decision for Christ. Thus the following scripture is null and void:

Rom 10:8, But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;
Rom 10:9, That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Rom 10:10, For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Rom 10:11, For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
Rom 10:12, For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
Rom 10:13, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

This serves to strip away the very valid assurance that God wants to give to people who have called on the name of the Lord for salvation. Because, the reasoning goes, if I am not one of the elect, then my decision for Christ has no bearing on my salvation; and therefore I cannot bank on that decision but only on God's sovereign choice of me as one of His elect.

But how can I know that I am one of His elect, if I have not made a decision for Christ? If I have not made a decision for Christ, then I might conclude that I am not of the elect and therefore there is no hope and also no point in trying to be saved; which appears to be the goal of Calvinistic preaching; to make people give up on doing anything in order to be saved but simply to trust that God either chose them or didn't choose them and therefore the response is to make no decision but to simply leave it up to God. (However, the scripture declares:

Deu 4:29, But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.

and,

Jer 29:13, And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.)

Which would of course require a basic belief in the goodness of God; and that if you trust in His decision towards you, that He would choose to save you rather than condemn you. Nevertheless there are those whom God has not chosen unto salvation, in this realm of theology; and therefore the requirement here is that you believe that God will be good towards you when He is evil towards other people (for He would have to be evil toward them if He places them in hell based on the sin of their ancestor and gives them no option of escaping that horrible judgment).

But God did give an option to escape, even as He tells us to save ourselves from this untoward generation.

If we call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth we
shall be saved (Romans 10:13, Acts of the Apostles 4:10-12).

Now in the theology given, a person cannot call on the name of the Lord unless they are already saved.

If I am already saved then why call on the name of the Lord? To prove that God already saved me? But the salvation is yet future to the one who calls on His name, according to the word
shall in that scripture (Romans 10:13).

One would have to rewrite that scripture to say, Whosoever is justified, and then calls on Christ's name for that reason, shall be sanctified and glorified.

For justification, sanctification, and glorification are all said to be aspects of salvation.

The only problem with this is that you are dividing salvation into three separate things.

A person is justified for no reason, and then calls on the name of the Lord to receive the practical outworkings of that salvation. However, salvation is effectively placed in the past of the person who calls on Christ's name, when Romans 10:13 places it future to that event. You have to divide salvation in order to make this work; and this requires teaching that goes outside of the biblical spectrum.

"In justification we are saved from the penalty of sin; in sanctification we are saved from the power of sin; in glorification we are saved from the presence of sin."

These may be biblical statements; but it is still a point that in this theology a person is justified for no reason other than that God chose them from eternity; they are not justified by their faith but by God's choice of them.

How does one know God's choice of them and thus receive assurance?

His Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God.

The question remains, how does one receive the Spirit? Does a person have Him from birth? This provides for those who say, I have been a Christian all my life; when Jesus said, Ye must be born again.

So at what point does a person go from being dead in trespasses and sins to being born again and having the assurance that God has saved them? Is it that in one moment they know they are not saved and in the next moment they know that they are? That God just reaches down and saves them without any decision on their part?

This brings up another point. If in salvation a person becomes surrendered to the Lordship of Christ, does this happen against their will? You have bondservants of Christ, suddenly becoming so, apart from them asking to have their ears pierced to the doorpost. They do not have the option of saying, "I love my wife, my master, and my children" so that they can become Christ's bondslave for ever. Thus you have God recruiting people as slaves against their will; and therefore this God is a slavemaster who makes people His slaves against their will.

On the contrary, scripture says,

Psa 110:3, Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.
 
D

Dave L

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Question again?

When will you answer my post or rather, why don't you answer my posts?
Now you got me asking questions.

To be honest, I would rather be a Calvinist than to follow your false teachings.
If my teachings on this matter are false, correct me. Don't slander people without proof.
 
D

Dave L

Guest
John 3:10
10) Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master (teacher) of Israel, and knowest not these things?
11) Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness,
12) If I have told you of earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

Did you understand what Jesus is trying to convey to Nicodemus?

What about to the Pharisees? Was Jesus kind to them calling them vipers, Satan as their father...and so forth because they were the blind leaders leading the blind?

Don’t you fall in the same category, teaching heresies, and does not back up his teachings with Scripture?

You are comparable to BoL who believes he knows all about the things of God.

So sad, very sad indeed.
Just use scripture to prove me wrong. Insults are a sign you are frustrated and under-powered.
 

Jun2u

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Just use scripture to prove me wrong. Insults are a sign you are frustrated and under-powered.

Sorry, but I just used Scripture to refute you. I didn't know you could see through your clouded eyes.
 

marks

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2 Corinthians 5:18-21 KJV

18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.


Vs 18-19 teach that God has already reconciled us to Himself. This is what He was doing in Jesus. All are reconciled now to God. The world.

Now God, through His apostles, urges us, be reconciled to Him. Why urge us if the choice is not ours?

But in fact all are reconciled, therefore, God has done what needed to be done for all.

God made Jesus to be sin for us. Already done.
Now, we have the opportunity to be made the righteousness of God in Him.

Titus 2:11-13 KJV

11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;
13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;


Much love!
Mark