The Narrow Path Ministries

Hi, this passage seems calvinistic on first glance.

John 6:65
And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by My Father"

I was wondering how to interpret this scripture?
I was thinking of
John 17:6
I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept your word. Now they have known that all things which You have given me are from You.

Jesus is refering to people that were Gods (the remnant), and God gave them to Jesus.
So perhaps in John 6:65 Jesus was saying that unless you are part of the remnant you can't come to Jesus.

I would like some insight to this, to disern the true intending of this scripture.

Thanks, God Bless

Jason

Jesus had just finished speaking these words:

John 6:45-51 "It is written in the prophets, ‘AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh."

Jesus seemed to be saying that anyone who has been taught by God, and learned, will come to Himself for sustenance. And so:

64, 65 "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. And 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."

I understand this to mean, that Jews who really meant business with God, and were learning from Him, would be ready to listen to His Son whom He has sent. Indeed, they were expecting Him. But those who, although they had the scriptures, did not really believe them, would not come to the Messiah to be further taught and sustained. For they were not taught by God from those scriptures. If they had been, it would have been "granted to them from the Father."

Comments by Steve Jones, a former Calvinist

John 6:44
The words of Jesus in John 6:44 are often appealed to as a proof of Total Inability: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." This is supposed to teach that man is in a state of inability, one that only a miracle can overcome. The "drawing" here is assumed, without any exegetical necessity, to be the work of Efficacious Grace renewing the sinner so he can - and ultimately will - believe the gospel.
Just what is the "drawing" of which Christ speaks? Calvinists make much of the Greek word, helkuo, which conveys the idea of "dragging." That seems, however, to run counter to what they often make pains to teach: that the sinner, once renewed, comes willingly.
John 6:44 must be understood in the light of verse 45: "It is written in the Prophets, 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me." Here the sinner comes to Christ by listening to the Father, not by passively experiencing "Efficacious Grace."
Look for a moment at the parallels in these two verses. Verse 44 says that no one can come to Christ unless drawn by the Father. Verse 45 says that all who listen to the Father and learn from Him come to Christ. It would seem clear that the teaching ministry of God through His gospel and word is the means by which men are brought to Jesus. There is nothing in the text that necessitates an "effectual call" on a totally disabled unbeliever. This is confirmed by Peter (1 Pet. 1:23) and James (James 1:18), both of whom declare that the Word of God is an agency of the new birth.

The following comments are by Jerry L. Walls and Joseph Dongell

John 6:37, 39, 44
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away…And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day…No one can come to Me unless that Father who sent me draws him.

Many seem to think these words support the belief that God has already selected those particular individuals he wishes to save. It will be these, and only these, whom God will draw to Jesus for salvation. All others will not be drawn and will therefore have no ability to hear the voice of Christ or to repent and believe in Him... But the Calvinist reading... fails to account fully for the context. Jesus is locked in strenuous debate with the religious leaders who claim special knowledge of and standing with God. From this privileged position, they seek to discredit Jesus completely. Their implied charge essentially involves an attempt to sever Jesus from God, affirming the latter while rejecting the former. In doing this, they wish to establish the right to claim, “We know God intimately, but you are utterly alien to us! We stand in right relationship to God, but we completely reject you.”

Jesus countercharge strikes directly at the root of their authority: the presumption that they knew God in the first place! “You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does His word dwell in you” (John 5:37-38). Far from knowing God, then, Jesus’ opponents had already rejected not only the testimony of John the Baptist but also of Moses: “if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?” (John 5:46). In this question posed by Jesus we discover the key principle: rejecting God’s first offerings of truth will utterly block further illumination. God will not offer more truth or manifest His full glory (the eternal Son) while light at hand is being spurned. In other words, we can’t actively reject the Father and at the same time have any chance of accepting the Son. Since the Father and Son are one in nature, character and mission, the rejection of one necessarily involves the rejection of the other. The fundamental issue of this passage is not that of predestination but of Christology and the unity of the Father and Son.

The Jewish opponents’ inability to come to Jesus did not lie, then, in the hidden, eternal plan of God but in their own track record of trampling prior light, of having already denied God Himself and spurned God’s corrective punishment. Had they received Moses fully, thereby coming to know the Father to the degree possible at that time, they would already have belonged to the Father’s flock, and the Father would have drawn them to the Son. But in rejecting Jesus, they demonstrated that they had never surrendered to God in the first place, that they had set their faces like flint against all His continued overtures. Since they did not belong to the Father’s own flock, they wouldn’t be part of the transfer of sheep already trusting the Father into the fold of the Son (John 6:37, 39). Their spiritual vanity came to full light when they imagined themselves as being qualified to pass judgment on Jesus, the very embodiment of all truth, while persistently spurning God’s lesser lights (Moses and John the Baptist). Were they willing to drop their pretensions and surrender to God’s teaching, they would have been taught by God and led on to the Lord of life, since Jesus promised that “ever who listens to the Father and learns from Him comes to Me” (John 6:45).

Comments by J.P. Holding

John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

I will begin, therefore, with the verse that clearly does teach total depravity. Palmer [Palm.5P, 16] tells us, "Here is total depravity: man cannot choose Jesus. He cannot even take the first step to go to Jesus, unless the Father draws him." This is indeed total depravity, but there is a factor involved that looks to shift the matter back to individual choice. Jesus goes on to say in John 12:32, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." The Greek word behind "draw" in the two verses is the same. Note the connotation that this word can have:

Acts 16:19 And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers...

James 2:6 But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?

This word has the connotation of being brought somewhere by force if needed, and against the wishes of the "draw-ee." This verse does indeed teach the doctrine clearly. But once John 12:32 is thrown into the mix, something is indicated which may throw the matter back into human hands -- at God's sovereign directive and because of His actions. How are men drawn onto Christ? We know and all agree that the Holy Spirit is the "drawer" on men. But Jesus says that all men will be drawn unto him. So what does this lead to? A logical syllogism: All men are drawn to Christ. The Holy Spirit works this function in all men. But clearly not all become Christians, and these verses only say that one cannot make the choice without the drawing first. (Even Yarborough, writing in favor of Calvinism in Still Sovereign, admits that this can refer to a "more general attraction that, say, renders persons accountable but not yet regenerate in other" and tries to make "all men" mean "all elect men" [as below] with no justification other than a pre-conceived application of Calvinism.) Therefore, practically speaking, while we absolutely must have God's prodding to come to Him, we are all getting that prodding -- just like you can't decide on a path without information on the path first. Geisler [Geis.CBF, 6], citing Sproul, observes that the question now is whether God gives the ability to come to Him to all men, and we discuss that more here. In the meantime, here are other passages often used to prop up the T petal. (I should note one response to this verse, which says that "all men" means "men from all nations" rather than literally "all men" -- this seems an all too obvious "dodge" to save the doctrine of irresistible grace; in the previous verse Jesus speaks of judgment of the kosmos and the prince of the kosmos. It is the burden of the Calvinist to prove that "all men" [in fact, only "all" is actually in the text; "men" is implied] means "men from all nations" or "elect men".)

John 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

I would also note as well that John 6:65, which I previously included in the above, does not say that God enables people to believe -- I think that that is a Calvinist reading of the verse. Indeed the connection between belief and the Father's permission is not specified -- it's just as well to say that the Father has to act as an access-granter because people can and will join the movement under false pretenses that no man can discern, which would make much better sense under the client-patron relationship understanding.

Paidion: I'm not always in agreement with your interpretations ;-), but let me say that one of the many things I REALLY appreciate about your replies is that you look at a verse in the overall context of the passage and not in isolation. For me, it always make reading your comments worthwhile.