John 6 Avoidance Example #4,698, and Deuteronomy 18 Fulfilled in Jesus Confirmed

And welcome to The Dividing Line. Just a little bit late. It's called a Bill Gates delay. We reset the machine an hour ago. Then we decided to reset it right before the program again. How many updates?

Well, I know three restart, recycles are like 13. I think it's like 13 updates and three starts and stops. And there you go. It's Microsoft.

What do you want?

There you go.

Program Preview and Technical Glitches

Anyways, we're here. And it's good to have you with us today. Last program, we went almost two hours. And I did not get to the second article that I had announced I was going to be getting to. So today, I want to address the John Six article from Leighton Flowers.

And then I want to address some statements from Zakir Hussain. For those of you into the study of Islam, that will be relevant to you. And if for some reason I am concise, if for some reason I am concise and quick and so on and so forth, then we'll open the phone lines and talk to you.

But chances of that are, I know Rich isn't even bothering to set things up because it's sort of like, yeah, concise, quick, right, sure.

Yeah.

We do have a studio audience. Hello, studio audience.

How are you?

Love the hairstyle, dude.

Right on.

I mean, that's the way to go. You never have to worry about things like shampoo, anything like that. You don't have to worry about shaving cream. Do you use shaving cream? I just use plain old soap, just regular old soap.

I mean, once you're this old, if you cut it off, it doesn't really. How often do you nick yourself, though? I'm about twice a year. Catch the ear or something, bleeds like anything. You don't nick yourself?

No?

Oh, you just wait. You just wait, buddy, because you catch the ear, it doesn't know how to stop bleeding. It's like you get shot or something.

It's bad.

It really is. But that's life.

That's life. That's what's.

It's scintillating.

Yeah, it is a fascinating conversation we're having, isn't it?

Yeah.

I appreciate the excitement there. Anyways, now Adobe wants to do something, but I'm not going to let Adobe do anything, because it'll take over the entire system when I do so. Yeah, a fellow on Twitter says, the update today is bad and took about an hour to restart my computer.

There you go.

There's.

So you're not the only one that experienced it, and I guess yours probably went faster than other people's did, so that's good. All right. John chapter 6. I love the title of Leighton Flower's article.

John 6, down from heaven, why context kills Calvinism. Given how often we have demonstrated the acontextual nature of so much of non-reformed argumentation, and especially exegesis. Oh, come on, Jay.

Praying that someday you'll repent and go get a Mac. I, what does this look like to you? See the, you can't see it in the thing there. That's a Mac. This is a Mac. Computer on my desk is a Mac. But that guy, if he switches, well, he can't switch camera angle today.

You cannot switch camera angle today, Ridge. That guy across the window is a PC guy. He's still in the, oh, you Mac guys are terrible.

Cult.

And yes, it says the cult. So don't look at me. I don't need to repent. I've already seen the light. OK, it's Riche Pierre who needs to see the light. And we'll go from there. So don't tell me about that.

Why context kills Calvinism. I remember my hermeneutics professor saying at the beginning of every class, text without context is a pretext for proof text. Well, yes, we've all heard that before. Context tells us the history of the setting, the audience, and thus helps understand the intention of the author.

The grammar can inform us what interpretations are allowed, but the author's intent is best discovered in the overall context. Well, that's certainly true. And that's why it's so beautiful to weave the context in John together.

And you see the themes, especially coming to the fore in John chapter 6, in 8, 10, the shepherd and his sheep. You're not of my sheep. 17, the father's given people to the son. And I want you to listen carefully, folks, because as much as this is, sometimes some of our listeners, we've gone through so many failed attempts to get around John 6.

I mean, it's just sort of a hobby of ours to collect all these amazing explanations that people come up with, which generally involves creation of some context outside of John chapter 6, which is imposed upon the text so that the words can't have the meaning that they had, obviously, to the people who heard them when they were first uttered.

We've done it so many times that you might be sort of, your mind might be wandering or something. There is an important result of Leighton Flower's interpretation here. Because fundamentally, what he's going to be saying is, this is only about the apostles.

This is only about the days of Jesus. There was a temporary judicial hardening of the Jewish people at that time. And if you follow the link at the bottom of this to his other article on John chapter 17, have you been given to Christ by the father, he identifies that as the disciples alone.

Now, of course, the disciples were given by Christ the father. But the result of this interpretation, folks, is that one of the most precious, grounding, encouraging truths of biblical soteriology is taken away from you in the service of the almighty autonomous will of man.

That's what you have here. Jesus taught, all that the father gives him will come to him. Once you create an artificial context that says, yeah, I'm going to get all the disciples, and has nothing to do with after that, then throw the rest of John chapter 6 out.

All those other promises, they're just about the disciples. Place in heaven, go to prayer place with you, that was the disciples. John chapter 3, God's love to the world, disciples. Now, he may not go that far, but what consistent basis does he have to not go that far?

The cost of attempting to turn the biblical narrative about the autonomous, sovereign, free God and his creatures who are redeemed by him to his honor and glory into the story of God creating autonomous creatures who then do all this stuff, the cost is huge.

The cost is massive. And if you have ever found yourself rejoicing, as I certainly have, in the keeping power of God, rejoicing that the son has come down from heaven, not to do his own will, but the will of him has sent him, and this is the will of him that all that has been given to him, he lose none of it, but raise it up on the last day, and that I'm one of those that has been given, it is in his hand.

He is the perfect savior. If you've ever rejoiced in that, well, I guess you need to recognize the only way to rejoice in that consistently is to be a monergist, because once you're a synergist, once it's a cooperative thing, all bets are off.

Christ will do his part, he'll do his best, but if he doesn't really have that ultimate authority, to save the uttermost, if it's all up to us as to whether we're drawing near, it's our will, we are the autonomous creatures.

It's a very, very, I don't know how there is any assurance in that system.

I really don't.

I can't see how there's any consistent assurance in that system. Back to the article. The sixth chapter of John is one of the top three most contested passages in all of scripture regarding the doctrine of salvation, along with Romans 9, Ephesians 1.

Well, again, as much as Leighton doesn't appreciate this, that just shows me that in his mind, Calvinism is the thing, because I deal with Roman Catholics all the time, and these would not be the texts.

And there's, I don't know how many hundreds of millions of them deal with Muslims all the time, not those texts. To say that these are the three most contested passages in all of scripture regarding the doctrine of salvation means that in his mind, the primary thing in the doctrine of salvation is Calvinism.

So as students of scripture, let's put our hermeneutical training to work and answer the major questions about the context of this hotly contested chapter. Ironically, well, listen to the information provided by Professor Flowers and ask yourself a simple question.

Is this actually the context of Romans chapter 6? What would give you the context of Romans chapter 6? Think about that in your mind for a moment, and then listen to what is actually presented. The audience is a bunch of unbelieving Israelites looking for the food and the twelve apostles.

What do we know about the Israelites of this day? A, they have become calloused, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, in turn I should heal them, Acts 28, 27.

They were not born calloused.

Excuse me.

That's going to happen a few times today. Allergies, told you about it. Don't worry about it. But it sure is bugging me. It's giving me a headache too. I cough that many times during the day. So sort of like, oh, eyes about to explode.

They were not born calloused, but over time they had grown hardened in their religious self-righteousness, which prevented them from hearing, seeing, and responding to the revelation of God. B, they are being judicially hardened or cut off or sent a spirit of stupor so as to seal them in their calloused condition.

Why?

To accomplish a greater redemptive purpose to their rebellion, crucifixion, and grafting Gentiles in the church, Romans 9 through 11. Noticing some real broad claims here. C, Jesus is not attempting to win them over or have them come to faith in great numbers as we see in Acts 2 when Peter preaches.

In fact, in support of God's judicial hardening of Israel, we see Jesus actively instructing his apostles to not tell others who he is, Matthew 16, 20. Jesus purposely speaks in parables in order to prevent their coming to faith and repentance, Mark 4, 11, Matthew 13.

If anything, Jesus is actively provoking the Jews with very difficult teachings. In this chapter, he tells them to eat his flesh and drink his blood without explanation. Clearly, he is not attempting to persuade this audience to stick around.

He is provoking them purposefully. Is this contextual information relevant when attempting to understand the author's intention with regard to the natural inability of mankind from birth? I certainly would think so, given he is addressing a large group of people nicknamed the elect of God who are being actively blinded by God from seeing the truth.

Now, need I point out the huge number of assumptions being made here? I hope not, but I also hope that you're all recognizing so far we haven't even touched on the actual context of John 6, which would sort of require going to John 5 and then looking at what happens at the beginning of John 6.

Notice the judicially hardened Jews are not the only ones present when Jesus is speaking in John 6. The twelve apostles are also the only ones who stick around after Jesus is done provoking the crowd with his pro-cannibalistic sounding sermon.

I'm reading it. Yeah, I know. I'm missing by a mile, but we'll get to that in a second. Why didn't the twelve leave too? It is almost as if they are drawn to him through persuasive teachings and miraculous signs.

Remember, unlike the other Israelites in the audience, they had watched Jesus walk on water, control the weather, heal the blind, feed the masses, and had personally explained to them the meaning of the mysterious that the world had not yet been given.

Of course, these folks, especially the ones that come across the lake, had actually seen the miracle of the feeding of the 5 ,000. Those Jesus are entrusting with the truth from Israel are only a select few at this time while he is on earth.

The rest are being hardened in their already calloused, self-righteous, stubborn condition, not a condition from birth due to the fall, as Calvinists impose onto the text, as if any of this is relevant to that, but a condition of their own doing, a condition God is using to accomplish a greater redemptive good for all, which, of course, raises all sorts of questions about, well, what if they didn't do that?

Then God couldn't have done it. That's that old sovereignty thing. God's knowledge of what he's going to do and part of his decree. If you don't have a decree, then you can't really affirm any of it. Anyhow, with that context in mind, let us look at the text.

Time out. What context? Y 'all see what just happened? This is how you set up ignoring what the words actually say. You create this alleged context by pulling together this thing. Now, that was not the context of John 6.

If you want the context of John 6, you actually have to look at the text of John 6. The text of John 6 begins with the feeding of the 5 ,000, and then Jesus sends them away. They want to make him king.

He sends the disciples away. He comes to them walking on the water. Immediately, they are then at Capernaum, and now other disciples have crossed the lake. They've entered the synagogue at Capernaum. They're actually seeking Jesus.

They are called God-seekers. Well, Jesus-seekers, at least in this context. That's the context. Now, what he's done here is tried to create this idea that there is this judicial hardening of Israel that makes possible the redemptive work of Calvary.

But because of his commitment to synergism and autonomy, he has to say that what's going on here is not a part of the decree of God or God accomplishing something, but what's going on here is the righteous hardening of people who had hardened themselves.

And so they're going to be hardened so that the redemptive acts can take place, but there is a specific people, the apostles, who are being chosen out of Israel, and they're going to be given these truths.

And so what Jesus is actually talking about is just the disciples and the judicially hardened Jews, and hence it's only about them, and there is no application that can be made beyond them. It's just about them.

So it doesn't have anything to do with today, because there is no judicial hardening of Jews, and so there's no, you know, any of that stuff. So let's continue on. Now, I just simply point out, you're pretending that you're given the context of John 6.

What you've done is you've created a very easily refutable, by the way, theological narrative that you're now going to use to filter John 6 through. That's not context. That's a pretext, okay? Very clear, very obvious, just straightforward.

With that context in mind, let us look at the text. Then we have provided for us verses 35 through 44. For some reason, this is 43, but 44 is included as well. And wow, what a strange. People cannot come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and I will raise them to life on the last day.

Let's hope a decent translation is used in the debate that is actually understandable. But since there may be people in the audience who have not worked through John 6, let's work through it together.

Very quickly, I don't have time. I'm just going to go through it quickly. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. The one coming to me shall not hunger, and the one believing in me will never thirst.

So, coming and believing, present tense participles. Notice, hungering and thirsting. This is going to define the eating the flesh of the Son of Man, drinking His blood. The whole cannibalistic idea is absurd in light of the context that defines eating and drinking as coming and believing in verse 35.

Verse 36, But I said to you that you have seen me, and you are not believing. Here is absolutely key, which evidently is completely skipped by Professor Flowers. The context is the explanation of the unbelief.

Why have they seen? They've seen the miracles. They are seeking after Jesus. You have seen me, and you are not believing. That's the statement of verse 36. By the way, I should be feeding this if you want to have it there.

Am I not?

Ah, yes. Very good.

But I said to you, oh, I'm sorry, verse 36. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one coming to me I will never cast out because I have come down out of heaven, not in order to do my will, but the will of the one who sent me.

So, here you have the explanation of why it is these men are unbelievers. All that the Father gives me will come to me. Now, how would that be an explanation of their unbelief? Because coming to Christ, believing in Christ, these are synonymous actions as we will see.

All that the Father gives me will come to me. Well, that explains why they are not coming. That explains why they are not believing because they have not been given by the Father to the Son. And the one coming to me I will never cast out.

Now, if he was saying this only to the apostles and was contrasting the apostles to everybody else, that would at least be supportive of the flowers thesis. But that's not what you have here. I suppose I'll leave the flowers thesis off for the moment until we actually read it.

I mean, I've already read it. You can go read it if you want to, but we'll leave the refutation part out until later. The one coming to me I will never cast out.

Why?

Because I've come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. So, the Father and the Son have the exact same will in the accomplishment of the salvation of God's people. It's a direct parallel to John chapter 10, verse 30.

And so, verse 39 says, What is that will of the one who sent me? In order that of all that he has given to me, and notice the use of the neuter there, gathering the whole group together, of all he has given me I lose none of it, singular, but raise it up on the last day.

Now, notice that the purpose of the will of the Father that is expressed here ties all of those who are given to Christ up and promises their resurrection at the last day. So, whatever that resurrection at the last day, that's receiving eternal life.

So, this is speaking in very expansive terms. It's not speaking in minimalized terms that are relevant only to the twelve. What about everyone else who's going to be raised up in the last day? They seem to be included in what Jesus is saying.

Well, that's true because, for this is the will of my Father, in order that all the ones seeing the Son and believing in him might have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day. There is a general evangelistic promise that extends to all people in all ages.

Anyone who looks upon the Son and believes in him, not just the disciples, but anyone who looks upon the Son and believes in him has eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day. So, the ones given by the Father, the Son, and those who look upon the Son and believe in him, same group, same group.

You cannot differentiate them. You cannot distinguish them. It's the same group. And so, if you have looked upon the Son.

In faith,.

The promise of your salvation is found in the obedience of the Son to the Father, and that he will always do the Father's will. That really is the foundation of all of our salvation. It's not my faithfulness.

It's not my autonomous will. It is the security of knowing that the Son will always do what is pleasing to the Father. There's your foundation. Now, there's grumbling in verse 41. Verse 41, the Jews grumble about him.

Is this not Jesus? So on and so forth.

Verse 43,.

Jesus answered and said to them, Do not grumble amongst yourselves. Do not grumble amongst yourselves. No one is able to come to me unless Iyanme, the Father, the one who sent me, draws him and I will raise him up.

The two hymns are the same. I will raise him up on the last day. Who is raised up on the last day in verse 44? The one who is drawn by the Father to the Son. But previously, it was that who looks and believes.

Previous to that, given by the Father to the Son, they're all the same group. It is impossible, it is artificial to make distinctions at that point and to say that there's any others. And I would have continued on to verse 45, it is written, it stands written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught by God.

Everyone hearing from the Father and learning is coming to me. So that hearing and learning, those are things that you do when something is presented to you. This is describing what the drawing of the Father is.

The opening of the ears, the learning of who Jesus is. This is all divine revelation of the human soul. And everyone hearing and learning from the Father is coming to me. Everyone. Do we hear and learn from the Father?

If you limit who is being spoken of here to the disciples, you just might as well.

Put...

You know what this does? It puts it in the same category as Jehovah's Witnesses. Because Jehovah's Witnesses look at the New Testament and they go, that's about the anointed class, not about me. And so now John becomes something, isn't that special what the disciples had?

But it's not about me. Alright, so, what's the argument then that is given?

Well,.

You have the quotation, Calvinistic believers often emphasize verse 37 as it relates to verse 39 to prove that the author intends to teach Calvinistic doctrine. That is that God has preselected a particular number of people to irresistibly draw to faith, believing all others without the ability to respond, willing to respond, I assume this is supposed to be willingly, to the revelation of.

God.

As if God is under some obligation by grace to make them capable because they're fallen to Adam, but I doubt there's a belief in that strong form of original sin. Well, of course there isn't. However, I'd like to draw our attention to the context clue given in verse 38.

Everyone whom my father gives me will come to me. I will never turn away anyone who comes to me because I have come down from heaven to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me and it is the will of him who sent me that I should not lose any of those he has given me but I should raise them all to life on the last day.

Well, I really don't like that translation, whatever it is. Jesus is clearly speaking contextually of what is happening while he is down from heaven. While on earth, God has clearly sent Christ to accomplish a specific part of his redemptive will.

Is that will to be a great evangelist like Peter in Acts 2 and win thousands to faith? Clearly not. God's will is for Jesus to come down from heaven and train a group of pre-selected Israelites, those given to him by the apostles, to carry the gospel to the rest of the world and establish his church after he is raised up.

Interestingly enough, he quotes John 12 32 there. Keep that in mind. It's going to come up a little bit later on.

Now,.

Is it true that in God's sovereign decree he elected the apostles, gave them unto the Son? All of that's very true.

But.

Is there anywhere that John says that what Jesus' actual mission in coming to earth was was simply.

To.

Train a group of pre-selected Israelites to carry the gospel to the rest of the world and establish his church after he is raised up? No. Not quite. Yes, sir? You've given up? You threw in the towel, huh?

You got nothing. Towel is thrown in. That's all over with. Okay. Calvinists are taking something Jesus is addressing in his actual first century context and applying it to their holistic, systematic view of salvation for all God's elect throughout all time.

This is an example of proof texting. Well, Professor Flowers, I hope you never quote John 316 because that's from the gospel of John 2. Is that proof texting? Oh, wait a minute. I happen to know you do quote John 316.

Oh, that's about something else.

Really?

That's about something else. How about John 10? The sheep? How about John 14? Preparing a place for you that was originally spoken to the disciples. Only about them, right?

Oh, it's.

Amazing what happens when you try to rip the sovereign freedom of God out of the text of scripture. It becomes a royal mess. It really does. Calvinists. Oh, okay. What Calvinists should be. An S there, unintentionally fail to see.

Is that.

Jesus, while here on earth in the flesh, is actively and judicially blinding Israel by means of parables, a spirit of stupor, and provoking language while only drawing to himself while on earth a remnant of pre-selected Israelite messengers to carry out the purpose for which Israel was elected from the beginning to bring the light to the rest of the world.

In other words, Jesus' audience in John 6 is made up of his pre-selected apostles from Israel. Well, there was that Judas guy, and the already calloused Israelites who are being judicially blinded by God from seeing the truth.

You realize what this means,.

Don't you?

That no one who heard these words was ever saved. How do you know that? Not sure how that church grew the way that it did at Pentecost and afterwards. I think all sorts of folks who had eaten of the feeding of the 5 ,000 or had heard the words of Jesus once the spirit came, the gospels preached were saved.

I can't prove it, but somebody was being saved. The term eisegesis is floating through my mind here. In other words, Jesus' audience in John 6 is made up of his pre-selected apostles from Israel and Judas, and the already calloused Israelites who are being judicially blinded by God from seeing the truth.

Nobody else evidently. Nobody else. Well, they all walked away, didn't they? They did all walk away at that particular point in time.

But.

Nobody was saved later.

Everybody that saw the.

Feeding of the 5 ,000, Jesus was just doing that teaching just to judicially blind them all. No preparation for anything future. No, because we've got to find a way around John 6.

They were all judicially blinded.

As was Judas, I guess. The reason his audience walks away is not because God rejected them from before the foundation of the earth, as if there was something about that. As Calvinism presumes, well, if you let the whole Bible speak and Ephesians 1 and stuff put all together.

By no means, God has consistently expressed his desire for the repentance and faith of the Israelite people. And then you have the standard Matthew 23, 37, 2 Peter 3, 9, 1 Timothy 2, 4, the big three.

Been there, done that. Oh, Ezekiel 18. Oh, let's throw that one in for the fun of it.

All.

Acontextual. They're walking away because God has sealed them over in their already rebellious condition for a time in order to accomplish his redemptive plan as was prophesied. Israel is not rejecting God.

I guess then they could have been unhardened later on. Maybe. I guess. Who knows? I mean, we're just making it up as we're going along anyways. Israel is not rejecting God because God rejected them. Quite the opposite.

God is temporarily hardening those in their callous condition in order to accomplish redemption for all, including them. So if they had followed Jesus, then there couldn't have been any salvation, I guess.

So what is the intent of John 6? Is it as the Calvinist teaches that God has condemned all men over to a totally disabled condition from birth due to the sin of Adam and only irresistibly draws out a preselected number of people for salvation, leaving the rest out.

Any hope of response to his own appeals for reconciliation? Don't you, don't you just, when you have to express the other side in that kind of language, you know that the person doing it is afraid of letting the other side actually express it in their own language because they don't really have a strong argument against it.

It's just, just how it is. But is that what it is? Or is the intent of John 6 to tell us the narrative of Jesus' provoking Israel in their hardened unbelief while drawing out for himself a remnant of divinely appointed messengers to take the gospel into all the world, drawing all to himself after he was raised up, then quoting John 12, 32.

When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to me. Well, remember I told you he quoted John chapter 12 up above, and I said you know, keep that in mind.

Because.

It seems to be rather inconsistent to quote it up above in John 12 in regards to, to carry the gospel to the rest of the world and establish his church after he is raised up, John 12, 32. But John 12, 32 is talking about Greeks, right?

And.

John 12, 32 is talking about the cross, right? So are you really saying that the cross is a universally attractive thing? Or is the meaning of John 12, 32 obvious, obviously, that both Jews and Gentiles will be drawn by the cross which is repulsive to the natural man?

When it says all men, it's not every single man because it is plain as the nose on anybody's face that for the vast majority of humankind the cross is repulsive. The cross is a sign of weakness, of failure.

It's foolishness according to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. The stench of death in the nostrils of those who are perishing. Now, of course, the synergist has no real. Again, the categories of those who are being saved and those who are perishing common in Paul have no meaning for the synergist.

Because.

They are all based upon man. It's man's choice to be one of the two. But in 1 Corinthians 1 we see that those categories are based upon God's choice. God's election. God's freedom. And what you end up with when you try to come up with a non-sovereignty based gospel message is always gobbledygook, which is what you ended up with here.

So,.

A text.

That.

Not only teaches the sovereignty of the Father, but the perfect ability and power of the Son.

In.

Saving all that the Father gives.

Him.

A text.

That.

Shows the unity of the Father and the Son. The ability of the Son to fulfill the Father's will and hence becomes the very foundation of the security that the believer has in Jesus Christ. I'm sorry if you're a synergist you can't claim it for yourself because.

Well,.

It was only about the disciples. So all that stuff about the Son coming down from heaven to do the will of the Father, all that was was not about salvation for anybody past the disciples.

No, no, no, no. No, it was.

Just about that remnant of Israelite teachers. Messengers. And Jesus accomplished that. But now synergism. It's, we've got to do our part.

There you go.

There was a link to another article, Have You Been Given to Christ by the Father, which tries to derive this from John chapter 17. And once again, what you just need to understand I don't have time to go into that.

What you need to understand is if you've ever read John chapter 17 and you have read about Christ's high priestly prayer and his intercession up until when Jesus says, I pray for those who will believe because of their word everything that's before that irrelevant to you.

Not relevant to you. Only about the disciples. Now, obviously there was a historical fulfillment of the special calling of the disciples in our apostolic ministry. In the giving of revelation and so on and so forth.

But thankfully, down through the history of the church, people have recognized that Jesus' words in the Gospel of John especially given that John is one of the last to write are meant to be that incredible comfort and treasure that people have always found them to be.

And that we can, as believers.