John 6:44 post debate interview with Pastor Gabe Hughes

Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Reform Rookie podcast. My name is Anthony Uvinio and I'm your Reform Rookie host, bringing you all things Reformed. The goal of this podcast is to take the deep, rich truths of the Reformed tradition and help you see the beauty of them and the joy you'll experience in understanding them better.

Understanding these truths will help us better know the God of the Scriptures, help us better glorify God, and help us appreciate His plan of salvation. And to that we say Semper Firmanda. Well, today I have a special guest, Pastor Gabe Eubes of When We Understand the Text.

You might know him online when you hear that term, what, which I really enjoy. And he recently debated or discussed what the expository understanding of John 644 is with Professor Leighton Flowers. And the debate took place on the Gospel Truth YouTube channel with Marlon Wilson.

And if you haven't checked it out, I would highly recommend that you take a look at it. Marlon's doing really good work over there. You'll find debates on a number of theological topics. So check them out.

In fact, he has one coming up with Michael Brown and Gary DeMar and another one on the perpetual virginity of Mary with Turretin Pat and Dan Pacwa and Sam Shimon and William.

Albrecht.

That's certainly going to be a good debate. Well, with that, today I'm doing a post debate interview with Pastor Gabe Eubes, who is the associate pastor of discipleship and education at First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas, and the host of WWT.

When we understand attacks. Welcome, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Sure.

Please tell the audience a little bit more about you. I'm sure I didn't capture everything about you in that little two sentence, you know, intro.

Yeah, I've lived most of my life in Kansas. Texas is actually the fourth state that I've lived in. So I grew up in the south, moved north, made it to the Midwest where I met my wife. We had four kids there in Kansas.

Just moved down here to Texas at the end of 2020, where I've been at First Baptist Church serving with Tom Buck, and it's a real pleasure to serve with Dr. Buck. I've learned a lot, even just in the little more than a year that I've been here.

We had another child since we've been here. So now we've added a fifth to the flock. We've got our own basketball team now working on building that up. So the Lord has richly blessed us. I became a pastor when I was in Kansas.

This was actually something that my wife knew that I was going to do before I did. We were dating at the time, not even engaged yet. And she said, I think you're going to be a pastor. And I rolled my eyes at her.

I thought the notion was absolutely ridiculous. But the Lord used this woman to stir that desire in my heart. I had a passion for the word of God, just not that desire to want to be like committed to one church, pastoring and teaching every single Sunday.

I was a churchman. I went to church regularly. It just wasn't the sort of a thing that I thought I would ever do. And while I was there in the church where I was planted, God really stirred that desire in me.

So it was the very same church where we had our wedding reception that I would become the pastor of. And yeah, it was pretty neat. So I served there for 10 years before Dr. Buck extended me this invitation to be able to come work with him.

And it's been a real treat here to be at First Baptist Church.

Amen.

Praise God. Praise God. So as a first-time guest, I generally ask all the people who come on, could you share your testimony or journey into Reformed Theology? How did that happen? Were you born Reformed or were you raised in a Reformed church?

How did it happen?

Yeah, born again Reformed. No, not really. So my dad was very, very committed to the scriptures. And wherever we went to church when I was growing up, it was where the Bible was being taught. The gospel was being proclaimed.

Sin was being called out and righteousness being encouraged. And so that was where he would bring his family to church. He was looking for those elements. And it was often Baptist churches, not always.

We ended up in a couple of Mennonite churches. In fact, that's where I was baptized when I was a teenager. I was in a Mennonite church. That one, of course, is more Anabaptist. But nonetheless, the preachers there were always very solid in calling out sin and calling us to obedience.

So that was my dad teaching me how to use scripture to interpret scripture. I learned to read the Bible when I was five. From the age of five to seven, I had read the entire Bible all the way through.

And that was my dad putting it on me. Actually, what he said to me when I was five was, hey, pick a book of the Bible. And that's where we're going to start reading. Well, I really liked the story of the burning bush.

I loved the parting of the Red Sea and the Ten Commandments. And so I was like, let's do Exodus. And if I knew I was going to be reading the whole Bible, I might have picked Jude. You know, something that would put me more toward the end.

But we started in Exodus, went all the way through. And then he brought me back to Genesis, was the last book I read. And so by the age of seven, I had read all the way through the scriptures. But reformed theology, honestly, theology proper as we understand it, was not taught in my home at all.

I didn't learn anything about church history, hardly anything. My dad was a fan of Luther, so he would bring up Luther things every once in a while. And he knew some stuff. I think you could even have a pretty decent church history conversation with him.

But as far as like teaching his kids that, I really didn't get a lot of that. Some of the understanding that I had of theology was wrong. Because what my understanding of Calvinism was, is that Calvinism is essentially the argument that you hear somebody like Leighton Flowers make.

It's fatalism. It's that God has already predetermined everybody who's going to be saved and who's not going to be saved, who's going to heaven and who's going to hell. And so therefore, there's no need to even evangelize anybody if God has already chosen this.

So that's what I thought Calvinism was. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean, though, that my theology wasn't reformed or didn't have that reformed base. Because my dad did teach me about the sovereignty of God.

And there's really nothing that happens that God did not foreordain. I was taught to trust in God and knowing that he is always on his throne and nothing is happening outside of his control. And so it was actually I became a pastor.

I was already a pastor at this time in the church where the first church I was serving in there in Kansas. And the youth pastor there was a diehard Calvinist. And in fact, he would play Halo on Xbox and his sign-in name was Killer Calvinist.

That's what he went by. And so he and I had a conversation about that one time. I remember we were going to Sonic to get some drinks together. And so I just brought that up. I said, so you're just adamant about calling yourself a Calvinist.

And I said, my understanding of Calvinism is this. And just the explanation that I gave, the whole fatalistic view. And he goes, no, that's not Calvinism. And so he broke it down for me. And when he got to the end of that, I said, I believe all of that.

That's what the Bible says. That's what my dad raised me on. He goes, good, then you're a Calvinist. And that was the first eye-opening thing of realizing maybe there's a lot to these theological elements that I've never really studied.

I kind of had that whole no creed, but Christ approach to things. And so I became really familiar with some of the confessions with catechism. And now I'm teaching my own kids those things that my parents didn't raise me in.

We're very diligent to teach me the scriptures, but just didn't have those summarizing things for me that my kids are receiving now. And so that's just kind of a little bit of background on my being raised in the faith.

I became a Christian at a very, very young age, but wasn't baptized until I was a teenager, but had always had in my home the word of God that I was being taught by my father. So I'm very, very grateful for the sound doctrine that he raised me in, even though I may not have been familiar with the terminology of all of it.

Sure, that's great. That's great. A lot of people don't have it that way. They end up going to some aberrant church and have to be taught or discipled into Calvinism as they start going through the Bible.

So that's great that you had a dad who was sowing into you and had you read the Bible by seven years old. That's amazing. Praise God for that.

Yeah, by the providence of God, I would not have had it any other way.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

All right.

So thank you for that.

That was great.

John 6:44 and the Meaning of Drawing to Christ

On to our topic. John chapter six, centering on verse 44.

Yes, sir.

A quick rendering of what that verse means. Go ahead, Pastor Gabe.

Yeah, so John 6, 44, as I had read it in the ESV from the debate that I did with Dr. Flowers, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. So very plainly, no one, being the subject of the sentence, can come to Christ.

Now, what do we mean by can come? Can believe in him? That is the statement that Jesus makes later on in verse 65, where he says that are some of you don't believe. This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the father.

So you could even put repentance in there as well. You cannot repent unless it is granted by God. And we do see that in the scriptures twice and acts where it says God granted repentance to Israel. He granted repentance to the Gentiles.

You have the statement in 2 Timothy 2, 25, that we must correct opponents with gentleness, for it is God who grants repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

Now, that's a little more cross-referencing than I gave in the debate, but just understanding what coming to Christ entails, what that means. No one can come unless the father who sent me, Jesus himself being submitted to the will of the father, draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

So what do we mean by draw? The context that I drew draw from in the debate was the Greek usage of helco throughout John's gospel, and every time we see that word used, there's always some sort of force or action behind it.

Peter drawing his sword, same word that's used there. Peter dragging the nets, it's helco. It's the same word. Now, of course, Dr. Flowers made a reference to John 12, where the son of man will be lifted up, and I will draw all men to myself, as though to say every single person on earth is going to be drawn to Christ.

We never really got to that argument enough. He kind of left it isolated enough that we weren't able to engage on it. But even there, if you're looking at the consistent use of the word helco in John, then you have to come to the conclusion that even that is in the context of what was said about drawing back in John 644.

So you're reading that in order. You can't go to John 12 and read that version of drawing and then try to bring that back into John 6. You are in a right read of John through the way that John wrote it.

You get from John 6 and his usage of the word there to John 12, and so we know that the action is the father that is doing the work on the person before they can come to Christ. And then Jesus promised, I will raise him up on the last day.

And this is a statement that comes up regularly. You go back to verse 37. All that the father gives me will come to me and those who he gives to me. I will never cast out those who come to me. I will never cast out for verse 44.

This is the will of my father that everyone who looks on the sun and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. So we have these constant references to coming to me, believing in me, and this being our explanation, our understanding of what Jesus really means there in John 644.

That verse doesn't sit by itself. It's following the flow of thought that John was presenting there in the chapter before we come to it.

Right.

So that was excellent. Thank you. So starting with, let's say, verse 37, when John says all that the father gives me will come to me, does that not logically mean that people need to be given by the father to Jesus.

First?

Correct. So we're seeing the work a father is doing, the work that the father in heaven is doing before any man makes any decision, God has acted. And I got Dr. Flowers to agree with me on that. But of course, the specifics of that statement would be where we disagree.

He would agree that before any man can come to Christ, God has to do a work. But he might describe it as, well, God sent the son. So that's the work that God did before anybody can come to him. He won't take it as far as a person's hardened heart against God actually needs to be regenerated.

A person must be born again before they can have faith in Jesus Christ, which a person by their own will cannot do.

So at some point in time, he has to admit that everyone has not been given by the father to the son, correct?

Right. And that's what I was hoping we would get the chance to draw out. If John 12 became an argument that we could focus on, I expected him to do that and he.

Didn't.

Maybe he knew that I knew that he was going to do that. I don't know. But to understand where Jesus says, you know, I'll draw all men to myself cannot possibly mean, oh, I remember where he said this now.

It was in his very last speech. So it was in his closing speech where he made a statement of something that was reflective of Romans 1 of that God making himself known in all that has been made so that man is without excuse.

That is clearly not what Jesus was meaning in John 12. And so drawing all men to myself does not mean every single person on the planet is going to be drawn to Christ. It was not done at the time of the disciples, and it is not done even at the present day.

You know, in the Southern Baptist circles in which I run, in which Dr. Flowers is also a part of, we'll get those maps sent to us by the International Missions Board, and those maps will have dots on them that will show parts of the world where you have unreached people groups.

And there will be thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, even millions who have not heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. So there are people in the world who are dying, having never even heard the name of Jesus Christ or having been given that offering.

So my question to Dr. Flowers, if we would have had the chance to expound on that would have been, do you really think the statement that's being made there in Romans 1 means that every single person actually has the opportunity to come to Jesus Christ, though they've never even used or heard his name?

And so that's clearly not what's being said there then when Jesus said, I will draw all men to myself. But rather, we're talking about people from all over the world, all kinds of people will be drawn to Christ, not just from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles.

And that's exactly the way John's audience would have understood that reference in John 12. When all the world is being referenced, it means more than just Jews.

Right.

So if we were to take his understanding of a draw in John 6, 44 and import that same meeting into John 12, wouldn't that mean that wouldn't that result in universalism? Because if all that the Father gives to Jesus come to him and they must be drawn, then everybody who's drawn is going to come to believe in Jesus.

Therefore, universalism would be the result, no?

Right. If we were using consistently the draw in John 6, 44 in the same way that it's used in John 12, then we would have to say that every single person in the world is effectually drawn to Christ and therefore the argument would be universalism.

So therefore, we have to understand what is meant by world. Do we mean every single person in the world or does it mean something else? And even going back to John 3, where Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus and was saying, just as the son of man was lifted up in the wilderness or the son of man, just as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up.

And and he's talking and then going to John 3, 16, for God so loved the world. So he's saying that was that happened in Israel. The son of man is going to be raised up so that the world may come to him, meaning people all over the world, not just for the Jews, but even for the Gentiles.

So that's even the usage of world in John 12. Therefore, we can conclude that it's not a statement of universalism that's being made there in that reference, right?

Because it was it was Greeks that were coming to the disciples and saying, you know, bring us to Jesus. So now we have people outside of the the Israelite community now being drawn to Jesus, right? Wanting to write to him to see who he is.

So in an Israelite mind, God belonged to them.

Correct.

Yeah.

So what that they were the soul, you know, they had the lock.

That's right.

No one else can get to him aside from them.

So, yeah.

And the mindset of an Israelite, it's the whole idea of, hey, when people bless us, they're blessed. So if there's ever going to be any salvation for the world, it's going to be because they were on the side of Israel.

That was what was going on in the mind of an Israelite. And so Jesus is putting it to them instead that it is by faith in the sun and that statement in verse in chapter twelve, verse thirty two. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

Of course, as you pointed out, this was in the context of following the Greeks who had come to Jesus and had come to Philip, first of all, and said, hey, we want to see Jesus. And then once that happens, that's when Jesus says now must now is the time.

Now is when the son of man will be lifted up. And I'm going to draw people from everywhere, all tongues, tribes, nations on earth, as we see depicted in the book of Revelation. That's what's meant by by all men or all the world.

Amen.

You know, as I've poured over this scripture, you know, through through the years, obviously this is a strong verse that supports, you know, the Calvinistic thought. I also thought in an Israelite's mind, knowing that marriages were prearranged back then, it was usually the father giving the bride, that's right, daughter to a man.

And I thought this is a beautiful picture of God giving his people over to his son, you know, a prearrange, a betrothal of us to Jesus, who Jesus is going to be the perfect groom and he's going to die on behalf of the bride he loves.

And then the spirit draws them, you know, to, you know, to the wedding supper of the lamb, preparing them, you know, making them fit for heaven. So I see it as a beautiful love story. And I always thought the giving of us to Jesus was kind of like a betrothal.

Absolutely.

And that wedding language is used in the Gospel of John. Even when Jesus says to his disciples in the upper room, I go to prepare a place for you, that that's wedding language that he's talking about there.

I'm going to prepare the place where I'm going to bring the bride. And as my as our senior pastor, Tom Buck, had said just this past Sunday, he was teaching from Ephesians chapter one and speaking there about how we are the inheritance that the father gives to the son and that the father is not planning a wedding day on which he will not have a bride to give to his son.

He didn't send out wedding invitations like, well, I sure hope a bride shows up to this.

Thing.

He's not going to be planning a wedding where he does not have a bride for the son. If the father has promised this to the son, he will fulfill it. And he already knows exactly who he is giving to the son as the bride.

Of course, his church.

Right.

And, you know, that was one of the things that I wanted to talk. And it's later down in my notes because Leighton likens it to a wedding banquet.

Right.

So he puts up on the screen on one of his PowerPoint slides, and I'll put it up, you know, when I edit it, he puts no man can come to me unless the father sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

And his illustration is no man can come to the son's wedding banquet unless the father invites or enables him. And he, the man who comes will have a great feast.

Right.

Yeah.

And then he reinterprets it in, you know, through Calvinist eyes. And he says, this is the way it would sound from a Calvinist. No man can come to the son's wedding banquet unless the father compels him.

And he, the man who who is compelled to come will have a great feast. And right away, my ears perk up and I'm thinking there's a scripture in the Gospels in Luke where he says, and the master said to the servant, go out into the highways and hedges and compel people to come in.

Right.

That their house may be filled.

Yeah.

I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. So the very thing he says Calvinist think is the very thing the scripture says.

That's right. That's right.

Yeah.

It just, it kind of, kind of surprised me that he didn't know about that verse.

Well, I tried to get him off of the script that he was on, or, you know, his own framework that he's trying to impose upon the text. And that was really in the first rebuttal that we did. Well, the first rebuttal that I had where I was asking questions of Dr. Flowers.

So getting away from his narrative and just asking him plainly from the text and saying, why was it that they could not believe in Jesus? And he said, because the father didn't draw them. And I mean, really, that was devastating.

It was like, you don't realize that you gave up your whole case there where you're trying to argue from John 12, that the reason why they didn't believe in Jesus is because of this judicial hardening.

And yet when I'm just asking you straight from the text, why did they not believe? Because it was not granted to them by the father. Then you can't help but draw the answer from the text that the text actually gives us.

Right.

Exactly. That's a great point. Now, another thing is, is there a principle in the Old Testament where God brings people to himself?

Yeah.

Are you talking like Exodus 36? Or are we talking about an effectual drawing?

Is that?

Well, yeah.

And I put a couple. I came up with a couple of verses. It says in Exodus 19, you yourselves, meaning the Israelites, have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.

Right, right. So of all the nations on, I mean, that's really the narrative of the Old Testament. Of all the nations that are on earth, God chooses Israel and says in the book of Deuteronomy, you know, it's not because you were great.

It's not because you were the most in number. It's because of God's faithfulness to himself and the promise that he made to Abraham. He was going to be faithful to the covenant that he made. And so the descendants of Abraham become that nation that he calls to himself.

No other nation on earth gets called only Israel. And he says, you are the nation that I have chosen where I am going to put my name.

Right.

You only have I chosen.

Yes.

You only. Right.

You only.

Right.

And then in Psalm 65, he says, blessed is the one you choose and bring near to dwelling your courts. You know, so here's this language again. You know, it's a blessing of the people and it's God's grace that brings them close to him.

So again, you know, from our understanding, it's the natural inclination of the human heart is to suppress the truth and unrighteousness. And there is none who seek after God. If God didn't seek after us, we would never come to him.

We would never, you know, desire him had he not did a work in our heart first.

Amen.

Praise God.

Right.

Exactly. Praise God. So maybe you could talk about because I know he was harping on a little bit of the mysteriousness of the order.

Yeah.

And, you know, we understand it's the order, order, salute, order, salute is the order of salvation.

Right.

So maybe you can touch on that a little bit to help the listeners understand why God has to do something first.

Yeah, that was I was kind of curious after the debate was over. I was wondering what is Leighton going to pull out of this debate first? What is he going to think was his linchpin that he won the debate on?

And it's interesting that he went to the very first question that he asked of me about, you know, the drawing being the the regeneration, essentially, like understanding that that's regeneration and then framing it in such a way as to, well, no one can have life unless they have faith in Christ.

So how does a person have life before they have faith in Jesus Christ? And and then he he dug on me for having said that it is really mysterious. What I was trying to convey there is that as far as the human experience is concerned, we don't really know the order in which all of the and this is what becomes so debatable about the concept of regeneration.

Like as far as our experience is concerned, which came first, the chicken or the egg? You know, and that's why that's kind of why we argue about that, which is why we have to go to the scripture, because it's not based on our experience.

It's based on what the word of God says. And so and as you and I have been talking, there's a work that is done by the father before it's anything that we have done. I mentioned this as being mystery because who knows what it is that the spirit does and and how he works?

You know, I've even explained this with regards to just the doctrine of justification. So we've been justified before God in the heavenly registry by faith in Jesus Christ. Our sins have been canceled.

The sin debt is canceled because of Christ's death on the cross for us and our faith in Jesus Christ. What does that look like in the heavenly realms? I mean, were there file drawers where our sins were being kept and somebody pulled them out and lit them on fire?

You know, so the how these things get applied to us is divinely mysterious. And it's wonderful to behold and consider. You know, I've I've heard James White say that we will spend all eternity pondering the mystery of that and still never come to the end of it.

The amazing work that God does because of his grace toward us. And so that was that was what I was getting toward. And yet he made fun of that concept. He was like, well, if it's mysterious, then how can we even really know?

How can a Calvinist say that regeneration precedes faith if Gabe's answer is going to be, well, the work of the spirit is mysterious? Well, the answer that I gave to him is the answer Jesus gave in John chapter three, where he's talking to Nicodemus about the work of the Holy Spirit, about being born again.

You must be born of water in the spirit before you can enter the kingdom of God. He says in in John three, seven, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. That's that's mystery right there. How does the spirit work in us? This effectualness that we go from being hardened against God and rebellious to now we love God and we desire him and we want to live for him.

That's a work the spirit does. It's it's so deep and and so incredible that we just can't fathom it. Yet we know he does it because it's what the Bible says.

Right.

And a lot of times when I'm when I'm when I'm thinking of somebody who confesses Jesus as Lord, they don't confess Jesus as Lord in order to become a Christian. They confess Jesus as Lord because they're a Christian already.

Right.

In the same way, when a baby is birth, he doesn't take his first breath in order to live. He takes his first breath because he's alive.

That's right. Very good. Very good point.

The first thing that we do when the spirit illuminates us and regenerates us, when somebody presents the gospel, we confess Jesus as Lord.

Right.

Because we understand that the things our heart is is antagonistic to the things of.

The law.

Romans chapter eight.

Right.

The heart will not the man in the flesh will not submit to the Lord. Yes, to the Lord God. Nor can he do so.

Yeah, indeed. He cannot. Right, right.

So my question is, on Layton's position, how does a man in the flesh confess Jesus as Lord when he can't do that? In fact, there's other scriptures that say you can only confess Jesus as Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.

Right.

Are you in the flesh or are you in the spirit? I don't see a middle ground.

That would be a good question for Dr.

Flowers.

Yeah, right.

He probably is going to hear this and do it.

It'll be two hours long.

Yes, he's pretty good with this stuff.

All right. So let's see.

Could you care that you want to talk a little bit more about the judicial hardening, like how that didn't shouldn't have applied in John chapter six or should it have?

Well, there was certainly a hardening that came upon Israel, but it's just not the context of the conversation that Jesus is having with those who are present. And like I said before, we're not even told there that this audience was exclusively Jewish.

Now, in verse fifty two, it says that the Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that the audience that was there was exclusively Jewish. The statement that he says there that no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him is not you.

Jews cannot come to me unless the father draws them. And then I will raise them up on the last day, although it certainly would have applied. So that statement would have applied to the Jews, but it also applies to anybody.