Bible Studies

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We continue with this verse-by-verse study of John chapters 5-8 here in Part 4, starting with John 6:38.

(38) For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me [cf. John 4:34; 5:30]. (39) This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me [cf. John 6:37; 17:2, 24] I lose nothing [cf. John 17:12; 18:9], but raise it up on the last day [cf. John 6:40, 44, 54; 11:24]. [[As I mentioned, when commenting on verse 39 in my paper "Once Saved, Always Saved?," "This verse certainly emphasizes God's role in our salvation. If this was all the Bible had to say on the subject, I would still believe in eternal security [once saved, necessarily always saved]." When I became a born-again Christian essentially every born-again Christian I knew believed once saved, always saved, and I accepted that doctrine as part of the package, and I could cite a few verses to "prove" that doctrine, including this verse. But after spending quite a bit of time studying what the Bible has to say on the subject, I had to abandon that doctrine. It seems clear to me that there are many passages in the New Testament that clearly demonstrate that born-again believers can lose their salvation through failing to press on in faith. Believers can become unbelievers. Although God takes the initiative in our salvation, He doesn't give us saving faith (see my "A Paper on Faith"), and He doesn't make us continue in faith to the end, but His grace is more than sufficient to keep us if we do our part of continuing to look to Him in faith (continuing to appropriate and cooperate with His saving grace).

GOD'S WILL ISN'T ALWAYS DONE! God doesn't ever will for His people to give themselves to sin and to turn from Him in their hearts and become unbelievers ((I had a footnote: "Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness" (1 John 3:4). The sins of God's people, by definition, go against God and His perfect will. God is sovereign and He is in control. The sins of people (or the sins of the devil) will never catch God by surprise or cause Him to lose sovereign control. But God clearly leaves room for people to go against His perfect will.)), but He didn't create robots (we are free moral agents; our wills are still free to some extent after the fall, and we must respond to and cooperate with the saving grace of God in Christ Jesus on a continuous basis), and, although He sent His Son to die for us and gave us the Holy Spirit to enable us to be faithful to Him and righteous, He doesn't force us to be faithful to Him and righteous. See my paper "Once Saved, Always Saved?" that is available on this Christian article site and the other references mentioned above in the last footnote under John 6:37.

I'll quote what I said under John 6:39 on pages 38-40 of my "A Paper on Faith" that is available on this Christian article site (this quotation goes on for several paragraphs): This verse puts all the emphasis on God's role in our salvation. If this verse (and several verses like it, including 6:44, 65) was not balanced out by much other Scripture, we would have to say that man doesn't have much of a role (if any role) in God's salvation plan. However, there is much Scripture that emphasizes our role. This paper ["A Paper on Faith"] is filled with such passages, as is my paper "Once Saved, Always Saved?" As discussed in that paper, the Bible (in common with other ancient Jewish writings like the Dead Sea Scrolls) sometimes makes statements that seem to teach that man doesn't have a free will at all and God just pre-determines everything, but as you keep on reading you find that this assumption was inadequate and man does have something of free will and is responsible to do the things required of him.

The Bible doesn't fully satisfy our curiosity and give us the full balanced truth in this area. However, our lack of complete revelation/information in this area doesn't give us the right to just emphasize those verses that emphasize God's part and ignore the much greater number of verses that emphasize man's responsibility to do his part. And, of course, we don't want to overemphasize man's part. God is sovereign. We don't earn salvation in any sense - it is all of grace. And God must receive all the glory. Much of the paper "Once Saved, Always Saved?" is relevant to this topic and should be read in conjunction with this present paper ("A Paper on Faith").

In "Once Saved, Always Saved?" I quoted from D. A. Carson ("Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension"). I believe he sees the balanced truth in this area better than most. Here I'll quote from another of his works (Vol. 8 of the "Expositor's Bible Commentary" [Zondervan, 1984] under Matthew 13:13) where he deals with the same topic. He is discussing the Parable of the Sower. "Biblical writers in both the OT and the NT have, on the whole, fewer problems about the tension between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility than do many moderns. This is not because they fail to distinguish purpose and consequence [result], as many affirm (e.g., Moule, "Idiom Book," p. 142), but because they do not see divine sovereignty and human responsibility as antitheses [thoughts in opposition]. In short they are compatibilists and therefore juxtapose the two themes with little self-conscious awareness of any problem (cf. Gen. 50:19-20; Judg. 14:4; Isa. 10:5-7; Hag. 1:12-14; John 11:49-52; cf. Carson, "Divine Sovereignty"). ... Thus, even though he [Mark in Mark 4:11, 12] records Jesus' answer in terms of election [which tends to put all the emphasis on God's role], Mark does not thereby mean to absolve the outsiders of all responsibility. How could he, in the light of the interpretation of the parable of the sower he records (4:13-20), his record of John's [John the Baptist's] demand for repentance (1:4), and much more? Matthew has taken up these themes in greater detail because he wishes simultaneously to affirm that what is taking place in the ministry of Jesus is, on the one hand, the decreed will of God and the result of biblical prophecy and, on the other hand, a terrible rebellion, gross spiritual dullness, and chronic unbelief. This places the responsibility for the divine rejection of those who fail to become disciples on their own shoulders while guaranteeing that none of what is taking place stands outside God's sovereign control and plan."

This may be an appropriate place to mention that God has set things up in such a way that His perfect will (when it comes to individuals) isn't always accomplished; He leaves some room for people (and angels) to determine their own destiny. See, e.g., 1 Tim. 2:3-6; Acts 17:30, 31; 2 Pet. 3:9. [2 Pet. 3:9 says, "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." "All" refers, at least for the most part, to Christians who need to repent. These words come across in a more powerful way when it is recognized that they are aimed (at least for the most part) at Peter's Christian readers. Two commentators that I recommend on this verse are: R. J. Bauckham (Volume 50 of the "Word Biblical Commentary") and D. J. Moo ("NIV Application Commentary" on 2 Peter and Jude). I doubt that the unbelief and rebellion of God's people ever fits in the category of being in His perfect will."]] (40) For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life [Compare, for example, John 1:12, 13; 3:15, 16, 36; and 5:24-26. Contrast John 6:36. Believing (having faith) in the Son is something we do as we respond to His grace and continue on in His grace.], and I Myself will raise him up on the last day [cf. John 6:39].' (41) Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, 'I am the bread that came down out of heaven.' [See verses 32-35.] (42) They were saying, 'Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, "I have come down out of heaven"?' [[They were thinking that the fact that Jesus had been born of Mary (and of Joseph, so they thought) proved that He had not "come down out of heaven." But, as John has already demonstrated in 1:1-18 (and other verses), Jesus was born of the virgin Mary - He was deity, God the Son, who had become the God-man. Jesus undoubtedly knew that His opponents would not have accepted it if He had stopped to discuss His virgin birth, etc. with them. Besides that, God the Father determined what information was to be revealed and when and to whom it was to be revealed. Many things were not revealed to the apostles until after Jesus was raised from the dead.]] (43) Jesus answered and said to them, 'Do not grumble among yourselves [cf. John 7:12]. (44) No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him [[Compare John 6:65 ("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' ") and John 12:32. See above under John 6:37-40. What Jesus went on to say in verse 45 helped show what He meant here in verse 44. Verse 45 shows a lot about what Jews the Father chose to draw to His Son and how He drew them. It shows that He drew those who were true believers, which they had demonstrated by submitting to Him and His word and learning from Him (cf., e.g., John 5:37-47). Under 6:37 I pointed out that the Father also drew many others to Christ, including many Gentiles.

It was easy for the Father to draw such people to Christ (since they were submitted to Him and His word), and it was appropriate that He would draw them - they were His people, true believers. He used His word, which prophesied of Christ Jesus and showed the Jews of their need for new-covenant salvation, to draw them to Him. I'll quote a sentence from what Merrill C. Tenney says here ("Expositor's Bible Commentary," Vol. 9 [Zondervan, 1981], page 76), "Verse 45 indicates that God would do his drawing through the Scriptures and that those who were obedient to God's will as revealed in the Scriptures would come to Jesus." The Father also used His ministers, especially John the Baptist, to point the Jews to Christ; He used miraculous signs (which were all the more important in that God's word had prophesied that He would do these signs); and, significantly, He drew by His Spirit.

Above, under verse 39, I quoted from my "A Paper on Faith

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