Today in our RMM readings we read a verse that is often held up as a defeater verse against John 6:37 and 44. When you read the passages side by side it can leave you concerned with the consistency of Jesus’ theology:
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. …
44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:37 and 44 ESV)
The word translated as “draws” in verse 44 is the Greek word helkuo which means “to drag or draw”. It is the word commonly used in the bible for “to draw a sword”. The clear meaning in John 6 seems to be that people exist in darkness (think of the inside of a scabbard) and they cannot see the truth about Jesus until God DRAWS them out of the darkness and when they are finally in the light and they at last SEE JESUS, they believe and are saved. This is how God determined to save people, as Jesus says in verse 40:
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40 ESV)
This makes Jesus sound like a sure-fire Calvinist. God has to draw people out of darkness so that they can see, and seeing, they believe and are saved. God goes first. Verse 37 even throws in the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints as a bonus. The statement is a classic example of what linguists refer to as a “litotes” – meaning a figure of speech where a thing is affirmed by negating its opposite. There is another famous litotes in the New Testament when the Apostle Paul declares himself “a citizen of no mean city”. What Paul means is that he is the citizen of a very important city. Here in John 6:37 Jesus is saying that everyone who comes to him (and as verse 44 says, the only ones who do are those God draws) is KEPT BY HIM. That is the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints: all who come are kept.
So; Jesus is a Calvinist. “But wait just a second”, your first year Bible College Assistant Professor will declare. “What about John 12:32? Have you wrestled with that text? That text seems to say the very opposite of John 6. It proves that Jesus was NOT a Calvinist at all!” By the way, that isn’t a hypothetical scenario, that was an email I received last October. Let’s take a look at the verse that “proves” according to our first year Bible College Assistant Professor that Jesus was not a Calvinist and/or not very consistent in his theology:
32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32 ESV)
“BOOOOYAH! Stick that in your predestinarian pipe and smoke it! Jesus was no Calvinist at all, he was a dyed in the wool Arminian”! (Some would say universalist, but it depends on the Bible College). “He uses the SAME WORD in 12:32 – helkuo – to say that he will draw ALL PEOPLE to himself. Clearly, whatever “draw” means, Jesus does it to all people and some respond to that help with faith and some do not.”
Therefore, if 12:32 means what our first year Assistant Professor says it means, Jesus was either confused or decidedly UN-Calvinistic. Which is it?
The first law of hermeneutics is CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT. In John 6 Jesus is talking to a group of people about how God wills to save. He wills to draw them to Jesus, the bread of life, to see and believe. Ok. In John 12 we are told that the Jewish authorities are getting very agitated with Jesus because:
the world has gone after him.” (John 12:19 ESV)
What is meant by “the whole world” is then clarified:
20 Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. 21 So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” (John 12:20–21 ESV)
In chapter 12, the phrase “the world” refers to “some Greeks”. The problem, from the viewpoint of the Jewish leaders, is that the “false” teaching of Jesus is spreading beyond the borders of Israel and has begun to infect “the whole world”. Jesus is not concerned with this, in fact he declares that it was part of God’s plan all along and he says to them:
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32 ESV)
The context in chapter 12 makes it abundantly clear that “all people” does not mean “every single human person on the planet at every period of time” but rather “not just Jews but Gentiles also”. That is what the discussion has been about. D.A. Carson offers a helpful analysis in his comment on John 6:44:
"Many attempt to dilute the force of the claim by referring to 12:32, where the same verb for ‘to draw’ (helkyoœ) occurs: Jesus there claims he will draw ‘all men’ to himself. The context shows rather clearly, however, that 12:32 refers to ‘all men without distinction’ (i.e. not just Jews) rather than to ‘all men without exception’."[1]
Nowhere in the New Testament does God say that he intends to save all people without exception (meaning every single person) – that would be universalism and if it were true it would make much of the Bible incomprehensible. Here it is very clear – it ought even to be clear to the Assistant Professor of first year New Testament – that Jesus is talking about God’s will to gather unto Jesus a people from every tribe, tongue and nation on the earth. All people, without distinction, will be represented in the new humanity, formed through faith in the Son of God.
All throughout the Gospel of John we see a strong emphasis on the Sovereignty of God in salvation. However, we also see John unashamedly speaking about the responsibility of all people to see and believe in Jesus. Carson again is helpful:
"Divine sovereignty in salvation is a major theme in the Fourth Gospel…. John is not embarrassed by this theme, because unlike many contemporary philosophers and theologians, he does not think that human responsibility is thereby mitigated. Thus, he can speak with equal ease of those who look to the Son and believe in him: this they must do, if they are to enjoy eternal life. But this responsibility to exercise faith does not, for the Evangelist, make God contingent. In short, John is quite happy with the position that modern philosophy calls ‘compatibilism’."[2]
“Compatibilism” simply means that the idea that God is Sovereign with respect to salvation and must draw us out of our dark and imprisoning scabbard of sin before we can see and believe does not represent a contradiction with the equally true idea that we are really and truly responsible for whether or not we do see and do believe in Jesus. Human responsibility and Divine Sovereignty are compatible. They are both true. God really does have to draw us into the light before we can see. We really do see and DECIDE to believe in Jesus. Those are both true things.
John 6 and John 12 go together quite nicely thank you. Of course that doesn’t mean that Jesus was a Calvinist – though it might mean that Calvin was a “Jesu-nist”. I don’t care who else said that God has to go first – whether Paul, Augustine, Luther, Calvin or Spurgeon – I only care who said it first. Jesus said it first and he never took it back. God has to draw us out of the dark before we can see and believe. All that he so helps see and and believe and are kept. This is the Will of God, according to John 6:37 and 40 and this is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
SDG
Paul Carter
[1]D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar New Testament Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 293.
[2]D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar New Testament Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 291.