John 6: Quotes


John 6: Quotes 

​Many may find it surprising what Arminians and non-Calvinists teach about John 6:44 and therefore this page is devoted to sharing such quotes.

Walls and Dongell: “But the Calvinist reading likewise fails to account fully for the context. Jesus is locked in strenuous debate with 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’ (Jn 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?’ (Jn 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.” (Why I am Not a Calvinist, pp.74-75, emphasis mine)

Walls and Dongell add: “Had they received Moses fully, thereby coming to know the Father to the degree possible at that time, they would 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 never surrendered to God in the first place, that they had set their faces like flint against all of 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 (Jn 6:37, 39).” (Why I am Not a Calvinist, p.75, emphasis mine)

Laurence Vance: “…we have here the separation of the Jewish sheep from the goats and the drawing of them to the Messiah. The ones given are Jewish disciples. They are said to be his sheep. (John 10:27). John baptized that Christ should be manifest to Israel (John 1:31). Although Israel as a whole received him not (John 1:11), he was known of his sheep (John 10:14), the epitome of which can be seen in Simeon, who was ‘just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him’ (Luke 2:25). … The error of the Calvinists on John 6:44 is two-fold. First and foremost is the misapplication of a verse with a decidedly Jewish context as a doctrinal statement on salvation in this age. And secondly, in a spiritual sense, there is the fallacy of making the drawing of God irresistible and equating it with salvation.” (The Other Side of Calvinism, pp.510, 511, emphasis mine)

Robert Shank: “Jesus’ words ‘no man can come to me except the Father who sent me draws him’ are especially significant in the context in which they appear. He had spoken repeatedly of God as His Father, claiming that the Father had sent Him into the world--a claim which most of His hearers rejected (vs. 41f). Affirming that ‘no man can come to me except the Father who sent me draw him’ and that ‘every man who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me,’ Jesus implied that the coming of every man who comes to Him constitutes a certification of His divine Sonship, a Sonship of which men must be persuaded before they can come to Him in the true sense of the term.”  (Elect in the Son, p.177, emphasis mine)

John Goodwin (1594-1665): “They are said to have been the Father’s i.e. as it were, the Father’s disciples, or persons ‘taught by the Father,’ John vi. 45, and so, after a sort, appropriable unto the Father, (as those that believe and are taught of Christ are said to be Christ’s, or to belong to Christ) before they became Christ’s apostles, or were chosen by him upon this account; and are said to have been given unto him out of the world by the Father, because they were peculiarly qualified, and as it were, characterized and marked out by the Father to be formed into apostles by his Son.” (Redemption Redeemed, p.80)

Richard Watson (1781-1833): “Those who truly ‘believed’ Moses’s words, then, were under the Father’s illuminating influence, ‘heard and learned of the Father;’ were ‘drawn’ of the Father; and so, by the Father, were ‘given to Christ,’ as his disciples, to be more fully taught the mysteries of his religion, and to be made the saving partakers of its benefits for ‘this is the Father’s will which sent me, that of all which he hath given me (thus to perfect in knowledge, and to exalt in holiness,) I should lose nothing; but should raise it up again at the last day.’ Thus we have exhibited that beautiful process in the work of God in the hearts of sincere Jews, which took place in their transit from one dispensation to another, from Moses to Christ. Taught of the Father; led into the sincere belief, and general spiritual understanding of the Scriptures as to the Messiah; when Christ appeared, they were ‘drawn’ and ‘given’ to him, as the now visible and accredited Head, Teacher, Lord, and Saviour of the Church. All in this view is natural, explicit, and supported by the context; all in the Calvinistic interpretation appears forced, obscure, and inapplicable to the whole tenor of the discourse.” (An examination of certain passages of Scripture, supposed to limit the extent of Christ’s redemption, emphasis mine)

Daniel Whedon (1808-1885): “So in verse 45 it is more fully explained; it is only every one that hath learned of the Father that cometh unto me. The Father, finding the willing soul, teaches by his law; attracts, convinces, and convicts by his Spirit; but when the soul has perfectly obeyed all their influences with a living faith, the Father does not himself save, but He draws and hands him over to Christ. Thither coming, and embracing Christ with a full faith, the man is not cast out but accepted and redeemed. But the Father giveth none to Christ who reject his teachings and drawings; none who do not freely consent to be given and go to his Son. Such is the great scheme of salvation.” (Wesleyan Heritage Collection CD, p.324, emphasis mine)

Robert Hamilton: “The crux of my argument will be that the set of individuals who are said by Jesus to ‘belong’ to God as Christ’s ‘sheep,’ to ‘listen to the Father and learn from him,’ and to be ‘given’ by the Father to the Son, refers not to a pretemporally determined set of elect persons as conceived of in the Calvinist Reformed view, but instead primarily to the faithful sons of Abraham who were God’s children under the covenant as it was revealed in the Old Testament, and who were already prepared by their voluntary faith and repentance to embrace the promised Messiah at the time of his long-awaited appearance to the nation of Israel. These included the ones whom God had nurtured to repentance under the ministry of John the Baptist, who was appointed to ‘prepare the way for the Lord’  (Isaiah 40:3; Matthew 3:3).” (The Order of Faith and Election in John's Gospel: You Do Not Believe Because You Are Not My Sheep, emphasis mine)

James McCarthy: “Jesus was speaking to unrepentant Jews....Had they repented, the Father would have given them as sheep to his Son. ... 1. The Spirit convicts. 2. A Sinner repents. 3. The Father enlightens. 4. The person believes and is born again. ...This explains...why Jesus taught that no one can come to him unless the Father draws him. It also clarifies what he meant when he said, ‘All that the Father gives me will come to me.’ When the Father opens a person’s heart to understand the gospel, he readily believes and is saved....” (John Calvin Goes to Berkeley, p.279, emphasis mine)

One member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians: “The faithful, repentant, Old Testament remnant was the flock that belonged to the Father. They were obedient to the Father, and already in a covenantal relationship with him as Jesus arrived on the scene. Many were probably influenced, for example, by John the Baptist’s ministry. These people were the ones who had already been listening to the Father’s voice and were obedient to him in accord with Old Testament stipulations. When he arrives on the scene, Jesus explains that all of these sheep who were already in the covenant would believe in him since they listen to the Father, and because the Father was the one who sent Jesus. Thus, everyone who belonged to the Father were given to Jesus, as the Davidic shepherd sent to shepherd those who belong to the Father. We’re talking about a period in time, in human history, in the transitional period when the Old Testament remnant was becoming the Christian Church. But Jesus’ opponents were those who were not a part of the faithful remnant. They thought they were unconditionally elect and belonged to the Father on the basis of their physical descent from Abraham. They thought they could belong to the Father apart from Jesus. Jesus repudiates this, telling them that they were of their father the devil. For if they had been part of the faithful remnant, they would be part of the Father’s flock and would have believed in him. This is good Johannine theology, and good Arminian theology, and good exegesis. But it is so far removed from that Calvinism which so many people attempt to impose on the text. These texts are not talking about eternal, predestinarian decrees, but to a specific time and place in Israel in 30 A.D.” (SEA)

Michael Brown explains: “I see it as the fulfillment of the promise. In other words, up until now, the distinction was that there were people that were right with the God of Israel, and those who were not, and now Jesus becomes the full reflection of the God of Israel among the people, so those who were truly His, will be identified as the ones that will follow Jesus. It’s not that He now creates a whole new people, because there were those longing for His coming, like Simeon and Anna that were ready to receive Him when He came.” (James White vs. Michael Brown)

Michael Brown explains of the unbelieving: “They looked to be just like everybody else, ‘We’re devoted followers of God.’ ‘No,’ He says, ‘You’re really not, because if you believe Moses, you’d believe Me. If you were listening to the Father, then by all means you would come to Me. The proof that you’re not listening to the Father is that you won’t come to Me.’” (James White vs. Michael Brown)  

Steven Hitchcock: “It strikes me as ironic that Calvinists of such high caliber, possessing extensive abilities of intellect, and who are widely esteemed for their skill in the exegesis of the Scriptures, can be so reckless and unwilling to examine these texts carefully. Has it occurred to anyone that we should seek to understand the context in which these texts are found as they are only in the Gospel of John and fairly close to one another in proximity?” (Recanting Calvinism, p.187)

Steven Hitchcock: “Certainly no one can come to Jesus unless God is granting, leading, and drawing, but these statements by Jesus say more than that. They assert a particular election of Jews at a time when there was a unique hardening of the Jews. In regard to the Jews, Jesus would have them to know that they needed a special election to believe in Him. Foreign to Jesus’ intention for these passages, the Calvinist mistakenly thinks that these particular verses are to be universally related to the world. Quite the contrary, Jesus is making an emphatic point that had a particular audience in mind that is specifically explained by John in chapter 12. During the time of Jesus’ ministry there was a special hardening upon Israel and this was why Jesus did not have the expected unity that would have automatically provided a certain legitimacy to His claim of being the Messiah.” (Recanting Calvinism, p.191, emphasis mine)

Hitchcock: “To solidify this corrective in our interpretation, here is a text of great significance that Calvinists do not seem to want to know about, that expressly relates to these important verses. In John 18:8,9, when Jesus is being seized, Jesus says, ‘I told you that I am He; so if you seek Me, let these go their way,’ to fulfill the word which He spoke, ‘Of those whom You have given Me I lost not one.’” Those whom the Father had given to Jesus had their fulfillment at that time and therefore the ‘given Me’ passages of John 6, 8, and 10, do not relate to the universal church. They specifically relate to those believers at that time in contrast to the majority of Israel that did not believe in her Messiah. These verses in John 18 show that the context relates to the disciples that God gave to Jesus during the time of His ministry for the express purpose that they might validate His claim to being the Messiah and that they might continue on as witnesses of everything that would happen to Jesus. It was imperative that they not be killed, so that they might witness His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and then as those who must give personal testimony of being the recipients bodily of the promise of the Spirit that occurred upon Jesus’ Glorification at Pentecost.” (Recanting Calvinism, p.192, emphasis mine)

Hitchcock: “If we fail to appreciate the significance of being ‘given’ followers from God, as indicating Jesus’ validity of claiming to be the bridegroom, we can very easily attach a Calvinistic understanding to these texts. Imagine Jesus starting His ministry and He had no followers at all. Followers were rather important to being a Rabbi and especially important to being the Messiah of Israel. … When we come to John 6, Jesus is already facing a question of no small significance as to the validity of His claim to being the Messiah. There was an undercurrent of doubt because Jesus was already experiencing a lack of support from the religious leaders, created by His cleansing of the temple, and as He was about to introduce teaching that would further divide His followers, about eating His flesh and drinking His blood.” (Recanting Calvinism, p.188)

For a quote from a Calvinist on the overall dialogue in the Gospel of John, between Jesus and the unbelieving Jews, I agree with the following quote by Calvinist, John Piper:

Calvinist, John Piper: “I’m leaving you. You have resisted Me; I’m backing away from you; I’m not going to draw most of you.” (Skeptical Grumbling and Sovereign Grace, 11/29/2009, emphasis mine)

Exactly. The Father’s drawing was a factor of whether or not they had been in covenant with Him, so as to give them to His Son, and since these unbelieving Jews were out of covenant, God was not drawing them to His Son. But those who were, God did draw to His Son, as per John 6:45.

Calvinist, James White: “If the overall discourse is ignored, an improper interpretation of individual texts can be offered. This is one of the most oft-missed elements of correct exegesis, normally due to the presence of traditions in the reader’s thinking.” (Scripture Alone, p.87, emphasis mine)

I don’t believe that James White had taken his own advice at John 6.