Source: https://beardedseminarian.wordpress.com/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 22:13:25+00:00

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If we had to pick two passages that are used the most to defend that Calvinistic understanding of soteriology they would be Romans 9 and John 6, probably in that order. After all, what could “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day” possibly mean besides God chooses which individuals will be saved and they will be unable to come unless they are chosen?
The biggest barrier to Calvinists and non-Calvinists understanding one another’s perspective is the different ways we read the Bible. It isn’t that one of us isn’t reading the Bible and the other is. We both are. Instead, we’re both wearing “goggles”, or interpretive lenses, as we read the text and this greatly informs our conclusions.
Rather than this being a polemic against the Calvinistic “goggles”, I will endeavor to explain the non-Calvinistic (as I see it) reading of John 6. I will contrast the Calvinistic view when necessary as a way of further clarifying my reading. Just like with my Romans 9 reading, what follows is not intended to be an in-depth exegesis, but a top-down overview of what we think is the flow of the passage.
Calvinism: Jesus is talking to the Jews about how all come to have faith in God. Specifically, God chooses before the foundation of the world all who will have faith in God, and when chosen, they will come.
Non-Calvinism: Jesus is telling the Jews why it is that though they see him they do not believe in him. Specifically, it is not His job to draw them but the Father’s and how the Father draws is through the prophets who told of Jesus’ coming.
The persuasive strength of Calvinist view, as I see it, is that it’s simple. And I don’t mean that derogatorily. A single, tweet-length assertion is all that is need to explain this view. I wish I had such a brief, simple answer. This not only plays in our current learning environment (when was the last time you watched a Youtube video past 10min in length? 5min?) but it also plays to our Christian milieu where everything is assumed to be about salvation and how it works.
The strength of my view is that it takes each verse of this passage with as much weight as the next, allowing the passage to explain itself. My view can explain how each sentence fits into the next and it takes the scope and audience for what the Scriptures tell us it is and does not insert them from an outside theological system.
Keep the above summaries in mind and let us see which fits the flow of Jesus’ argument here.
The pericope in contention takes place right after the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus walking on water. Jesus had slipped away in the night (walking across the water) and when they awoke in the morning and saw that he was no longer there, they followed Him to the other side.
So just like they had worked to get to the other side of the sea to find Jesus so that He would feed them again; belief in Jesus is a work they must do. This is where I may get stopped with some objections. I’m going to head those objections off by pointing out that I’m not making a theological argument nor forming a doctrine based upon that. I’m making an exegetical observation. Jesus acknowledged that they worked to get to Him, told them they should work for unperishable food, they asked what that work is, and He answered, “believe in him whom he has sent”.
Remember, this is one of the key points to understanding the non-Calvinist perspective: The Jews asked for a sign so that they could believe in Jesus. I do not need to see their request for a sign as completely pure of heart; I just need to recognize how this sets off the rest of the passage.
I’m of the opinion that the Jews still have no idea what Jesus is talking about. The “bread” they are asking for is still the bread they received on the other side of the sea. However, the fact remains, they have again asked Jesus for something, first a sign, and now bread.
We will now be reading over the texts in question. To summarize, the Jews came searching for food but Jesus says it is better to work for spiritual food and, upon being asked, says that this work is believing in Him who was sent. The Jews then asked Jesus for a sign to believe and for bread so they could eat.
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.
The teaching that follows has exegetical markers that point to what Jesus’ purpose on Earth is.
Jesus does not try to persuade them to believe and lets them leave. Almost all of them do. Thus displaying what Jesus’ purpose on Earth was.
Let’s keep these three points in mind as we follow Jesus’ argument as to why He is here.
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.
Jesus is not here to give them a sign so that they will believe. Instead, He is here to do the will of the Father.
The “for” begins a purpose clause. Why is it that only those whom the Father has given will come? Because Jesus is on Earth not to do His own will. The strong, and in my opinion, inescapable implication is that Jesus is not on Earth to pursue followers. It is up to the Father to “give” those who come, not for Jesus to go out and get them. As we see in the rest of the pericope, and truly the narrative of the Gospels in general, Jesus does not pursue them.
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 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.
Remember, what starts this entire explanation of why the Jews don’t believe is “you have seen me and you do not believe”. Jesus is talking to and about those that have seen Him on Earth. Jesus is talking about what God’s will for Him is while on Earth, while those people are looking on Him. I’m open to anyone showing me an exegetical marker that universalizes Jesus words to all men who have ever lived. Absent of that, I have to stick with the limitations in the audience and scope the Scriptures give me.
Of course, I agree theologically that “eternal life” and “raise him up on the last day” also applies to later Jew and Gentile converts. But that’s because those promises are given elsewhere in the Scriptures. Right here, in this passage, the promise given is to those who behold Jesus while he was on Earth and believe in Him.
We’ve done all this work to get here. We’re finally here. We’re now ready to consider John 6:44.
So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
This is a striking answer. They cannot understand how it is that this person who’s parents and birthplace they know is now saying “I have come down from heaven”. If Jesus was trying to draw people to Himself he would have explained it to them; “well guys, you see, my mother was a virgin and the Holy Spirit…”. Nope. He does not explain it to them. Because that’s not what he’s on Earth to do.
Do you see how our understanding of 6:44 flows neatly into the context of the entire discourse? Jesus is responding to their grumbling, and they are grumbling about what Jesus previously said. They did not ask him, “How is that all men can believe?” They asked him, “How is that you can say you’re from heaven?” And Jesus’ answer is, “It’s not my mission on Earth to explain that to you, if God had drawn you, you would believe in me now”.
The main weakness of the Calvinist’s perspective is that it raises this verse out of its context, isolates it on a pedestal far above the concerns of the narrative as told by John, and then on to it pours alien assumptions about the audience, scope, and what “drawing” means.
“No one can come unless X” and “Everyone who has X comes” are negative and positive ways to express the same thing.
“No one can dunk unless they can jump high” = “Everyone who has a 36-inch vertical leap can jump high”.
Hearing and learning from the Father, through the Prophets of course, IS being drawn by the Father.
Having a 36-inch vertical leap IS jumping high.
Maybe this should be my tweet-length mic drop: “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me”. That is a single sentence after “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” but if I quoted just v. 45 that would give you an entirely different impression of what the drawing is.
Jesus is telling the Jews why it is they see him but do not believe. It is a question a 1st-century reader would ask and a question the author, John, would have a serious interest in answering. Jesus is explaining to them that it is not His job while on Earth to make them see that He is the sign they are looking for. Instead, it is the Father’s will to give/draw certain individuals to Him during this Earthly mission, it is the Son’s job not to lose those individuals. How is God drawing/giving these certain people? By teaching them from the prophets. And if the Jews who are now standing in front him had learned of God they would come to him. It is God’s will that the Son would not lose any that the Father gives him.
In contrast, the Calvinist tends to simply quote v. 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” and import already decided definitions for not only what “draws” means but also who the audience is and the scope of the teaching. It seems to be merely assumed, as an a priori first truth, that all of Jesus teachings are universal, applying to all men in all time, every time Jesus opens his mouth. I do not see this principle in the Bible.
Of course, what I’m saying has far-reaching theological and doctrinal implications but I’m not intending it to. I’m merely following Jesus’ flow of thought and pointing out the exegetical markers that inform that flow. I’m contrasting it with the Calvinistic view to show the assumptions inherent within and how the text does not bear those assumptions out.
Christian, I have good news! We have been set free from sin (Rom 6). This does not mean we do not sin, but it means we have been separated from its dominion over us. We are not wretched or incapable. We are saints who are blessed beyond measure (Eph 2).
The price that comes with this freedom is that we have responsibility for our sin. When we follow the path of death (Rom 8) it’s not because of some in-born, out of our control, nature. That thing was crucified with Christ. It is not because Jesus refrained from giving us enough grace to resist. We followed death because we wanted to. Some of these disordered desires may be miraculously removed from us in an instant and others may continue to be a constant reminder of our need for God’s grace. But God’s purpose in our lives is not for us to be trapped, despairing in our wretchedness. He wants us to experience the life abundant in the fullness of joy. This was Jesus’ explicit purpose on Earth.
Far from empty ear tickling, this truth is too much for some to stomach. Preferring to think of themselves as unresponsible, they dump their sin at the feet of Jesus and say “If Jesus did not want me to do this, I wouldn’t have”. Perhaps subconsciously, they realize that if they are powerless in the face of sin, then their sins are not so bad. After all, how could they have done differently? But that’s exactly what Jesus came to do; to give us the ability, through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, and to show us how, through his Word (Incarnate, written and whispered) to be reconciled to God and, ultimately, live differently. THIS is the New Covenant (Jer 31:33).
Sin is suffering. Jesus does not want us to suffer. The hard truth is that our suffering is caused by those who sin against us and our own disordered desires. That terrible thing I did? I did it. Not my flesh, not my sin nature, not Jesus seeking to teach me a lesson…me. God wants to be with us in our suffering as loving Father and comforting Spirit, not as the conductor in our symphony of misery. According to Ephesians 2, what have we been raised to and blessed with if not “being raised with Christ” and able to experience “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus”? What are the good works that we are to walk in if we do not have the ability to walk in them? What is the “new man” that God created us to be if not men and women capable of becoming more like Christ and therefore refraining from sin more, and experiencing, more and more, the abundant life?
Usually, I spend my time writing about stuff I disagree with. It is easier to poke holes in other people’s boats. However, I’m sitting in a boat too. There are positions I believe to be true that others can poke at and it’s only fair I give the opportunity.
I am about fours years behind. I watched a lecture/panel discussion at Biola (I attend their seminary, Talbot School of Theology) on Peter Leithart’s controversial article titled “The End of Protestantism“. Leithart is an author, theologian, and now the President of the Theophilus Institute. Upon watching Leithart’s opening lecture, I ended up wholeheartedly agreeing with most of what he said. I also found his responses during the panel discussion to be fair-minded even though I’m not sure what to do with his prescriptions yet. Yet there is a void in my understanding of Leithart; I’ve never read the original article!
Based on what I saw in the lecture, I’m looking forward to starting with the original article from four years ago and seeing where the conversation has evolved since. Here it goes!
Protestantism is a negative theology; a Protestant is a not-Catholic. Whatever Catholics say or do, the Protestant does and says as close to the opposite as he can.
This is accurate. In my conversations with fellow Protestants, any view resembling Catholic theology is vigorously dismissed out of hand. When I say “resembling” I do not mean ideas that align with Catechism. I mean ideas that might possibly be something a Catholic could agree with are vehemently rejected without taking the time to find out if the idea is biblical. We are defined by what we oppose.
This is also true in my experience. My family and I are just coming out of a church transition and we visited several churches to find a new home. In the five churches we visited in only one of them could I imagine this Protestant desire to define themselves by what they are against. Four of these churches were varying degrees of large and successful with diverse church cultures.
I do not quite know what Leithart means by a Reformational catholic church. His description above does not sound like a return to Roman Catholicism, which is a good place to start, but what kind of church practice is he prescribing? In the lecture at Biola Leithart only offered that he thought a Reformational catholic church would take the Eucharist each service. That would be different than the liturgy I am used to but does not sound unbiblical.
In the lecture, Leithart was pushed by the other panelists and during the Q&A to further define the liturgy of these churches. He did not commit to a specific structure because he believed the Holy Spirit would inform the reform and it was beyond his ability to see where the Spirit would take it. That is reasonable but my Western thinking brain still wants more to go on. Maybe Leithart’s vision of these churches has come into sharper focus in the last four years.
Though it agrees with the original Protestant protest, Reformational catholicism is defined as much by the things it shares with Roman Catholicism as by its differences.
I do not know how to convince people to hold in tension the necessity of the Reformation and the faithful witness of Catholic history which gave us the doctrines of the Trinity (Constantinople, 381 CE) and the Hypostatic union (Chalcedon, 451 CE). Did the gates of hell prevail against the the Church for 1500 years before the Reformation?
A Protestant exaggerates his distance from Roman Catholicism on every point of theology and practice, and is skeptical of Roman Catholics who say that they believe in salvation by grace.
I also do not know how to convince people to read the Catholic Catechism. When you do, you will find much to disagree with. However, you will also find that Catholics believe they are saved by grace. They do not believe that getting baptized saves them. They believe that if you believe in Jesus then you will get baptized. If you do not get baptized, then you do not actually believe in Jesus. The physical demonstration of faith and faith itself are not wholly separate entities under Catholicism. You may disagree, but is that wholly unreasonable and unbiblical? If so, how?
Leithart put to words the direction I have been going for the last two years in a way I could never have. I will not try to improve them except to say that seeing brothers as “other” is something I need to repent of.
This is one of the biggest problems in the Protestant understanding of the Gospel and I scarce know where to begin. Perhaps it is enough, for now, to say that we have allowed the radical individualism of our culture to warp how we see the biblical text.
Not acknowledging this history is one of the easiest ways to see Catholics as “those weird guys over there” instead of our brothers.
[The Reformational catholic] knows there are unplumbed depths in Scripture, never dreamt of by Luther and Calvin.
A Protestant is indifferent or hostile to liturgical forms, ornamentation in worship, and sacraments, because that’s what Catholics do. Reformational Catholicism’s piety is communal and sacramental, and its worship follows historic liturgical patterns.
I must confess I do not know how this works and considering it gives me the hee-bees. I do not know how to separate the historical liturgical patterns from the corrupted practices of the Reformation-era (and at least two centuries before that) Roman Catholic Church.
A Protestant wears a jacket and tie, or a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, to lead worship; a Reformational Catholic is vested in cassock and stole. To a Protestant, a sacrament is an aid to memory. A Reformational Catholic believes that Jesus baptizes and gives himself as food to the faithful, and doesn’t avoid speaking of “Eucharist” or “Mass” just because Roman Catholics use those words.
While the politically correct language of the Protestants is an annoyance, I do not understand the importance of the cassock and stole. Why must we take on that bit of church history in order to acknowledge it as our own?
Great, something else I have to read.
As Leithart said in his lecture, God has always done something new. Sometimes that new thing went against what He previously told His people to do. I do think now is time for another new thing. The Reformation has become something the Reformers did not envision. It has served its purpose. It is time to reform again. Is not that what the Church is about?
While some of Leithart’s prescriptions make me uncomfortable, I do not have the historical or theological knowledge to call them unbiblical. I agree with his assessment of Protestantism and his call for reform, but I need to keep studying and discussing with my Christian brothers to see what shape that reform should take.
The ground upon which TULIP stands and falls, and one of Calvinist soteriology’s most compelling arguments, is their understanding of Total Depravity. In my view, TD is more rightly understood as Total Inability, (hereafter, TI). That is, the unbeliever is totally unable to respond to the upward call of the Gospel because of a corpse-like spiritual condition. If TI is true, then the rest of Calvinism follows.
This article will show the holes Romans 10 pokes in TI as well as point out how well a non-Calvinist reading of Romans 9 jibes with Romans 10. But first, let’s look at some of the passages Calvinists use to defend TI.
So that you do not have to take my word for it, I want you to hear from Calvinists about TI.
Unrepentant man is not waging an internal war between good and evil. He is utterly incapacitated by his innate sin nature.
According to the Calvinist, unbelievers are spiritual corpses who are utterly incapacitated and therefore cannot understand spiritual truth.
As a way of continuing my examination of Romans 9, and to avoid the proof-texting that often bogs down this debate, I will go over Romans 10.
I think this is the question of chapter 10: “Who is responsible for Israel’s faith, God or Israel?” We’re going to return to this question often. Remember, on the Calvinist understanding of TI which informs their reading of Romans 9, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy” means that God is responsible to effectually save those whom He chooses to save. In my view, this is in stark contrast to Paul’s reason for Israel’s unbelief in Romans 10. I will leave it up to you as to which view of Romans 9 lines up closer to what Paul says just one chapter later.
The righteousness of God is being contrasted with the Law of Moses. Righteousness may at one time have been about ascending into heaven and avoiding the abyss on our own merits to “live by them”, but now it is about faith that is proclaimed near you, gets in your heart, and the exits your mouth in a proclamation. Why?
The ordo salutis. If Calvinism is true, then the only way you can believe in your heart and confess with your mouth is if you have been saved already. It does not seem much of a stretch for Paul to have said something like “If God chooses you to be saved, then you will believe in your heart and confess with your mouth”. Instead, he puts the order awkwardly for the Calvinist.
In contrast to much of the accusations wielded at non-Calvinists, Paul does not say that believing and confessing earns you salvation. He does not say “and you have saved yourself”. “You will be saved” puts the onus to save you directly on God. It was God’s sovereign decree to set up the path to righteousness in this way, and He has promised to save those who believe and confess. That does not mean He chooses who will believe nor that He is forced to save those who earn it. He is bound by his own choice and promises to do so.
This righteousness is open to everyone.
If we manage to view Romans 10 in continuity with Romans 9, as Paul certainly intended us to do, there is this nagging question that has yet to be resolved. Why do the Jews, who carried the oracles of God and the lineage of Messiah for generations, not believe in that Messiah? In Romans 9 Paul establishes that there is no injustice in God opening up salvation to the Gentiles. At the end of Romans 9, and into Rom 10, Paul claims that the Jews do not believe because they are pursuing righteousness by works even though that’s not how righteousness works anymore. That still does not answer the question; why are they not pursuing righteousness by faith? Why do they not call on the Lord?
Imagine for a minute that we are in the mind of Paul. He is explaining to the Jewish and Gentile Christians of Rome why it is that most of Israel do not believe in their Messiah and he is about to get to where faith comes from. Instead of saying that faith comes from God’s sovereign decree or faith comes from regeneration, Paul decides to say something that makes it sound like faith comes from us. This is utterly confusing if Paul believes in Calvinist theology. This is the perfect time for Paul to explicitly tell us that regeneration precedes faith, that God chooses who to give faith to, and yet he does not do so. Maybe that is because Paul says what he means, and faith comes by hearing.
Please look at v. 17 again. Only through reaching to an outside truth supplied by a systematic theology can we miss where faith comes from.
Can Dead Men Hear and Understand?
Here we come to the end of the chapter and to stare at the weakness of TI to explain Romans 10. In the following verses, Paul is clearly talking about unbelievers since he just got done explaining why they do not believe. Remember, the stated position of the Calvinist, as quoted by two of the leading Calvinists today, is that the unbeliever is a spiritual corpse who is utterly incapacitated and therefore cannot understand spiritual truth.
Can corpses hear anything? According to Paul, these unbelievers hear spiritual truth. Can utterly incapacitated unbelievers understand spiritual truth? According to v.19, these unbelievers understood the Gospel. They understood the Gospel enough to be jealously angry that God has included Gentiles. They have understood enough to know what Peter and the other Apostles have been preaching at them for decades and have rejected it (how do corpses reject things?).
Indeed, “…of Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.’ ” Paul lays the blame for Israel’s unbelief directly at Israel’s feet. They heard the Gospel. They understood the Gospel. But they are disobedient and contrary. Nowhere here is the idea that they were made that way by God’s sovereign decree. That’s not the kind of thing God decrees. No, they did this to themselves.
This is where TI becomes devoid of reason in the face of biblical theology. In what way is God holding out his hands to corpses? As R.C. Sproul put it, either God is reaching down to “pull a corpse from the bottom of the sea” or He is not. There is no rational sense in which God can be said to be holding out his hands to unbelievers and refusing to do the one thing that will cause them to believe; make them alive.
I recently read an article from Christ Hold Fast in which the author, Gerhard Forde, both misrepresents the free will position and re-defines the Gospel as his particular theological viewpoint. I am going to critique both aspects of his article.
Christ Hold Fast is an organization of Lutheran bloggers, podcasters (is that a word?) and speakers.
The radical gospel of justification by faith alone simply does not fit, cannot be accepted by, and will not work with an anthropology which sees the human being as a continuously existing subject possessing ‘‘free choice of will’’ over against God and/or other religious goals.
Those of us who affirm free will do not do see it as “against God” but indeed as affirming His sovereignty. Truly, I have yet to hear, and I would love to hear in the comments below, someone who holds to the Calvinistic, or in this case the Lutheran, understanding of sovereignty deal with this view of free will. Specifically, is God not free and powerful enough to create the world with truly free creatures? If the answer is, as R.C. Sproul seems to say, “No, God must meticulously control every molecule or He is not God” then answer me this; are you not putting God in a box by saying what He must do in order to be sovereign?
It seems like Forde must take each of these passages and see God as effectually humbling, even when the passage says they humbled themselves, despite the Bible never coming out and saying this is what is really going on in the background.
Perhaps even worse, several of these passages contain imperatives, ie. commands, for human beings to cooperate with God and humble themselves. Such imperatives are pervasive in Scripture. Apparently, Forde sees God as giving human beings commands and then ordaining that they will disobey those commands. This would be like chaining your dog to a post, calling him to come farther than the length of the chain you gave him, and then punishing him for being unable to come. If a human being did this, it would be called cruelty. A monergist must call this “glorious”.
Forde is making synonymous the Gospel with effectual salvation. That is, if anyone denies his particular theological framework, that God irresistibly saves those individuals whom He chooses to save, then they are denying the Gospel. This is pure sophistry. It pits Christian against Christian in a fight to see who has the “real” Gospel. It allows fans of Forde’s view to deal in strawmen and hyperbole with synergists. Instead of “I think you’re wrong about synergism because of <enter reasoned argument there>” it becomes “You’re denying the Gospel!!”. This kind of thing distracts and is a hindrance to discussing our actual disagreements.
The continuing crisis for anyone who is grasped by that radical gospel comes both from the fact that the world and its church cannot do other than resist and attack that gospel (as a matter of self-defense), and from the fact that they cannot escape the constant temptation to make compromises which disguise or blunt the sharp edges of its radicality.
According to Forde, the only reason anyone could insist on the existence of free will is to defend the power of man above God and in doing so they compromise the power of the Gospel. It is the true position of the defenders of free will that is radical here. Forde has not conceived of it! If the proponents of Forde (or monergism in general) would like to deal with the true position of those who hold to free will in the comments below, I would love to have that discussion. Here it goes: defending the free will of man is both a theodicy and a defense of God’s holiness (as set apart from the sins of men).
As argued above, far from attempting to defend our own abilities to countervail the sovereignty of God, we see free will as establishing that sovereignty. Further, it is my view that our view of sovereignty is bigger than the monergists, who must see God as restrained to only being able to create a meticulously determined world. God is bigger and freer than that. Ironically, I also see synergists as holding to a more powerful Gospel than the monergists. From Forde’s own words, the Gospel merely informs the elect what has already taken place on their behalf; God has already effectually saved you. In contrast, I see that Gospel as being the Holy Spirit wrought power of God that enables men to believe and draws sinful men into relationship with Jesus.
In order to have a real, fruitful discussion about our differences, monergists like Forde would have to see synergists as sincere but mistaken faithful Christian brothers instead of those who strive to defend our own autonomy from God and decrease the power of the Gospel.
Systematic Theology too often redefines words to serve itself. It is a noble endeavor to develop doctrines that clarify biblical theology and to categories those doctrines. Systematic theology, however, too often exists to prove the truth of the system. In service of this goal, proponents of a system will redefine words to mean something else. Once re-packaged, the words are used in a way that any Christian could agree if unaware of the prior re-defining.
This post has turned out to be completely different than what I first set out to write. I was asked questions about the “drawing” of John 6 but then I did some digging to find out how notable Calvinists, namely John Piper and R.C. Sproul, see the passage. I had some idea, of course, but I wanted to hear it from them. What I discovered is that their view on John 6 is an example of what happens when systematic theology is allowed to run amok. I hope to show how my brothers simply paste on definitions and doctrines derived from systematic terminology onto the text.
To paraphrase, Piper is saying that God decides that you will want to come to Jesus, and then you want to come to Jesus. It is only by God’s decision that you want to come to Jesus, and if God decides you will come then you will irresistibly do so. This is freedom, according to Piper.
Logically, once you say it is God who decides who is saved, the word “free” does not follow. If I could never want to choose differently than I’m not free. This meaning of freedom is foreign to any other walk of life outside of Reformed soteriology. Piper is defining freedom as doing what you want to do without being able to choose differently than what you want, and your wants are determined by someone outside of yourself. Freedom, as being unable to want to do differently, is not freedom.
The passage itself certainly does not give us that definition of freedom. Jesus uses words like “believe” and “learned”. In any other walk of life, we understand belief to be a decision of the person. If I ask someone “Do you believe me?”, no one understands me to be saying that such belief is the decision of anyone else. And yet, because of systematic theology, Jesus supposedly means that the belief of the Jews is up to someone else, namely God.
What Piper’s system of theology forces him into believing is that when Jesus uses the phrase “everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life” (v. 40) we must forget out about it looks like Jesus is saying and look behind it to the real meaning informed by the system. There is a difference between difficult or obscure passages that require further study and wholesale redefinition. When Jesus says “everyone” He really means “everyone whom the Father decides will want to”. When Jesus uses “everyone who” as the subject of the verb “believes”, in other words, it is the “everyone who” that is doing the action of the verb “believing”, the grammar used by Jesus is insufficient to tell the whole truth. What must be added underneath the grammar is that God is the true decider of who will believe.
Now, I’m focusing on v. 40 to paint a contrast of Pastor John’s focus on the “granting” and “drawing” words. We have to deal with what it means for God to “draw” and “grant” to salvation. We should not ignore or minimize it, it’s in the Bible, after all. As a free will guy, it would be bad biblical theology for me to ignore the “drawing” and “granting” words. I need to have a cogent way of exegeting and explaining how they fit into my viewpoint. I’m saying that Piper’s system forces him to expound in detail upon the words that seem to support his system and ignore others that do not. Let me show you what I mean.
In contrast to looking at a single words, phrases or even a sentence. Let’s look at Jesus’ flow of thought. One of the passages Piper quotes is v. 44, but the paragraph starts with the Jews grumbling about his “I am the bread that came down from heaven” statement and Jesus proceeds to tell them why they should not grumble.
Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 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.
Piper’s systematic is supported if he just stops there, so he does. He does not read v. 45 in his sermon. But Jesus does not stop talking there even though Piper must act like He does.
So the reason that Jesus is telling the Jews to stop grumbling is not that God chooses who will want to come to Jesus as Piper supposes. It is because they have the responsibility of learning about God from the Prophets and if they had, then when Jesus said “I am the bread of life” they would not have been scandalized. This sentence is similar in structure to, v. 37 “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” and the previous v. 44 above. It seems it would be relevant to Piper’s sermon on what “drawing” means. Instead, he imports his systematic understanding and ignores how Jesus defines “drawing”: It is the teaching of the Father that grants coming to Jesus, it is having learned from the Prophets that enables the Jews to come.
Romans 9 is the Calvinist’s mic drop. Any time some free will guy starts spouting off about being able to choose Christ or not, all the Calvinist has to do is say “Romans 9, Jacob I love and Esau I hated, who are you to answer back to God?” If I had a nickel for every time I heard some version of this…it would be every time I have discussed with a Calvinist. The inevitable Romans 9 reference comes with the assumption that non-Calvinists have ignored Romans 9, pretend it doesn’t exist, or have no answer for it.
My purpose in this article is to show that non-Calvinists have, for generations, read Romans 9 and indeed have a reading of the chapter. We read the chapter in a way that I think fits right into the rest of the book and is consistent with the chapter as well.
One of the key aspects to understanding our view of Romans 9 is who we think the objector is. Throughout Romans, Paul introduces an objector who asks questions that Paul then answers. For the Calvinist, the objector is an obstinate unbeliever who objects to their view of sovereignty as defined as meticulous determinism or compatibilism. We see the objector as a hardened Jew who is questioning God’s choice to bless the Gentiles with salvation through faith since it was the Jew who historically kept the oracles of God, and through whom the Messiah came. One of the strengths of our view, I think, is how we see this objector. Why?
In Rom 2: 17-29, Paul first slams the Jews for being hypocrites and goes on to turn their entire worldview on its head by saying that circumcision was never physical. He says that it was always about the state of your heart. That anyone who follows the Law is “of the circumcision” (how the Jews defined themselves in Paul’s day) no matter if he actually received the snip or not. Then, right after that, Paul introduces the objector for the first time. It is Paul’s way of answering anticipated objections from Jews who are feeling put off by having their paradigm shifted. The objector asks (Rom 3:1), “Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?” and Paul answers him. This is the same objector in Romans 9 who is wondering, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” The same objector in Rom 3:5, 3:9, 6:1, 6:15, 7:7, 9:14, 11:1, and 11:11. In my estimation, it is a weakness of their position that Calvinists must assume that the objector in Rom 9:19 is different from the objector the other eight times Paul uses the rhetorical device in Romans.
Paul is writing to the church in Rome which is a melting pot of Jew and Gentile. Sometime between 41 AD and 53 AD, the Emperor of Rome, Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome. During the time of this expulsion, Gentile Christians established a thriving church in Rome. The synagogues left behind by the Jews remained abandoned since Christians did not want to be associated with Jews for obvious religious and political reasons. The Christian church in Rome was probably a series of house churches. At some point after Claudius’ death in AD 53, his successor Nero rescinded the expulsion. Both Jewish Christians and Jews flooded back into the city. What were the Jewish Christians to do? Return to synagogue? Join Gentiles in their house churches even though the Law forbid Jews from entering the homes of Gentiles? One can imagine both Jews and Gentiles looking down on one another and having a difficult time finding a way forward in unity. This is what Romans is about; see 3. below.
Paul’s thesis for the entire book is revealed in Rom 1:16-17.
He is going to spend the rest of the book showing the Jews that they have to be righteous by faith, just like the Gentiles. They cannot sit on their blood heritage as Jews and be saved. The objector is Paul’s way of answering perceived objections to different aspects of this thesis. The Calvinist view of the objector has no part in Paul’s thesis.
Let’s go through the flow of Paul’s thought in the chapter and while we do this, dear Reader, I would ask you to keep in mind one question: What choice of God does Paul have in mind? The Calvinist reading of Rom 9 is that Paul is saying that God chooses to effectually save some while not saving others; “Jacob I loved, Esau I hated”. In our view, Paul is talking about through which family/nation God chooses to send the Messiah/the message of salvation through. So, let’s see which choice of God is Paul talking about?
I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
Paul starts with displaying his heart for the Jews. I find this interesting because, in my view, I can say that God shares Paul’s heart for the Jews. God longs for Israel to come to Him, Rom 10:21, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” Yet, I do not know how Calvinists see God as sharing Paul’s heart. Paul is willing to be damned to hell for the Jews and yet God is not willing for Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross to be applied to them. Calvinists have to create two wills of God to get around this. Why does Paul feel this way about the Jews?
They were chosen by God to be adopted into His family and given the glory as God’s people. To them, He gave the covenants and the law. He also gave them the promise that through them the entire world would be blessed. In other words, the promise that through them would be the lineage of the Christ. If anyone should be enjoying the fruits the Messiah, it should be the Jews. After all, it came through them. For that reason, and because Paul is one of them, his heart grieves for them. This is the context of the objector’s first question.
Paul anticipates the objection that if God had given the Jews all those blessings mentioned above, and now all those blessings have been given to the Gentiles, then God’s word has failed. God chose the Jews for the honor and blessing being in covenant with God but now God has gone back on his word and chose the Gentiles too. God failed to keep His word. Paul answers the objection by saying that Israel is not merely blood Israel. Israel has always been about faith.
Notice the contrast Paul is making here. The contrast is between who God chooses to give the promise to, not who God chooses to be saved. Not unbeliever and believer. Not elect and reprobate. But how God has always chosen who will carry the promise. What was the promise? Effectual salvation? No, the promise was that through Abraham’s family the entire world would be blessed (Gen 12:1-3, 15:1-6, 18:17-19 etc). Look at what God tells Abraham in v. 9. He does not tell him something like “I will choose to bring you to heaven”. No, it is “I will choose to give you a son”. Paul is not equating God’s choice to give Abraham a son with God’s choice to save some and not save others. Paul is giving an example of God’s choice of through which family the nations will be blessed with the coming of the Messiah. Paul gives another example of this choice.
God does what He pleases. Amen. God elects certain things to come to pass. Amen. What is He pleased to do? What does He elect to do? Is it to choose to save some and reject others before they ever did anything good or bad? Meticulously determine everything that comes to pass? Choose to hate an unborn child before they’ve ever done anything wrong? That’s not what this passage is saying. “God’s purpose in election” is simply assumed to mean “effectual salvation” by the Calvinist. There is nothing in this passage that supports that assumption.
Instead, what Paul is saying is that God has always chosen before they’ve ever done anything good or bad, through whom the Messiah would come. He has always chosen which family would carry the blessing of God’s covenant with Abraham. Just like He chose to give Abraham a son, God chose Jacob’s lineage to carry the promise despite Ancient Near East culture expecting it to be the older twin, Esau.
The non-Calvinist view sees Jacob and Esau as being representative of nations. It is not that Jacob and Esau, the individuals, are excluded from our view. Far from it. But that they are in view as individuals who became federal heads of nations, Israel and Edom respectively. There are four points that, in my estimation, support this view.
Paul has been talking about the nation of Israel this whole time. He was just, in the same paragraph, talking about what defines Israel as a nation.
Paul calls Isaac, “our forefather” which tells us exactly in what way he is talking about the individual Isaac; as the federal head of the nation of Israel. It is the same way in which Paul has Jacob and Esau, the individuals, in view; as federal heads of nations. The Calvinist, apparently, must take Paul as switching to talking about only the individual without an indication in the text that he does so.
Notice how, in the Genesis reference, God switches from the plural “peoples” to the singular “one”. It’s almost as if the “one” somehow represents the “peoples”.
If the Calvinist view is right then Paul is spreading fake news. The individual Esau never served the individual Jacob. The nation of Edom served the nation of Israel many generations later. Indeed, God blessed the Edomites and gave them land. It wasn’t until they turned away from God and sinned against Israel that God turned on them and Israel conquered them.
It is God’s choice to which family/nation He gives the lineage of the Messiah. It was always God’s choice to do so. So when God gives the Gentiles the same blessing He gave Israel, there is no injustice being done. It is this choice that The Objector is objecting to in the rest of the chapter.
We agree with the Calvinist that God can have mercy on whoever He wants to mercy. That’s not our point of contention. Our point of contention is that the Calvinist assumes this to mean mercy and compassion unto effectual salvation. Instead, we see Paul as referencing the mercy and compassion of having the honor, the blessing, and the glory of the Messiah being brought through your nation.
16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
Notice the purpose of Pharaoh being raised up and hardened. It’s not effectual salvation but “that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth”. So it does not depend upon human will or exertion who is chosen to carry the proclamation of God’s name, ie. carrying the lineage of the Christ, ie. proclaiming the Gospel. Paul is saying that it has always depended upon God’s sovereign choice as to who will carry the promise of the Messiah. Before Christ came it was the Jews. Now, after Jesus’ incarnation, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection, God has sovereignly chose to open up that blessing to the Gentiles as well.
This is another question from the objector. It is it similar to the objection in v.14. How can God find fault in the Jews who no longer have been chosen to carry the oracles of God? Paul’s answer is that it was always of God’s sovereign choice which nation He molded to carry the blessing, honor, and promise of the Messiah. Who are you to say which group of people God chooses to proclaim the Gospel? You’re still responsible for you.
Further, says Paul, God’s choice to include the Gentiles was prophesied to happen.
It was never the case that all of Israel would believe in Messiah and it was always the case that God would bring in the Gentiles. So the objector has no case against God for injustice, God told him this would happen.
If the Jews were chosen from the beginning to carry the promise of God, why don’t they believe? Yes, it’s true that God has now opened up the promise to the Gentiles. It was always of His sovereign choice to do so, or not, so there is no injustice. Plus, the prophets said this would happen. The prophets said there would be a remnant of faithful Israel and that God would call near those who were far off. So why do the Jews disbelieve? Is it because God chose how many of them, and which of them, would not believe from the beginning of time? Not at all.
The Jews do not believe because they pursued righteousness as if it was a matter of works. And they rejected the One that was trying to tell them they need to pursue it by faith. If Paul meant to say they rejected Christ because God ordained that they always would want to reject Christ, why did he not say so? Instead, Paul talks as if it is the responsibility of the Jews to pursue righteousness by faith. Non-Calvinists take Paul as saying it is their responsibility to believe, while at the same time it is God’s responsibility to choose through whom the message of faith comes.

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