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(77) Notice how Dr. White tries to create theological euphemisms in order to tone down the absolutism of the Calvinistic position so as to make it palatable to the human ear. People aren't "forced" they are "given life." People aren't "predestined to hell" they are "rightly judged for their sins." People aren't necessarily "predestined to heaven without free will" they "actively believe after they are drawn by God." Yet Dr. White's attempted argumentation is even more subtle. He believes Lazarus is not "forced," but only because once resurrected he has the choice of laying in the tomb, alive, or of coming out of the tomb and walking toward Jesus. Some choice. But we're not talking about Lazurus' "coming forth." We're talking about the resurrection itself. Lazarus was dead. He had no choice in being raised. Whether you want to call it "forced," "compelled," "constrained," "involuntarily exercised," "acted upon," or whatever, the principle is the same. Calvinism teaches that God decides, before Adam ever sinned or before his sin was even a consideration, that some people are arbitrarily chosen for heaven and the rest are chosen for Hell. Be that as it may, the challenge for Dr. White still stands: find a verse of Scripture which teaches that God acts independently of man's will in giving salvation. Mind you, we don't want verses that speak only about God's divine action. We would like a verse of Scripture that says something to the effect "It all depends on God's predestination; man's free will has nothing to do with salvation."

 

In the same way when the Spirit of God brings new life to the dead sinner, the resultant "new creation" believes and looks to Jesus naturally.

(78) Again, we're not talking about AFTER the fact, but BEFORE the fact.

The testimony to divine and free sovereignty in regeneration is extensive in Scripture. See TPF chapters twelve and thirteen for a full accounting and defense of this glorious truth. I continued in my initial exegesis of the passage, "We must ask the Arminian who promotes the idea that a truly saved person can be lost: does this not mean that Christ can fail to do the will of the Father?"

(79) Dr. White seems bent on determining the poles in this discussion, but they are invariably misplaced. The issue is not "a truly saved person can be lost" over against "Christ cannot fail to do the will of the Father." Christ always does the will of the Father, but the identification of the Father's will is the problem Dr. White keeps facing but doesn't have any proof to support his view.

Mr. Sungenis is quick to defend the idea that one of Christ's sheep can, in fact, by exercise of "free will," be lost:

Notice how Dr. White has to qualify his language before he goes on to form an argument against the Arminian. He qualifies his words by referring to "a TRULY saved person." Where does John 6 talk about "truly" saved people?

The amazing thing here is that John six is all about the very thing Mr. Sungenis here misses: remember, John calls those who follow Jesus to Capernaum "disciples" (6:60-66) who then leave Jesus. These surface level followers are then contrasted with the true followers who are drawn to Christ by the Father. So the entire context screams the very issue Mr. Sungenis says is not there!

(80) It is not there in this sense: John 6:37-40 is speaking in the abstract about those who are finally redeemed and raised to life. That is why the end point is "raising on the last day," because the text is pointing to the final outcome of all believers. John 6:37-40 doesn't name any of these people because it can't. That is why Jesus confronts even the apostles with the question "You do not want to go away also, do you?" in John 6:67, the very passage that started the debate between Windsor and White. The people of John 6:37-40 come from every century, from every generation. They are an abstract entity of which no one knows the identity except the Father. Conversely, John 5:40-8:30 is speaking about specific people, often with names, present in the time of Jesus. This is not an abstraction or final outcome. It is the temporal situation of the people of Israel, most of which do not believe. Dr White is trying to mix the abstract teaching with the temporal teaching, making the latter dependent on the former in such a way that the Jews of John 6 don't believe Jesus because they were not predestined to believe in Jesus. That's what Dr. White is really saying, but I'm the one who has to point it out to you.

Further, Reformed theology has always differentiated between surface level followers (such as those seen in John 8:30 who, in only a matter of moments, go from believing in Christ to seeking to stone Him) and those who are the true objects of God's work of redemption. Jesus' parable of the soils likewise brings out this very fact,

(81) How convenient for Reformed theology. The point in fact is that Reformed theology makes an absolute distinction between the false believer who never believed originally from the true believer who sincerely believed initially. In other words, ANYTIME someone falls away, Reformed theology says that it is ALWAYS because they were never truly saved. That doctrine is not taught in Scripture. Scripture maintains that there are SOME people who pretend to believe and then fall away, but not everyone. Look, for example, at the people of Hebrews 10:32f. They "endured a great conflict of sufferings," were made a "public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations," they showed "sympathy to prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of their property." The writer tells them to continue in "endurance" in verse 36. Now, do they sound like people who are pretending to believe? No, I don't think so. Yet Dr. White and company will insist that if they fall away the people of Hebrews 10:32-36 never truly believed and were never truly saved. Why? Because even though there is no Scripture that says ALL those who fall away were never truly saved, Dr. White must believe it in order for his Calvinistic position to survive. The whole theology is based on that one principle.

a fact that seemingly Mr. Sungenis denies. "What Dr. White wishes to promote is precisely what his Calvinistic theology dictates, that is, there are two kinds of people in the Church; those who are truly saved and those who only appear to be saved. To him, the TRULY saved are those who have been justified, once for all, and cannot lose their salvation. Without this doctrine, Calvinism falls completely apart."

Reformed theology is founded upon exegesis: it is the text that determines what we are to believe, not an external authority.

(82) I think we have seen enough evidence to conclude that Reformed theology, while not giving allegiance to an external authority, as such, gives allegiance to the ideas of men who superimpose their philosophies and systems of logic upon the Scripture, making the Scripture into the wax nose they want it to be. Cases in point: putting the words "all kinds" or "all the elect" in 1 Tim 2:4; claiming that God pleads with unrepentant sinners in order to righteously judge them instead of desiring them to repent; claiming that Scripture opposes predestination and free will working together when there is no such verse that denies such a working; claiming that anyone who falls away was never truly saved when Scripture gives no such evidence; claiming that 2 Tim 2:12-13 cannot apply to John 6:37-40; claiming that "dead" means total depravity when the Scripture does not define "dead" in that way but only as the state before forgiveness; claiming that Jesus would be a failure if He didn't save without free will; and many other such things. Calvinism doesn't really look at the "text." Calvinism looks at the text through Calvinism.

Yes, the visible Church has believing and unbelieving people within its ranks, those who have experienced true regeneration by the grace of God and those who have not. Of this there is no doubt. But we have to ask again, what does this have to do with the text at hand? In order to account for those who fall away from the faith, the only solution a Calvinist has is to say that they were never saved originally. As Jesus Himself taught, not only here (those "disciples" who walk away were plainly not drawn by the Father to the Son, and hence were not given by the Father to the Son in the first place) but in the parable of the soils, as in Luke 8:13: "Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away." Note how these "receive the word with joy," but, since there is something missing regarding their nature, they "believe for a while" but fall away.

(83) How does this passage support Dr. White's position? Dr. White thinks it does because he comes to the text with a preconceived idea what "believe" means in Luke 8:13. He thinks it can only mean that they never truly believed, but that is not what the text says. The text says they "believed," period. It is the temptation that draws them away from belief, not that they never believed in the first place. Again, I think it is clear that Dr. White brings his rose-colored spectacles to the text before he interprets it.

" As John Calvin tried to do, his followers invariably point to one passage of Scripture, 1 John 2:19, to back up their claim. For a thorough critique of their use of 1 John 2:19, I refer the reader to pp. 261-265 of Not By Faith Alone. There you will find that although 1 John 2:19 can indeed refer to people who were never Christians originally, this only applies to SOME people, not to all people. Calvinists try to make 1 John 2:19 an absolute teaching that applies to everyone, but that simply is not the case."

Mr. Sungenis is perfectly correct in saying that the immediate application of 1 John 2:19, in John's epistle, is to the antichrists who went out from amongst the people. And in his book he admits that "some will leave the church who were never sincere believers originally" (p. 264). So the question is, does the Bible teach us that true saving faith is the gift of God given to God's elect, so that those whose faith does not endure do,

(84) Notice how Dr. White tries to shift the statement I made in NBFA to his persuasion. The operative word in my sentence is "SOME will leave the church..." but Dr. White tries to turn this into a proof that ALL people who fall away do so because they were never saved originally, yet here he puts it more gently as the following

... by their leaving the faith, show that they had no "root within themselves" (Matthew 13:6)? This is the issue.

(85) He's doing it again. As he did with the use of "dead" in Eph 2:1, Dr. White commandeers the metaphor "no root within themselves" and assumes that this means they never truly believed. His preconditioned response to these metaphors is very predictable. But "no root" only means that they didn't endure, not that they were never saved. Its only when Dr. White superimposes his theology upon the metaphor does it suddenly turn into a "never saved" doctrine that is used to support Calvinism's major tenet.

And moving the focus back to the passage, so far Mr. Sungenis has not addressed the actual topic at hand: the Father's will for the Son is that He lose none who are given to Him. "In context, John is speaking about the antichrists who come into the church by stealth to upset the faith of Christians. If those antichrists leave the church, John assures the Christians that they were never Christian in the first place, as does Jesus in Matthew 7:21 when speaking about the Pharisees. But that 1 John 2:19 does not apply to everyone is made very clear not only by the context of 1 John 2, but by the overwhelming amount of passages in the New Testament which teach that a Christian can fall from the faith he once possessed. For lack of space, I refer you to the book of Hebrews 2:1; 3:1,6, 12, 14; 4:1, 11-14; 6:4-6, 11-12; 10:26-27, 35-38; 12:1,3, 14-17, 25-29. For a more thorough study of this, I refer you to pp. 275-293 of Not By Faith Alone."

I can only assume, then, that Mr. Sungenis has no meaningful reply to the question I asked above and instead needs to leave the context of John 6:38-39 to substantiate his assertion of the imperfection of the work of Christ in saving His elect people (the doctrine of insecurity, I have often said).

(86) I've answered this about a dozen times. Here it is again: it is wrong to make the perfection of Christ dependent on the doctrine of eternal security. Scripture does not do that, only Dr. White does that. Dr. White has presupposed that if someone falls away then Christ is not perfect, but that's because his Calvinist system demands such a conclusion. If he doesn't accept this, let him show us one Scripture which says that Christ will become imperfect if someone falls away. Unless he can produce such a passage, then he is only working with a presupposition, not an actual fact. His presupposition is that eternal security and the perfection of Christ are mutually dependent.

But how does any of this relate to the simple facts we have seen thus far, those being that 1) The Father has given a distinct people to the Son; 2) all thus given as a result come to the Son; 3) the Son will not cast out any of those coming to Him; 4) the Father's will for the Son is that of all that the Father has given Him, He lose nothing but raise it up on the last day. The question then remains for every person who believes that it is possible to be a true Christian, united to Christ, one of His sheep: if such a person is lost, does it not follow that Christ has failed to do the will of the Father?

(87) This is getting a bit repetitive, but that's what happens when you really have little support for your position. You just keep asserting things without proof.

Wrapped up in this question is the simple fact that this passage defies any and all attempts at forcing it into an anthropocentric model. It is theocentric to its core: 6:38-39 makes no sense whatsoever unless it is understood from the start that Christ is able to save without the synergistic "enablement" of the elect coming into play.

(87a) Nope, sorry. Unless Scripture says that Free Will cannot be involved with God's election, then Dr. White has no basis for making such conclusions about John 6. If not, then he gets into the syndrome which forces him to deny Free Will in every passage he sees divine action. .

Otherwise, you are left with the Father expressing a will for the Son that He cannot possibly fulfill. Mr. Sungenis' response completely misses this basic fact. As I had said in TPF: "If the will of the Father for the Son is that He lose none of those that are given to Him, does it not follow inexorably that Christ is able to accomplish the Father's will?"

Mr. Sungenis attempts to reply: "Again, it is obvious that Dr. White has misconstrued what the Father's will is. The Father's will is that everyone who perceives and believes will have everlasting life and be raised up at the last day, but Dr. White is assuming that those who once believed can never stop believing. If they stop believing, then obviously, according to verse 40, it can no longer be the Father's will that they attain eternal life. Thus, we have answered the passage for what it states."

It is Mr. Sungenis who is missing the Father's will by ignoring 38-39 and making 40 his key interpretive passage, removing it from its native context, and forcing it to function in a way that is utterly eisegetical in nature. Verse 38 says that the Son has come to do the Father's will; verse 39 expresses the Father's will for the Son, that being that the Son not lose any that are given to Him. Verse 40 then expresses the Father's will for those who are given to the Son, that being that they look and believe upon Christ. Because Mr. Sungenis, and the Roman Catholic system, is dedicated to the defense of human autonomy and the resultant concept of synergism, the text is stood on its head, the natural flow of thought that would, of course, be from 38 to 39 to 40, is reversed, so that the contextual meaning of verse 40, which surely, in light of the preceding three verses, and what follows (6:44-45, 6:65, etc.), could not possibly be taken as an assertion of human autonomy or "free will," is replaced with an eisegetical interpretation designed to support the synergistic viewpoint. Mr. Sungenis says he has answered the passage for what it states, but in fact, nowhere does he actually offer a contextually-based exegesis of the passage. Instead, we are only told what the passage isn't saying, not what it is.

(88) I guess Dr. White doesn't like it when I keep insisting that we only draw from the passage what the passage says. Let's look at John 6:37-39 again. Does verse 37 deny that those whom the Father gives to Jesus used their free will in conjunction with God's election? No, so Dr. White has no right to deny it. Would we expect John 6:37 to deny Free Will, implicitly, if other Scriptures exist that teach Free Will presently exists? No. Do other passages in John show us that man uses his free will to accept or reject Christ? Yes, John 5:40 and 6:40 do. Does verse 37 say that the one who comes to Jesus cannot cast himself out? No, it only says Jesus will not cast him out, because Jesus is faithful. Are there other passages of Scripture which teach that an elect person can deny Christ? Yes, 2 Timothy 2:10-13 does. Is there anything in John 6:37-40 which would prohibit us from saying that man's free will is involved in coming to Jesus? Unless someone presumes, without proof, that the Father's "giving" and Jesus' "receiving" means that man's free will is excluded, and that the Father's impetus for "giving" has nothing to do with a man's decision to accept Jesus, the answer is no. The series of questions and answers I posed above what we call logical deduction. John 6:37-40 is not an isolated passage of Scripture that we can conclude with our own ideas and make dogmatic conclusions. I would implore Dr. White not to deny anything the passage does not deny, and not assert anything that the passage doesn't assert. I know its hard, especially with John 6:37-40. I used to swing these verses as a club over the head of anyone who believed in free will - - but that was until I really looked at what the passages said, but most of all what they didn't say.

" Dr. White is also presuming, but cannot prove, that the "will" of the Father is such that it predetermines someone's belief, and that in such belief the individual will keep on believing indefinitely, without the possibility of disbelieving in the future."

Actually, the text is unambiguous despite Mr. Sungenis' unwillingness to hear it: the will of the Father for the Son is expressed in 6:39. This revelation is given as an explanation of the statement of 6:37. The Son will not cast out any who are given to Him by the Father. All that the Father gives Him will come, infallibly, in faith to Him. There is no question whatsoever that the one coming to Christ does so in faith. Since all who are given come in faith, it is an obvious fact that then that faith results from being given: that is, there is none who is given who does not, upon the experience of regeneration, experience true, saving faith in Christ. Hence, the text does tell us that it is a divine act that brings about the salvation of the elect, it is a divine act that causes a person to come in faith to Christ, and hence the expression of the Father's will for the Son in saving all those thus given does speak directly to the necessary nature of saving faith (borne out by the Bible's teaching concerning the subject elsewhere).

(89) Look carefully at Dr. White's statement and you will see that he NEVER really answers the challenge put to him. The challenge is to show us where John 6:37-39 teaches that one who believes today cannot disbelieve in the future. Knowing that the verse does not specifically teach such, Dr. White then appeals to what he calls the "nature of saving faith." He has a preconceived idea of the "nature of saving faith." Dr. White's "nature of saving faith" is that once one has faith one can't lose it; once one has faith one cannot fall. Where does he get that understanding? Not from the text of John 6:37-40. So, he can't disprove my assertion (that John 6:37-40 does not teach that a person cannot disbelieve in the future) based on the text itself, and that is all we are arguing here - - the grammar of the text.

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