The Saving results of the Death of Christ !

zoidar said:

Ok, but that is still not answering why He rendered them "God taught". For an example, was it because they were humble?

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No. It does answer your question. διδακτοὶ θεοῦ parallels the drawing of the prior verse. This is Jesus' point. He's appealing to the OT to show the Jews that what He is declaring (that no one can come to Him unless drawn) is taught in their own Scriptures: "It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.'" That teaching is the Father's drawing. And apart from the Father's drawing, no one has the capacity to come. So, no, it is not based on anything in man.

Dikaioumenoi said:

No. It does answer your question. διδακτοὶ θεοῦ parallels the drawing of the prior verse. This is Jesus' point. He's appealing to the OT to show the Jews that what He is declaring (that no one can come to Him unless drawn) is taught in their own Scriptures: "It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.'" That teaching is the Father's drawing. And apart from the Father's drawing, no one has the capacity to come. So, no, it is not based on anything in man.

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But that understanding is not a grammatical and textual necessity. It's a theological interpretation.

Brightfame52 said:

I disagree, it includes the coming.

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Saying "the coming is included" is trivial. Yes, ἐλθεῖν is "included" syntactically as a complementary infinitive (i.e., it "complements" or completes the main idea). But inclusion is not identity, and it does not change what the clause asserts. δύναται is the semantic head of the clause. The infinitive (come) does not assert an action. It merely specifies what action is in view with respect to the main idea (ability).

The clause asserts, "no one is able to come," not "no one comes." Those are two different statements. Yet you seem to be confusing them (see "A" and "C" in the logic discussion below). The clause is about capacity, not execution.

If I say, "no one can lift 500 lbs unless trained," the sentence includes "lifting," but it does not assert that training guarantees lifting. It asserts that training is required for lifting to be possible. Your view -- that the Father's drawing is effectual in bringing men to Christ -- is a view I agree with and have argued for, but it is not entailed by the conditional statement itself. The argument for that view comes from the additional piece of information we are given in the final clause ("and I will raise him up"), because it grammatically attributes the promise of final salvation to the one enabled to come.

Brightfame52 said:

Seems you still leaving room for mans will to seal the deal

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How so? Again, I've explicitly argued the contrary. The final clause does not permit that as a possibility.

Brightfame52 said:

I disagree, that defeats the need of drawing to Christ

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You are smuggling sufficiency into a statement that grammatically and logically only establishes necessity. Taken as a whole, John 6:44 does establish sufficiency (because no one can come unless drawn, and the one drawn will be raised). But the conditional statement itself ("no one can come to me unless drawn"), does not. Your conclusion is correct; how you are arriving at it is not.

Let:

• D = the Father draws a person
• A = the person is able to come to Christ
• C = the person comes to Christ

The conditional statement in John 6:44 states:


This is logically equivalent to:


That is all the conditional gives you. What it does not say is:


You can make that argument (and I would agree with you) theologically, or, grammatically and contextually with an appeal to the final clause ("and I will raise him up on the last day"), but you cannot make that case with an appeal to the conditional statement alone. Attempting to do so treats A and C as if they are the same statement. (Again, theologically they may essentially be, but grammatically they are not, and if we are to take care in arguing an exegetical case for this view, that argument needs to follow what's actually in the text, without importing content.)

Brightfame52 said:

Now that's a contradiction. No disrespect but you seem doubleminded on this matter.

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Where is the contradiction? Please don't just assert that without explanation.

It is unclear why you regard my position as "double-minded." There is no inconsistency here. I am making a straightforward grammatical and logical distinction.

My argument is that John 6:44 as a whole teaches effectual grace, but the inherence of sufficiency in the Father's drawing arises from the final clause, not from the conditional statement itself.

The conditional clause --


-- establishes necessity, not sufficiency. It states that drawing is required for coming; it does not, on its own, assert that drawing guarantees coming. Logically, it yields only this:


That tells us what must be true for coming to occur, not what must follow from drawing.

The inference of sufficiency (i.e., what must follow from drawing) comes from the final clause:


Grammatically, αὐτὸν refers back to the same individual previously mentioned -- the one drawn and thereby enabled. The text does not introduce a new referent or a narrower subset. As a result, the one drawn is identically the one raised, meaning there is no syntactic room for a category of "drawn-but-not-raised." That's where the sufficiency comes from, not the logic of "no one can come to me unless drawn."

Thus, the verse as a whole yields:

• Drawing is necessary for coming (from the conditional).
• Drawing is also sufficient for coming (from the final clause's identification of the drawn one with the raised one).

There is no contradiction here. I'm simply refusing to collapse distinct logical functions into a single clause.

zoidar said:

But that understanding is not a grammatical and textual necessity. It's a theological interpretation.

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What's your point? It is an interpretation that has been argued for. I didn't argue it was a grammatical necessity. You're objecting to a position I have not taken. Again, the claim is not that my conclusion is a grammatical inevitability, but that the syntax and discourse logic of the passage support the theological conclusion. I've already clarified this.

fhansen said:

You're trying to get way to much distance out of a single verse which was only meant to serve as a concise summary of the Way, of how one is saved. One must come, and no one can come unless enabled. Salvation is directly related to one's nearness to God-union with Him-that's why Jesus came, to reconcile and restore broken relationship between man and God.

Sam was enabled to come. Sam came. God will raise him up.

Nothing conflicts there with the fact that Sam must meanwhile remain in Him, Sam must persevere, Sam must overcome sin, Sam must make effort to be holy-or else Sam won't be one of those who are raised simply because he once responded and came. And that's all consistent with Scripture, early church teachings, and the ECFs.

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You still are not responding to the argument. You are changing the subject.

I did not ask whether perseverance, holiness, effort, or union with God are taught elsewhere in Scripture. I asked a narrow grammatical question about this sentence: who is the referent of αὐτόν ("him") in καὶ ἀναστήσω αὐτόν ("and I will raise him up")? Your reply does not address that question at all.

Instead, you have shifted from syntactic analysis to a theological overview. That may be a separate discussion, but it is not an engagement with my claim. It is a deflection.

The issue on the table is simple and specific:

Does the text itself distinguish between a "him" who is drawn but not raised, and a different "him" who is raised? Or does the grammar identify them as the same individual?

Until you address that question directly from the syntax of John 6:44, none of what you have said actually engages my argument or the text itself. What you have offered instead is a theological restatement of your position that simply assumes its own correctness. You are effectively reasoning in reverse: John 6:44 cannot mean X because X would conflict with what you already believe Scripture must teach elsewhere. That is not exegesis; it is harmonization by bare assertion.

The proper order runs the other way. If the syntax of John 6:44 says something that creates tension with a broader theological framework, the framework must be re-examined in light of the text, not the text neutralized by appeal to external commitments.

Dikaioumenoi said:

You still are not responding to the argument. You are changing the subject.

I did not ask whether perseverance, holiness, effort, or union with God are taught elsewhere in Scripture. I asked a narrow grammatical question about this sentence: who is the referent of αὐτόν ("him") in καὶ ἀναστήσω αὐτόν ("and I will raise him up")? Your reply does not address that question at all.

Instead, you have shifted from syntactic analysis to a theological overview. That may be a separate discussion, but it is not an engagement with my claim. It is a deflection.

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No, because the light shed by a correct theological overview can't be ignored in understanding the meaning of any single verse. It's as if I used Matt 19:17 or Rom 2:7 to build a complete theology without fleshing out the full meaning using the rest of Scripture et al.

"If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” Matt 19:17

"To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life." Rom 2:7

Dikaioumenoi said:

What's your point? It is an interpretation that has been argued for. I didn't argue it was a grammatical necessity. You're objecting to a position I have not taken. Again, the claim is not that my conclusion is a grammatical inevitability, but that the syntax and discourse logic of the passage support the theological conclusion. I've already clarified this.

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My point is there are other plausible interpretations to the text than the one you hold. It's not clear to me when you say something can be stated from grammar alone and where it's your theological interpretation. I think it would help if you were more clear about what the text actually requires and what you believe the text supports.

fhansen said:

No, because the light shed by a correct theological overview can't be ignored in understanding the meaning of any single verse. It's as if I used Matt 19:17 or Rom 2:7 to build a complete theology without fleshing out the full meaning using the rest of Scripture et al.

"If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” Matt 19:17

"To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life." Rom 2:7

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Again, what you're describing is theological harmonization by assertion, not exegesis.

Of course no single verse should be isolated from the whole of Scripture. But that principle does not license you to override the syntax of a specific text when it speaks clearly. The proper order is the opposite of what you are doing: we first determine what a passage actually says on its own terms, and only then integrate it into a broader theological synthesis. Otherwise, "theological overview" becomes a veto power that can silence any text that doesn't fit one's system.

The issue I raised is straightforward and local to John 6:44: the referent of αὐτόν and the force of the final clause. Appealing to other passages does not answer that question. If your understanding of the rest of Scripture is accurate, you ought to be able to show how John's syntax here fits within it, not excuse yourself from addressing it. So the persistent refusal to engage the grammatical question suggests that it does, indeed, press against your theological commitments in a way you would rather avoid than resolve.

Appealing to Matt. 19:17 or Rom. 2:7 does nothing to address that grammatical question. Once again, you are assuming a particular interpretation of those passages and then using that assumption to avoid engaging the syntactic issue in front of us. Those texts do not alter the referent of αὐτόν, the structure of the conditional, or the force of the final clause in John's sentence. Invoking them here is simply a deflection. The issue under dispute is syntactic, not systematic. Syntax is not fluid or impressionistic. You are responding to a grammatical argument by appealing to broader theological synthesis, as though theology could retroactively rewrite sentence structure.

That is like responding to an argument about subject-verb agreement in the sentence "the judge sentenced the defendant" by saying, "Yes, but other texts show judges value mercy." That may be true, but it does nothing to change who the subject is, what the verb does, or whom it acts upon. Theology can contextualize meaning, but when you go so far as to allow it to rewrite syntax, you're no longer reading the text; you're importing assumptions into it.

zoidar said:

My point is there are other plausible interpretations to the text than the one you hold. It's not clear to me when you say something can be stated from grammar alone and where it's your theological interpretation. I think it would help if you were more clear about what the text actually requires and what you believe the text supports.

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What other interpretations are plausible? What is the syntactic argument for their plausibility?

Where have I been unclear? Can you specifically quote what portion of my argument breaks down and fails to produce the conclusion I offered?

Brightfame52 said:

You don't know what you believe.

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This is an admission that you are unwilling (or unable) to engage the argument that was just laid out. I know exactly what I believe, and why. I've made a clear grammatical and logical distinction, supported it at length, and even shown how it leads to the very conclusion we both affirm. Simply dismissing that by impugning my self-awareness avoids the substance entirely. If you think there's a contradiction, identify it! If you think the logic is faulty, show where. Otherwise, you're conceding the point without the candor to say so.

The irony here is that I'm not opposing your conclusion at all. I'm trying to strengthen it. We agree that John 6:44 teaches effectual grace. My concern is how that conclusion is argued. Collapsing necessity and sufficiency into the conditional clause itself is a logical mistake, and it hands critics an easy win they don't actually deserve. Your argument will be refuted by a sharp critic, and it will strengthen their confidence in their view. Why are you so opposed to my efforts to improve your own argument?

Dikaioumenoi said:

What other interpretations are plausible? What is the syntactic argument for their plausibility?

Where have I been unclear? Can you specifically quote what portion of my argument breaks down and fails to produce the conclusion I offered?

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Where I find lack of clarity is when phrases like "the grammar itself provides the reason" or "so there's the reason" are used, since that language sounds like a claim of textual necessity rather than interpretation.

I’m not equipped to engage at this level of technical detail you are asking for, so I’m going to step back for now.