“no man can say that Jesus is the Lord,
but by the Holy Ghost.”
I have heard people use this verse to claim they are saved because they think Jesus Christ is Lord, so there, I don’t have to say or believe anything else, I got that down.
I find this ridiculous and a classic case of proof-texting.
“Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord. . . I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
Here is a whole group of people who call Jesus Christ ‘Lord’ whom Jesus Christ confesses are not saved. Calling Jesus Lord is not evidence of the Spirit’s presence because people can say anything.
1 Corinthians 12, the no man can call Him Lord but by the Spirit passage, is all about spiritual gifts, the result of having the Spirit. There are differences of administration but the same Lord.
Saying that Jesus is Lord then must mean more than the ability your mouth has to say words. It must refer to being submissive to Christ as Lord, knowing that the Lord hands out gifts and their uses.
Someone who mouths that Jesus is Lord and yet exercises no gift nor submission to the Giver of gifts, may end up being in the group that claimed Jesus as Lord but only did things in human power, not spiritual giftedness.
anti-itch meditation 
I’ve always found the passage from Matthew 7 rather sobering. Whatever translation you use you cannot get away from the fact that “MANY” is mentioned. Many is a big word, much bigger than “some” or “a few.” And yet these people as you say presumably thought they were ok. Food for thought!
Many is a huge word, but also grateful it’s not “ALL” there! That verse is to make us tremble.
“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” John 6:37
All who come to Christ fully, shall be born again, and receive the Holy Spirit. Many come to Christ but few are true disciples, they come because they find Christ useful, something they can add to enrich their lives. So who are those whom have come, that will never be cast out?
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” John 6:44
Only those whom the Father has drawn, only those who have been taught by God.
“It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—” John 6:45
Jesus is quoting Jeremiah 31
“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
The Father does the drawing, and He does the teaching, but to whom? Does God draw all and teach all? Because if He teaches and draws all, then all would be saved. Who are the “all” Jesus is speaking of?
The “all” are the ones who accept the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
About the first verse you quoted: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” John 6:37…The Father “gives”, or “draws” men, and Christ saves them. There is a co-working.
A similar construction is in the beautitudes, for example: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Matt. 5:6.
Those who hunger and thirst will be filled. Those who are drawn to Christ, will be saved. It’s the same thought.
The problem with the Pharisees and Jewish leaders was that they claimed to be led by God, yet were rejecting the Son. This could not be, for the work of the Father is to make them hunger and thirst for righteousness, which leads them to the Son where they can be filled. Therefore, Christ was telling them that they had resisted the work of the Father, and therefore were not the “people of the Lord” like they claimed to be.
We should not assume from these verse that the Father only picks a few people to draw to Christ. He wants all to be saved…that was the whole purpose for the nation of Israel…to reach out to the world. “My house shall be a house of prayer for all people.” Isaiah 56:7
The burden of guilt for why a person is not saved always rests upon him, not upon the Father. Therefore everyone will be judged “according to his deeds.”
God’s word tells us that we won’t come, and we are responsible for not coming. “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”- Romans 3: 18
“no one understands;
no one seeks for God”- Romans 3:11
And it tells us, that those who do come, will be saved.
“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” John 6:37
So if we come, it is by the power of God, and all that He draws will be saved.
Those who hunger and thirst are drawn, they do not come on their own, because no one seeks God.
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” John 6:44
God offers salvation to all- John 3:16. So why do some come, and others don’t? And remember God’s word tells us no one seeks for God, and there is no fear of God in man.
Paul,
A simple example will illustrate this.
Imagine we are all in quicksand. We are born into it, and nobody seeks to get out of it at first, because we think it is normal (everybody around us is in the same condition), and so we don’t feel any danger. Here are where those statements apply that “no one seeks for God,” etc.
But through various means, God seeks to awaken us to our danger…through the consequences of sin (we see that we are getting deeper, we see others dying in the quicksand, etc); through our own fears of the unknown future; through the lack of real satisfying joys because of always being stuck in the mud; and through faithful ministers who preach of judgment, and of better things. These are like cords which God the Father sends out to draw us. He sends out these cords to everyone, but only those who take hold of them are drawn by Him. His kingdom is one of love, not of force, therefore He cannot compel them to take hold of the cords.
And Jesus is coming on the ship of salvation, so these cords will draw us to the ship, if we take hold of them. God sends out the cords to everyone, but only some choose to take hold of them. Those who do take hold are drawn into the ship, and as long as they remain there, and do not dive back into the quicksand, they are safe.
“No man can come to me unless the Father…draws him.” It’s very true. The Father has a role to draw them to Christ, and without that necessary work, they will never reach Christ. But it does not here speak of the human part, which is to take make an active decision to take hold of the cords. The Father does not do our part. He draws us, but we must take hold.
Jesus was speaking to the Jewish leaders when He said these words, and they thought they were already co-operating with the Father. But Jesus told them that the Father’s work was to draw men to the Son, so the fact that they were opposed to the Son showed them that they were not taking hold of the cords that the Father was putting out. He told them this so that they would wake up to their danger and take hold of those cords.
******
The other view, that you seem to be proposing, is that the Father only sends out the cords to a select few, and the others do not receive them. Then He judges those who never had a cord, for not taking hold of something they never had! I don’t see how this magnifies the character of God.
Frank,
If God offers free grace to all men as John 3:16 tells us how is that showing partiality, the “cords” as you say are there for everyone to grab hold of? Romans states that he has revealed Himself to everyone
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse”
God is quite gracious to all men, He has given His Son to the world, all can freely come to Him.
Your theory of the cords sounds nice only it’s not what scripture tells us, that people see others sinking and reach out for salvation of their own understanding. Only Jesus tells us that only those that the Father draws to the cords will come to them, and all that He draws will be saved.
“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” John 6:37
God in no way forces anyone to grab hold of the cords, he opens our eyes (our heart) to see the cords as truth.
“One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.”- Acts 16:14
All that God draws will come, not some but all- John 6:37. All whose hearts are opened by the Father will see Christ clearly and of their own free will choose Christ.
Paul,
Thanks for going “the second mile” with my extra-Biblical illustration. But the illustration of “cords” is not far from what the Bible says, for it speaks of the Lord’s drawing power this way:
Hos. 11:4 “I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them.”
And just before Christ returns, the whole world will gather together against Him, and the Lord describes their thoughts with these words:
Ps. 2:3 – “Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”
*****
So much for that. The main difficulty I have with the Calvinist view is that in attempting to emphasize God’s part in the work of salvation, it ends up introducing some much deeper problems. This is not a good sign…it is not the way God works. When the Lord introduces truth, it answers questions and settles deep issues. Things that were before difficult to understand become simple, plain, and clear.
For example, you reiterate a few times that “He opens our eyes to see the truth”, and “All whose hearts are opened by the Father will see Christ clearly”. While there is a truth here, that God is the prime agent in salvation and the only Source of good, yet it leaves the impression that if people reject God, then it is because He didn’t open their hearts.
There are two different views of God here: one, that God only attempts to lead certain ones to salvation and Christ; the other view is that He attempts to lead all to Christ and salvation, but that only some respond to and act on these offers. I hold to the latter view. Those who respond and act on the offers are the ones Christ refers to when He says, “all whom the Father draws will come to Me.”
These kinds of statements, as they appear in the Bible, are showing God’s part in the work of salvation, but are not commenting on man’s part. There are many other verses which incite, warn, and instruct man to act on the light that he has been given (ie., “ask, seek, knock,” “if any man open the door, I will come in.”). Both parts are essential.
Calvinism raises some very deep concerns about the whole rebellion. Did Satan rebel because God actually made him to do it? If God chooses to open some hearts to Him, why doesn’t He open all? I don’t think Calvinism has adequate answers to these questions, and the usual response is, “well God can do what He wants, who am I to question Him?” True, we shall not question God…but we certainly should question interpretations of God that cause confusion, or that put His character in a bad light.
Calvin was a great man of God in his time, and the particular doctrines he is now famous for were not the main part, nor the most important part of his work. But theologians that came after him solidified those particular interpretations into systems of religious thought, all the while minimizing or forgetting about the real essence of Calvin’s ministry: his self-sacrifice, his willingness to hold to unpopular truth, his initiative to push the work of God forward in his day through his establishment of a school and missionary center in Geneva.
Frank,
At the end of Chapter 6 in John most of Jesus’ followers have left Him, only the twelve remain, and one of them is devil as Jesus puts it. The Son of God is walking around on earth ministering for three years and only eleven people see Him for who He truly is. Think about that fact for a moment, God is here in the flesh, and hardly anyone notices, or cares. Side note here, that should be comforting to any pastor out there who is leading a small church size is not the important matter, but speaking the truth is.
I think looking at Peter at the end of this chapter is an important key, because Jesus turns to him and asks are you going to leave me also? Peter’s response is where shall we go, only you have the words of eternal life. What Jesus tells Peter is what I personally believe, that flesh and blood didn’t reveal this to Peter, (we sinful fallen creatures won’t see Jesus for who He is) but the Father who is in heaven has revealed who Christ is to him.
For someone to past from death to Life, takes a miracle, God offer this to all, but as God’s word tells us “no one comes, no one understands.” If God in His mercy decides to save some is that an injustice, no it is grace.