John 6:43 Jesus
therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. 44 No man can come to me, except the Father
which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall
be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of
the Father, cometh unto me. 46 Not that
any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.
47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He
that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
To murmur, in the Bible, carries with it the act of speaking
against someone, particularly those who are tasked with leading.
Exodus 16:7 And in the morning, then ye shall see the
glory of the LORD; for that he heareth your murmurings against the LORD: and what are we, that ye murmur against us? 8 And Moses said, This shall be, when the LORD
shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the
full; for that the LORD heareth your murmurings
which ye murmur against him: and
what are we? your murmurings are not
against us, but against the LORD.
In verse 45 Jesus refers to verses in Isaiah (2:3;54:13),
Jeremiah (31:33, 34), and Micah (4:2).
Here, the point is clearly made of God’s participation in
our ability to believe. No person can believe in Christ unless that person has
been drawn to Him by God and yet Titus 2:11 says that the grace of God that
leads to salvation has, indeed, come to all men. So, there is an influence of
the Holy Spirit on the human heart that is active in belief, as I mentioned
earlier that Calvin so prominently pointed out. However, Calvin and his
followers went too far in saying that this meant that God then, by necessity,
had purposed this person to go to Hell and that person to go to Heaven because
He predestinated it to be so. The Bible doesn’t say that, doesn’t go to that
extreme.
First, God wants every person to be saved from eternal
suffering and loss.
1Timothy 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to
come unto the knowledge of the truth.
God created our souls, our self-identity, our personhood.
Isaiah 57:16 For I will not contend for ever, neither will
I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.
We are born in sin, destined to die, in rebellion toward God
through our heritage received from Adam.
Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned:
A person’s name is written in God’s book.
Exodus 32:32 Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their
sin — ; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou
hast written. 33 And the LORD said unto
Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.
Revelation 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed
in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but
I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
A child’s name then would be in that book until such time as
they rejected God. It is then that they would be lost. It is not God’s desire
that any of them should be lost as is revealed by these verses within a talk
Christ gave to His disciples centered around children and belief.
Matthew 18:10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these
little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold
the face of my Father which is in heaven…14
Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one
of these little ones should perish.
Keep in mind also these Old Testament statements, first
where God took an infant, apparently to deliver him from the evil of his family
and the disaster that living to adulthood would impose on his eternal soul;
1Kings 14:13 And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury
him: for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is
found some good thing toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.
And this admonition to Jonah about having compassion on
Assyrian children;
Jonah 4:11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great
city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern
between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
Until such time in our lives that we are capable of
understanding our wickedness we are not held accountable. It is not a matter of
whether or not you accept or understand that you are a sinner against God but
whether or not you have the capacity to understand. So, people who are born
with severe mental handicaps and children cannot be held accountable. In fact,
under the Law an age of accountability was set at twenty. When the Hebrew male
reached twenty he gave an offering to the Lord and that is when he went to war
and that is the age of accountability for the people in the wilderness who were
able to or not allowed to enter the Promised Land. Whether or not that says
anything about the age of accountability for salvation you cannot say for sure
but, nevertheless, there must be a capability present to understand.
Children are not able to understand.
It is not God’s purpose or desire that anyone should go to
Hell and eternal destruction except for Satan and his angels, for whom such
destruction was prepared. You go there by your own choice which is hard for a
modern person to understand because they want to do whatever they choose and to
be rewarded for it even if it is wicked.
Matthew 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left
hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil
and his angels:
No one is predestinated to Hell. You are only predestinated,
in the Bible, to things that happen to you after you are saved because you
believed and were given faith to move forward for God. In Ephesians, chapter 1,
you are chosen because of God’s foreknowledge from the foundation of the world
to something because you will believe and come to the knowledge of the truth.
You were chosen by virtue of your being in
Him upon your new birth. Note that
He chose us in Him to be, holy
and without blame before Him in love and it does not say chose us to be
saved. Paul is talking to people who are already believers and presumably saved
from Hell and eternal destruction. We are also predestinated to the adoption,
the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23).
Ephesians 1:3 ¶ Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of
children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his
will, 6 To the praise of the glory of
his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 7 In whom we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; 8 Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all
wisdom and prudence; 9 Having made known
unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath
purposed in himself: 10 That in the
dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things
in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
11 In whom also we have obtained an
inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh
all things after the counsel of his own will: 12 That we should be to the praise of his glory,
who first trusted in Christ. 13 In whom
ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy
Spirit of promise, 14 Which is the
earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession,
unto the praise of his glory.
As Peter says, we are elect according to God’s
foreknowledge.
1Peter 1:2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God
the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling
of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.
As Paul says, we, who are saved are predestinated to be
conformed to Christ’s image, not to salvation.
Romans 8:29 ¶ For whom he did foreknow, he also did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the
firstborn among many brethren. 30
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he
called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
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