pgwolv
Puritan Board Freshman
The passages in the Gospel of John in which Christ states that only His sheep/those who the Father gives to Him believe in Him have always been, to me, some of the strongest texts in support of regeneration preceding faith and the doctrine of unconditional election. However, I was made aware of an interesting Arminian view on these passages. Please see a few select extracts, to show you the gist of the argument, and read the full essay here.
Blessings
Calvinists, as noted earlier, interpret these terms “belonging” to God and being one of Christ’s “sheep” as referring to the elect (understood as an unconditionally chosen, definite group of specific individuals) prior to (and following) their regeneration, effectual calling, and coming to faith. I believe that there is an alternative interpretation, however, that makes better sense in light of the context in which Jesus made these statements: The ones to whom Jesus referred as “belonging” to God and being his “sheep” are the those among his Jewish audience who were voluntarily living in right covenant relationship with God under the terms revealed in the Old Testament, and who were thus already prepared to receive the promised Messiah when he appeared to the nation of Israel.
We have seen in the above brief survey of Old Testament passages that God’s “people” and “sheep” in Old Testament times were the Israelites, and in a yet more restrictive sense those Israelites who were faithful to the terms of God’s covenant with them. These were the repentant ones who feared God and served him; they would belong to God as his “treasured possession” (Malachi 3:17). They would be the members of God’s flock whom God would “cleanse” and “cure of backsliding” under the coming reign of the “one king” and “one shepherd,” the one called by David’s name (Ezekiel 37:22-24).
The sheep who would “listen to his voice,” “know/recognize his voice,” and therefore “follow him” (vss. 4-5, 14) were just those Israelites who were already in right covenant relationship to God and thus belonged to God as his “sheep,” “people,” and “treasured possession” in the restrictive sense discussed in Section B above. They received Jesus as the Messiah-Shepherd (i.e., they “listened,” “knew/recognized,” and “followed” him) precisely because their hearts had already been prepared through repentance and faith in God (according to the terms of the covenant as revealed in the Old Testament).
John the Baptist came for this express purpose: to swell the ranks of those within Israel who would be prepared through repentance to accept their Messiah-Shepherd at his appearing. It was in this sense that John’s baptism of repentance (Mark 1:4, Luke 3:3, Acts 19:4) was intended to “make straight the way for the Lord” (John 1:23; cf. Isaiah 40:3; Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:2-3; Luke 3:4-5, 7:27). The ministry of John was intended to bring as many Israelites as possible back into right covenant relationship with God before Christ’s appearing. The way back into this right relationship (prior to the coming of Christ) was through repentance and faith under the terms of the covenant as it was revealed in the Old Testament. Only once they had repented would their hearts be restored and primed to receive the Christ whom God was about to send into their midst. The results of this preparatory function of John’s ministry are reflected in the response to Jesus’ teaching described in Luke chapter seven: “All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus’ words, acknowledged that God’s way was right, because they had been baptized by John. 30 But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.” (Luke 7:29-30) John’s baptism of repentance prepared the hearts of all who accepted it to recognize the truth of Jesus’ teaching, thus enlarging the number of those who would recognize Jesus’ voice as the Messiah-Shepherd and be willing to follow him.
Because these “prepared” Jews had been and continued to be responsive to God’s resistible prevenient grace (the “drawing” and “enabling” of God; John 6:44, 65), these same ones could now all be led by God to faith in Christ, not because such a calling to faith in Christ is irresistible, but precisely because the hearts of these “prepared” Jews were already in a receptive state.
Unless one is drawn and enabled by the Father, one cannot come to Jesus (the necessary conditions), and if one belongs to God as Christ’s sheep and has listened to and learned from the Father, then one will certainly be “given” by the Father to Christ (the sufficient conditions).
In addition, Jesus’ statement in 10:16 that these Gentile sheep would also “listen to [his] voice” indicates that they, like the Jewish sheep described in the preceding sections, would surely recognize him as the Messiah-Shepherd and follow him in faith. The clear implication of all this is that there were God-fearing Gentiles who, like the faithful “prepared” Jews, had responded favorably to God’s prevenient grace and who, therefore, belonged to God and would be directed to faith in the Son.
I am not yet skilled in exegesis and I would like your perspectives on this Arminian view; how can one show that the Calvinist interpretation of these passages is more Biblical?Another example of a Gentile who would qualify as one of Christ’s “sheep,” prepared beforehand for Christ’s arrival through voluntary responsiveness to God’s prevenient grace, is Cornelius in Acts 10.
Blessings