Calvinists often refer to John 8:43 as evidence that the mind of the unbeliever is so enslaved to sin and bound to darkness that far from being able to do anything to please God, they cannot even hear or understand the truth of Scripture. Here is what Jesus says:

Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word (John 8:43).

The Context of John 8:43

In the context of this passage, Jesus is chastising some of His Jewish audience for not comprehending His message. He then asks the question about why they do not understand, and His answer is that they do not understand because they are not able to listen to what He is saying.

Since Jesus talks about their inability, this text is a favorite text for the Calvinistic idea of total inability (cf. John 8:47).

However, is this really what Jesus is saying?

Inability to Hear is not Inability to Believe

First of all, it should be pointed out that an inability to hear and understand the message of Jesus is not necessarily the same thing as an inability to believe in Jesus for eternal life.

Nowhere in this chapter does Jesus say that the people to whom He speaks cannot believe. He says they cannot hear, which means they do not grasp, comprehend, or understand the truth of what He is saying.

Inability to Hear was Not Permanent

But even this inability to understand Jesus was not a permanent condition.

The Jewish people to whom Jesus spoke had developed this condition, and in John 8, Jesus warns them about it, inviting them to reject the lies they had come to accept, and believe in Him instead.

The real issue, then, is how they had come to believe the lies in the first place. To understand this, we must understand what had happened during the ministry of Jesus up to this point.

The Inability to Hear Developed Over Time

Jesus had come as the fulfillment of Jewish Messianic hopes, but since Jesus challenged many of the traditional Jewish teachings and traditions and refused to engage in a military campaign against the Romans, many of the Jewish people rejected Him as the promised Messiah (cf. John 1:11; 2:18; 5:31-47; 6:41-42; 7:25-31, 40-44).

The consistent message of Jesus to the Jewish people is that if they continued to reject Him as the Messiah, they would eventually become completely blind to His message and ministry.

As they continued to reject the clear teaching and the accompanying signs of Jesus which proved He was the Messiah, they sank deeper and deeper into darkness (cf. Matt 12:31-45). Along the way, Jesus continued to warn them and plead with them, but they refused to repent and believe.

What this means is that the condition of being unable to understand what Jesus is saying is not something that the Jewish people began with from birth, but is a condition that developed over time as they continued to deny the truth they had heard and ignored the signs they had seen.

Rather than believe the truth about Jesus, they had chosen to believe a lie.

In John 8 and other similar texts, Jesus warned them that although they had made their choices, they were coming to the point where their choices were making them. They had denied the truth about Jesus for so long, they were now at the point where they were completely blind and deaf to the truth when it was presented to them.

This self-deception was not permanent, and could be reversed if only the people who listen to Jesus and believe in Him.

Even in this very chapter, Jesus tells them the truth and invites them to believe (John 8:24, 45-46) before their unbelief become permanent. “From a not wanting to hear develops a not able to hear, an incapacity of giving a hearing to the message of Jesus. Unbelief has become an attitude of life” (Beasley-Murray, John: WBC, 135).

A Calvinist Agrees

Interestingly, one famous Calvinist agrees with this explanation:

Jesus does not say they fail to grasp his message because they cannot follow his spoken word, his idiom, but that they fail to understand his idiom because they cannot “hear” his message. The Jews remain responsible for their own “cannot,” which, far from resulting from divine fiat, is determined by their own desire (theolusin) to perform the lusts (tas epithumias) of the devil (8:44). This “cannot,” this slavery to sin (8:34), itself stems from personal sin (Carson, Divine Sovereignty, 166).

So John 8:43 is not a statement about the lifelong inability of some people to believe in Jesus for eternal life, but is a warning to those who reject the Gospel, continuing instead to deceive themselves.

The longer we reject the truth, the harder it becomes to believe it. Jesus wanted people then (and now) to believe in Him for eternal life so that they did not die in their sins.

If you want to read more about Calvinism, check out other posts in this blog series: Words of Calvinism and the Word of God.

John 6:44 is a popular Calvinistic verse for numerous reasons. While John 6:44 is often used to defend Total Depravity, this verse (and the surround passage) is also used to defend three of the other points of TULIP. It says this:

No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:44).

John 6:44 and TULIP Calvinism

When Jesus says “no one can come to me” Calvinists see the idea of Total Depravity (and specifically, total inability).

When Jesus speaks about the drawing of the Father, Calvinists see this is as evidence of Unconditional Election.

Calvinists infer Limited Atonement from the contexts of these verses.

And when Jesus says that no one can come to Him unless it was granted to him by the Father, this is seen as proof for Irresistible Grace.

So although this verse could be discussed under any of those other sections, it will be discussed here because Total Depravity forms the foundation for those other doctrines. Besides, Calvinists tend to primarily use these verses to defend Total Depravity.

John 6:44 and Total Depravity

Here, for example, is what R. C. Sproul writes:

This statement is a universal negative proposition. It states a universal inability. The word can does not describe permission, but power or ability. To say no one can do something is to say they are unable to do it. The stark truth expressed by Jesus is that no person has the ability to come Christ on his or her own. For a person to be able to come to Christ, it must first be granted or “given” to that person to come to Christ. God must do something for us to overcome our moral inability to come to Christ. We cannot embrace Christ in the flesh. Without the aid of the Holy Spirit, we cannot come to Christ (Sproul, Grace Unknown, 136).

Refuting the Calvinistic Understanding of John 6:44

Several things can be said against the Calvinistic understanding of John 6:44.

First of all, what Jesus says is absolutely true: no one can come to the Father unless the Father draws him. However, later in the Gospel of John, Jesus states that the Father draws all people (John 12:32; 16:8).

The work of God drawing people to Jesus Christ through the convicting work of the Holy Spirit is necessary. Nobody denies that. On our own, without this drawing work of God, no person would ever seek God or turn to Him.

But saying that God draws all people is not to say that God regenerates all people, or even that, as a result of God’s drawing, people are unable to believe in Jesus for eternal life. As a result of God’s drawing work, any person can believe in Jesus for eternal life, as Jesus Himself states (John 6:40, 47).

Does Drawing Mean Dragging? NO!

One will occasionally also run into Calvinists who try to say that the word Jesus uses for “drawing” (Gk., elkō) means “dragging.”

Based on this, they may argue that sinners are dragged to Christ against their sinful will.

Of course, this sort or argument is rarely used by Calvinists because it contradicts their teaching that once a person has been regenerated by God, their will has been irresistibly changes so that they come willingly to faith in Jesus Christ.

Regardless, this sort of idea is not backed by the Greek either. While it is true that elkō can be used to drag someone against their will (cf. Acts 16:19; 21:30; Jas 2:6), when elkō is translated as “drag” it is always with malicious intent. When used in this way, it carries the connotation of mistreating someone or dragging them away for punishment (BAGD, 251).

Clearly, Jesus is not referring to any sort of punishment or mistreatment by God in John 6:44, and so it cannot mean “drag.” Furthermore, this sort of dragging away for punishment is only when the word is used of a literal action.

When elkō is used figuratively, as it is John 6:44, it refers to “the pull on man’s inner life” (BAGD, 251). So the word “draw” in John 6:44 refers to God’s pull or persuasive influence upon the heart and mind of the unregenerate.

To Draw Means to Attract or Woo

Support for this understanding is found right in John 6:45 as well where Jesus says that all will be taught by God. This is another way of explaining the work of God to draw people to Himself.

This teaching from God is carried out through conscience, creation, the convicting and convincing work of the Holy Spirit, and through special revelation such as that found in Scripture. Of course, not all who are drawn or taught by God respond positively to God.

Those who hear what God teaches, and learn from it, will respond by coming to Jesus in faith. This idea is supported by both Peter (1 Pet 1:23) and James (James 1:18), both of whom write that hearing and responding to Scripture is part of the process which leads up to the new birth.

In response to this, Calvinists will sometimes argue that if all are drawn by God, then all will receive eternal life from God. But to say that all who are drawn by God are also regenerated by God is to confuse offer of eternal life with the actual reception of it.

Just because God draws, calls, woos, or invites all people to believe in Jesus for eternal life, this does not mean that God universally and irresistibly regenerates all people. Though all are drawn, eternal life is given only to those who believe.

Does All Mean “All Children of God”?

Furthermore, some argue that the “all” of John 6:45 refers only to “all children of God” (Piper, Five Points, 27-30). They often go on to say that Jesus can only be referring to the children of God since Jesus says in John 6:46 that no one sees God except him who is from God.

Of course, this is reveals a terrible misunderstanding of this text as well. Jesus is not referring to the children of God in John 6:46, but to Himself! It is He who has come down from God, just like the manna in the wilderness (John 6:41, 48), and therefore, His words can be trusted, and in His words are life.

John 6:44 then, far from being verses about exclusion and inability, are staggering statements from Jesus that in Him, all are accepted, all are invited, and all are welcome.

Jesus has come down from heaven, not to start another religious club for a secret set of special chosen ones, but to throw open the door to God for all people.

Jesus has come to reveal Him Whom no man has ever seen, so that through Jesus, God might draw all men to Himself.

God desires that all people have life, and so God sent His Son, Jesus, into the world, so that in Jesus we might see God, and might believe in Jesus for everlasting life.

If you want to read more about Calvinism, check out other posts in this blog series: Words of Calvinism and the Word of God.

John 3:3 is one of the verses used by Calvinists to defend the idea that regeneration precedes faith.

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

According to Calvinists, when Jesus says that “unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” this means that unbelievers are spiritually blind, and cannot even see the offer of the kingdom of God, or see their need for grace and everything else that comes with the kingdom of God, unless and until they are born again.

In other words, according to Calvinists, one must be born again before he or she can see anything related to the kingdom of God, including the gospel, the forgiveness of sins, and God’s offer of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.

What Did Jesus Mean in John 3:3?

From the statement of Jesus in John 3:3 about people not being able to see the kingdom of God, it would be difficult to know what Jesus meant.

Certainly, as Calvinists claim, He could mean that people cannot even observe their need of grace and forgiveness, or see anything at all related to spiritual matters. The Greek word for “see” (Gk., eidon) can refer to seeing, perceiving, or understanding something.

Yet this is not the only way this Greek word can be understood. It can also refer to experiencing something (1 Pet 3:10; Luke 2:26; Heb 11:5), or of visiting a place or person (Luke 8:20; Acts 16:40, 1 Cor 16:7) (BAGD, 220-221). With these various interpretations, how can we know what Jesus meant when He said that unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God? By looking in the context.

John 3:3 in Context

John 3:3 is found near the beginning of a conversation Jesus has with Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus about how to be born again. After Jesus makes the statement in John 3:3 about being born again, Nicodemus gets confused, and asks Jesus to clarify (John 3:4).

So in John 3:5, Jesus rephrases His statement. He tells Nicodemus that there are two births, the first birth is physical, and consists of being born of water, that is, from a mother’s womb. The second birth is spiritual, which requires being born of the Spirit. We have physical life from our mother by being born of water, but we also need spiritual life by being born of the Spirit.

But Jesus does not stop with clarifying what it means to be born again. He also clarifies His statement about seeing the kingdom of God.

Following this clarifying statement about being born again, Jesus says that unless one is born again, they cannot “enter the kingdom of God.” In this way, Jesus clarifies exactly what He meant earlier when He spoke of seeing the kingdom. Jesus meant that only those who are born again may enter the kingdom.

John 3:3 Does Not Teach Total Inability

In other words, John 3:3 is not a verse at all about humanity’s total inability to understand, comprehend, or even see anything related to the kingdom of God, but is rather a statement about humanity’s inability to enter into or experience the rule and reign of God in the life (which is what the kingdom of God is) unless they have first been born again (BAGD, 221).

John 3:3 is not a verse which defends the Calvinistic teaching that regeneration precedes faith, but is rather a verse which teaches the biblical idea that regeneration precedes life in the kingdom of God.

To enter into the kingdom of God, we must first be born of God. To experience the life of joy, fulfillment, satisfaction, and purpose that God wants for us, we must first be born of the Spirit so that God’s new life dwells within us.

Jesus goes on to explain this very clearly to Nicodemus in John 3:15-18. Jesus does not say that unless a man is born again, he cannot believe in Jesus for eternal life (Vance, The Other Side of Calvinism, 225). He says that unless a man is born again, he cannot “see the kingdom of God,” that is, he cannot enter into and experience the rule and reign of God in his life.

So there is nothing in John 3:3 about mankind’s inability to see or comprehend anything about the gospel or the kingdom of God unless they are first regenerated by God.

To the contrary, as seen by Jesus’ own example with Nicodemus in this very text, the call of the gospel and the offer of life with God in His kingdom is one of the primary ways by which we can point unregenerate people to Jesus so that they might believe in Him and find life.

It is because people can understand the hope, grace, love, and mercy found the gospel of Jesus Christ that so many people find the gospel compelling.

It is because the biblical teaching about the kingdom of God promises joy, contentment, and significance to those who live under the rule and reign of God that the invitation to enter into the kingdom by faith in Jesus Christ has such persuasive power.

When the gospel, the kingdom of God, and the offer of eternal life are rightly proclaimed, they have great drawing power to all who are unregenerate, for they contain the light and life that people have been searching for, but not finding.

If you want to read more about Calvinism, check out other posts in this blog series: Words of Calvinism and the Word of God.