I WAS WRONG about John 6:29 - So is faith a gift of God?

I was wrong about John 6:29 in my last video - So how does this fit into what I believe about faith and salvation?

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[raifcluster]

Verse 37 "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out." Looking back on my 50 years as a believer, I see clearly how "off and on" my faith has been in the day to day workings of my life. It is an anchor to my soul to read the words of our Lord here. I am ever humbled and ever grateful for the Father's drawing.

[stove]

Hold the banana boat!! I know we are studying Greek grammatically and that is a great thing, but are we doing this to the SIMPLE exclusion of context? I mean the very previous verse john6:28 and the following verse 30?? It makes it abundantly clear.

The people asked “what shall we do to do the works of God” Jesus then did not dismiss them by saying reformed garb of “nothing”, He validates the question by saying “the work of God is to believe on He who He sent”. He validated their question with the response, and Jesus NEVER answered bad questions or was “trapped” by deceitfully-framed questions. So we go on verse 30 John 6:30 (NKJV) Therefore they said to Him, “What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do?

What will you do to persuade us so that WE may believe… they are asking Him to provide evidence or persuasion of some sort to cause them to believe. They are the ones responsible to believe or reject, not God. The amount of evidence given (see tyre and Sidon would have repented) IS up to Gods discretion, and that evidence presupposes any faith, and that is the gift (the evidence). The faith itself is absolutely a human faculty and therefore we are held responsible if we do not believe.

Calvinism is WRONG on this!

[rdaren]

Thank you for this wonderfully humble and candid video!

Is it not pressing Philippians 1:29 too far to say that it teaches that our response of trust is itself a gift?

The verse says, “it has been granted to you not only to believe, but also to suffer.”

The most persuasive interpretation is that the Philippians have been given the honour of suffering for Christ, rather than being left to live as believers without opportunity to suffer for him. In other words, it is the “but also” which is the gift here!

[SamSam-iygm]

Thank you for the fascinating retraction and explanation. Good job on searching for the truth. I'd like to encourage you to reexamine the Philippians 1:29-reference. Obviously, God's gracious granting involves both faith and conflict (persecution for Christ's sake). But instead of using this passage to advocate personal faith as being a gift from God, I see the context as God's incredible gifts of opportunity to believe (with its obvious benefits) and opportunity to suffer for His sake (with its benefits, a la James 1:2-4, etc.). Clearly, God doesn't Himself administer conflict or persecution to us, nor does He administer personal faith to us, since we are commanded to believe. Just a thought about Philippians 1:29. I do appreciate your help with the Greek scriptures. God bless you.

[sethtbaguley]

Videos like this are really helpful for trying to persuade others of the value of learning a Biblical language. It's kind of like having a video library of the book Exegetical Gems from Biblical Greek. Thanks for always adding value, Darryl

[bevinjohn]

My dear brother, you are again been swayed by your Calvinistic pre-suppositions. God can grant us the ability to believe and suffer for His sake but that is not the same as “effectually causing it.” (Phil 1:29). That is putting into the text what is not there. Faith comes by hearing the word of God (Rom. 10:11-14). The gospel is not impotent. It has saving power when one puts his/her trust in its saving potential..
Again in Eph 2:8, very briefly, both grace and faith are feminine nouns while gift is "neuter." So, at least in Eph 2:8, neither grace or faith is the gift of God. The whole phrase "saved by grace through faith" is the "gift" of God. Salvation is a gracious gift of God that we can encash by placing our trust in God's gracious work at the Cross. It does not say that God effectively showed down my throat this gift! Again that is reading into the text (eisegesis). Again, I do not mean to be contentious but we need to be careful, very careful, not to read into the text what is not there. My due apologies if I am disrupting the good work that you are doing.

[rhantingrhino]

Thank you for clarifying the mistake you made, and for having the humility to post such a clear explanation online. I do land on the same side as yo with regard to the whole trajectory of reasoning regarding faith in Eph 2:8. I am encouraged by your thoughtful and high expectation of those who wish to engage about this issue. Your channel has helped me quite a bit and as a pastor I deeply appreciate the 'gentle' nudge regarding rules of engagement. Thanks again, keep labouring for Christ brother. Peace and strength.

[patienceboyd]

Hi Darryl, my first thought is that this is a pretty mild Calvinist perspective! Of course it’s a short video, so you didn’t have time to get into details, but even as an Anabaptist I truly agree with a lot of what you said.

I agree that Biblically, faith is not some kind of static object/quality/”thing” that we possess; it is a verbal idea. It's also obvious that faith is not strictly a “work” by Biblical definitions, since Paul and James both go to great lengths explicitly juxtaposing the two in Romans, Galatians and James. It is a choice, a mental action.

I also agree that faith is a gift. It’s possible we might run into some disagreement when it comes to exactly what that means and looks like. My life, my mental capacity, and my salvation, my very existence are all gifts from God. There is a very real sense in which everything I am and have is a gift, including faith. The real question is, is faith a gift that God selectively gives some people and not others? And is it something that can be rebuffed or not? I believe that salvation and faith are undeserved gifts from God that are truly and freely offered to all of humanity through the preaching of the Gospel, and, based on all of Scripture being predicated on man’s responsibility for his sin and God’s imploring humanity to return to Him, that each person has the freedom and capacity to accept or reject God’s gifts, and that God has not eternally foreordained their choice.

I basically agree with your interpretation of Philippians 1:29, but again I feel there could be some eventual disagreement on whether “to you it has been granted” inherently implies 1) no choice of reception in the grantee 2) exclusive selection of the grantee not applicable to other people.

Totally agree with the Mark 7 idea that all our sinfulness comes from within us. Totally agree with your Romans 2 interpretation, that we all naturally turn away from God and in our sin nature do not seek Him, though I also believe that God genuinely calls all people back to Himself through the Gospel and we may freely choose to respond to Him.

In 1 John 5:1 (minute 11.20) I don’t see how this verse is saying anything about new birth causing belief (or vice versa). It seems to just be making a gnomic statement about inherently concurrent states of being. (Darryl, please inform me if I’m missing something here in the grammar!) Based on passages like Romans 10:10 I’m pretty certain it’s belief that causes new birth, but I think we need to go to passages other that 1 John 5:1 for either of those views.

Minute 12.10, I’m totally on board with your first word choice of “enables” describing the Holy Spirit’s work! “Cause”… eh, not so much.

Love your encouragement to develop a robust Biblical view of human nature! I think that my loosely-Arminian view paints a morally higher view of God and lower view of humanity than Calvinism. (Calvinists please take no offence, I know you love God and have a very high view of Him! I’m not trying to say that you don’t.) I believe we are certainly born with a nature to sin, and people can increasingly harden their hearts by continuing down that path to the point that God lets them go or even enables them to carry out their desires for His purposes (like Pharaoh, or the Romans 1 situation). People do not commit evil because they are unequivocally destined to do so and can’t choose to repent when they hear the Gospel, but because they genuinely choose to love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil. Nasty.

Darryl, thanks so much for your chill attitude and willingly correcting yourself! And for reading long (boring?) comments 😉 You are an inspiration.

[BSaltandLight]

Great Explanation. I am thankful for all I am learning through Biblical Mastery Academy!

[kevinobie]

Thank you for this excellent treatment of the texts. This really helps with applications for understanding the differences in head knowledge vs faith, reason and rational vs irrational thought, etc., between believers and unbelievers. I detect some insights from your Ph.D. strengths. :) Blessings!

[globalrevival]

1:26 “This is the deed that God requires” John 6:29 (NET). Thanks for clarifying this is the correct translation from the Greek. Sadly, one could have only hoped that the mainstream Bible translators would have been as honest as you in their translations used by millions of people worldwide. While you steadfastly still supported the errant translation’s idea of this verse by using other verses, it is commendable that this one verse should not be used that way any further by anybody. This is truly valuable. Thank you.

[crusaderboy]

The REB, NLT CEB, CEV and GNB also takes the genitive phrase as objective. I have found with my journey with Greek over the past five years that more dynamic translations are often very good at handling the syntactical nuance compared to the more literal approach. Also, I appreciate the humility shown by this video.

[outofsilent]

Can it be understood in this way: Faith is a gift from God, where the act of trusting or having faith (work is required in parallel with faith) is by us, but that trust can only exist when there is an object of trust available, which is a gracious gift from God?

[keitharchie]

Very very good! I do want to challenge a common reading of Eph. 2:8 that you shared, that being that the "faith" in view in v8 is the faith of the sinner. Based on everything else you stated in the vid that's an impossible idea. 1). As stated, faith proceeds regeneration therefore it can't be the cause of salvation. 2). v.8 reads "saved through faith" - given man's fallen nature no faith emanating from the sinner can satisfy the requirements of salvation - that is a perfect and pure faith. With that then, the "faith" of Eph. 2:8 can only be the "faith of Jesus Christ" as properly translated in the KJV (Rom 3:22; Gal 2:16; 2:20; 3:22; Phil 3:9) Only a perfect faith can satisfy the justice and law of God - being the stand in on behalf of sinners unto salvation. Thanks for your video and humility. Keep up the good work.

[Biblia]

Hey, I also teach Greek, and when I raised the argument from Phil 1:29, but someone points out that “believing” is a present participle meaning that the gift granted is to Christians since it indicates to continue to believe. So, that had beloved already, but suffering requires the continuity of faith, or something like that. What would you say?

[CameronSzwed]

How can you tell whether it is a subjective or objective genitive?

I was watching another of your videos, on that very subject, and you were explaining how: if the verb comes before the genitive then it is the subject of the verb, and if it comes after the genitive then it is the object of the verb.

I’m aware that word order in Greek is tricky business… But, in John 6:29, the verb does come before the genitive - so why would it not be subjective? Especially considering the context of the whole of Scripture, it makes sense if it is describing something that God does - since He works faith in us in the other passages you referenced.

Thanks for the video! I’d appreciate any feedback!

[GaylandFinch]

Look at the Greek definition for faith, I believe this will help.

[GuillaumeStein-sffj]

I have a question about the vocab pack. I’ve started “Beginning With New Testament Greek” which is the grammar you recommended. Should I wait until I finish this grammar to get the pack? Also, should I buy pare greek and flash greek or do you recommend something else to practice?

[patanthony]

John 6:29 in Greek says
This is the work of God, that you believe into whom sent that One.
Meditate on that for a while.

[NicholasproclaimerofMessiah]

I think the antecedent in John 6 v29, is that which Lord Jesus is doing, His speaking words which are Spirit and life, His giving of His body and blood, the things of His sermon; Lord Jesus' thenpresent ministry is the work of God to the result of belief. "Touto" is in an emphasized form, indicating that the antecedent is the Lord's own speaking, which is a typical case of Lord Jesus answering a question in an unexpected way. The hearers respond by asking what sign He'll show so that they may believe, so the hearers seem to have agreed with me regarding the antecedent.

I don't know why translators fail to notice the emphasis on the word "touto" and the response of the hearers, which each and both indicate that Lord Jesus has deepened the context of His answer beyond what was asked for in the question. I do understand that the more common answer is simpler, but in context it is not correct.