#fallingaway

Finally, in John 6:67, Jesus turns to His twelve hand-picked disciples and asks them the question, “Do you also want to go away?” It’s an interesting question because Jesus chose or elected the Twelve...Calvinists should truly examine John 6:67 because it doesn’t lend credence to their convictions about God and man in salvation. Here we see the divine election doesn’t eliminate the possibility of departing from Christ or falling away from the gospel. The Twelve were chosen by Jesus, yet Jesus gives them an option to depart. If Jesus handpicks them, yet says they can leave, why do Calvinists insist that modern-day disciples, the elect, cannot fall away from Christ or depart from the faith if they too, are elected by God?

Winter of the Heart

To go from being graced by the Lord to being deserted by the Lord (Saul) shows that God’s grace is resistible and that the elect, contrary to John Calvin, can fall away. To go from being elected by God to be a disciple, then have Satan enter him (Judas) are signs that, contra John Calvin, the elect can fall away. When your theological system cannot accommodate the hardest cases of Scripture, it is a good indication that your theological system is flawed beyond repair. Calvinism can attempt to explain the salvation of others, but Saul, Judas, Demas, and other apostates in Scripture don’t find an accurate explanation in Calvinism. If God regenerates individuals who can then fall away from God, then regeneration isn’t irresistible. It is resistible, plain and simple. A resistible regeneration suggests that God is committed to human choice, genuine human freedom.

Jesus lost none of those God the Father gave Him, except for Judas. Judas was one of those given who didn’t remain. As Jesus called Judas “Friend,” He also called the other eleven disciples His friends as well (John 15:15). This tells us that Judas wasn’t just a “decoy disciple” masquerading as a real one in order to betray Jesus. And Judas didn’t become a disciple with the intention to betray Jesus from the beginning. Apostasy, or falling away from the gospel and Christ, just doesn’t happen like that. His love of money doesn’t sit well with his election to salvation, but then and again, sin never sits well with God’s calling in the lives of His children. To see Judas in proper perspective, we must see ourselves and realize that we, like Judas, have our own sin. Does that sin nullify our election? No. But sin can destroy our election if we do not cling to Christ and leave sin behind. Judas couldn’t part with his sin and, when given the choice, left Christ instead. What did it profit him to gain thirty pieces of silver while losing his own soul?

Jesus asks the disciples if they want to depart from Him (John 6). It doesn't appear from Jesus' words that the disciples couldn't depart, but rather, that they had a free will choice and they could stay or go. When Peter, the leader of the group speaks, he asks Jesus in response to His question, 'Lord, to whom shall we go?' (John 6:66). Peter assumes that he can depart from Christ, and that the disciples can too. So, his question is the logical next step: "If we disciples can leave Jesus, where, or to whom, do we go? Who can we turn to if we turn away from Jesus?' This doesn't sound as though Peter believed he couldn't depart from Jesus. Rather, Peter believed that, if he departed, no one else had the words of eternal life. He couldn't have eternal life if he departed from Christ.