1) John presents Jesus as the Son of Man by revealing Him as being lifted up to die and His coming glorification.
2) The 'signs' point to the uniqueness and power of Jesus and His relation to God. They show Jesus to be both the Messiah and the Son of God.
3) It changes your understanding of the verse because you realize that it is God who is completely drawing us to Himself. We are always showing resistance. It reveals the love of God. It reveals His mercy, compassion, patience, longsuffering, and grace. Even though we pull away from Him He still pursues us and loves us.
I have a question here. I don’t know how much you guys know about predestination; but if the Word says that ‘God chose us before the foundation of the world’ and if he has foreknowledge, could it be possible that He saw our lives as on a ‘time line’ and knowing in advance our response to the Gospel presentations and our hearts He chose us. On the other hand… knowing the harden hearts of those who despise the Gospel, He would reject them as well? What do you think?
ReplyDeleteWhat you are talking about is a very common idea. I actually had a married couple in my church who I have a great deal of respect for who had this idea of predestination.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I don't agree with it. God is completely sovereign and when it says "He chose us before the foundation of the world" I do not believe it is in regard to Him seeing what it is that we would do in the future and making a decision of His actions based on that. We know that free will in human beings exist. And we know God's sovereignty is absolute. How those two compliment one another is a mystery in itself.