Born of God, Not the Will of Man (John 1:13)

Calvinists argue that people become children of God not by choosing to do so, but by God determining it. A passage often cited in support of this view is John 1:13, which says:

Children of God are born “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).

Does this passage affirm the Calvinist view?

To start with, notice what John had just said in the previous two sentences:

“11 He came to His own [the Jews], and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:11-13).

In verse 11, John says that Jesus came to his own—the Jews—but his own did not receive him. In other words, the Jews (as a whole) rejected Jesus. Then in verse 12, John says: But to those who did receive/believe Christ, he gave them the right to become children of God. These verses explicitly show that receiving and believing Christ is man’s responsibility—not God’s.

Then in verse 13, John explains that those who received/believed Christ were born-again not of blood (bloodline/ancestry), nor of the will of flesh (physical relations), nor of the will of man (human effort/keeping the Law) but of God. In other words, it was God’s will that those who receive/believe Christ—that those who place their faith and trust in Christ—would become children of God. That’s God’s will!

Most Jews in Jesus’ day thought they were children of God simply because they were descendants of Abraham, Issaac, and Jacob (bloodline). And they believed they could expand the kingdom of God by having children (fleshly relations). They also believed that keeping the Law made someone a child of God (the will of man).

But Jesus and his disciples overturned this thinking by teaching that what matters is receiving/believing in Christ…because it is God’s will that those who receive/believe Christ become children of God.

John 1:13 has nothing to do with God determining who will receive/believe. What God has determined is that those who receive/believe in Christ become children of God. That’s God’s will! And that’s the point of this verse.

The Ultimate Question

This interpretation is confirmed in John chapter 3, where Jesus says:

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

Then Nicodemus asks the ultimate question:

“How can a man be born [again] when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (John 3:4).

Then Jesus replies:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:5-6).

In other words, one must be born again spiritually. And how does one do that? Jesus went on to explain:

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).

This is God’s will, that those who lift up/believe in Jesus become children of God. God doesn’t determine who will lift up/believe in Jesus; rather, what God has determined is that those who lift up/believe Christ become children of God. That’s God’s will! And that’s Jesus’ point.

By Alex Polyak, Answering Calvinism (.org), 1/13/25