“Nobody Can Come to Me Unless it is Granted by the Father” (John 6:65) – DECALVINIZED!
“This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (John 6:65).
Calvinists claim this passage shows that people cannot freely come to Jesus. God must first grant it, which he only does for a select few (the elect). As for the rest? Well, God never wanted the rest to be saved. These people were “doomed from the womb, Calvin said.”[1]
But is this really what John 6:65 is teaching?
It’s true God must grant access to Jesus, the source of eternal life. But who does God grant this to? Believers. The faithful. The repentant. People like John the Baptist. People like the apostles. And anyone can choose to be faithful!
The Context
When Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father” (John 6:65), he was talking with the unbelieving Jews in his day (John 6:41, 61-64) who were rejecting his claims of being the Messiah. While these Jews professed to belong to God the Father, they really didn’t—which is why they ended up crucifying their long-awaited Messiah. Technically, the Romans crucified Jesus, but they did it at the behest of the Jews (see Luke 23:21).
So the reason why these Jews weren’t granted access to Jesus, the source of eternal life, is because they were imposters. Although they claimed to belong to God the Father, they were really “children of the devil,” as Jesus said in John 8:44. Therefore, they were not granted access to Jesus, the source of eternal life.
Notice what Jesus had just said a few verses earlier:
“Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me” (John 6:45).
The faithful Jews in that day—aka the righteous remnant of Israel—all came to Jesus because they recognized that Jesus and the Father “are one” (John 10:30).
And the reason why the unfaithful Jews in that day did not recognize that Jesus was the Messiah—the reason they could not come to Jesus—is that they did not know the Father. Therefore, they could not hear the Father’s voice. So the Father was not drawing them to Jesus. Had they chosen to be faithful to the Father, the Father would have drawn them to Jesus.
So the reason the unfaithful Jews in Jesus’ day weren’t granted access to Jesus—the source of eternal life—is not because God didn’t want to save them.[2] Rather, it’s because these Jews were unfaithful to God; therefore, God would not grant them access to Jesus, the source of eternal life.
That’s what John 6:65 is teaching in context.
By Alex Polyak, Answering Calvinism, 7/12/26
[1] Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Section 6.
[2] God wants the wicked to turn to him (Ezek. 33:11). God wants all to repent (2 Pet. 3:8). God wants all to be saved (1 Tim. 2:3-4).