R.C. Sproul

Now, I'm going to present two verses that are often used by the various combatants in this particular controversy.

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times, that John 3.16 says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Now, the question is, what does that verse teach about fallen man's ability to believe on Christ without any assistance from God?

What does it say explicitly?

I think we can answer that without bias, without prejudice, by strictly applying the formal laws of immediate inference to the text.

Dear friends, that text says nothing explicitly about who will believe or who will not believe, about who can believe or who is not able to believe.

Now, it certainly leaves us with the impression when the statement is given universally, whoever believes...

You know, it suggests that anybody can believe.

It doesn't say that, but it does suggest it.

And it leaves us with that possibility as an inference, but it's not a necessary inference.

It's not something that the words demand we infer.

What the text explicitly says is this.

Whoever believes...

will not perish but have everlasting life.

So we can say, set that in logical categories, whoever does A will receive B or avoid B. Whoever believes, if you believe, you can be sure you won't perish and you will have everlasting life.

That's what it teaches explicitly.

Implicitly, it might suggest that

that anybody on their own steam can believe in Jesus.

Then we come over to John, the sixth chapter, and Jesus is talking about this very subject.

And Jesus says to his disciples, as part of his teaching ministry, no man can come to me unless it is given to him of the Father.