Bro. John,
Why do the two following verses seem to contradict each other?
John 17:6 (before Pentecost): “Yours they were and you gave them to me.”
Romans 8:9 (after Pentecost): “Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”
We know they must not contradict each other, but what did Jesus mean in John 17?
Jack and Beverly
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Jesus meant that God was the One dealing with the Israelites, not the Son. It was the Father who made a covenant with Abraham; It was the Father whose back made Moses’s face to shine; it was the Father that Ezekiel saw in the vision by the Chebar River in Babylon. But not, in this New Covenant, as Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father but by me.”
My father explained it to us like this: If a manufacturing plant changes owners, the workers in the plant (the OT Jews) do not have to submit to the new owner in order to be employees of the plant; they are already employees. But they have to submit to the new owner if they want to remain employees of the plant. The Jews were God’s covenant people, but when the Father revealed His Son and turned everything over to him, the Jews had to submit to the Son (= be baptized with the holy ghost) in order to remain the covenant people of God.
Pastor John
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We think we understand what you’re saying, but one thing remains unclear. The main question we had was, why does it seem that Jesus said in John 17 that the Jews were already his if they didn’t have the spirit yet? Or was he just saying that they were *going* to be?
Jack and Beverly
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The Old Testament Israelites were God’s people without having the Spirit. Nobody had to have the Spirit to belong to God in the OT. They only had to belong to the circumcised nation. Circumcision was the OT “sign of the covenant”, and it was given to the Israelite nation (beginning with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). Speaking in tongues, or “stammering lips” is the NT sign of God’s covenant. So, Paul was simply referring to the NT way of belonging to God: the baptism of the holy ghost (with the evidence of speaking in tongues).
Pastor John
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We understand that circumcision was the sign of belonging to God under the old covenant, and that having the spirit is the sign now. We also understand that it was the Father, not the Son, dealing with Israel in the old testament. Maybe we can rephrase the question.
The Son, in John 17, said that the Father had given His people to him. Yet we thought that God didn’t give His people to Christ until after He accepted Christ’s sacrifice, after he was crucified and ascended. Paul’s definition of a person belonging to Christ (i.e., having the spirit of Christ) seems to contradict the idea that God had already given His people to Christ in John 17.
Maybe our question is better rephrased as: At what point did God give His people to His Son? From what Jesus said, our assumption about it being at Pentecost is wrong, and it was at some point before John 17. Was it when he began teaching, or when John the baptist started baptizing perhaps?
Jack and Beverly
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OK. Thanks for making the question clear. I apologize for being so slow to catch on.
First of all, that the disciples were born again and became God’s first New Testament children on the day of Pentecost is not an “assumption”; it is a revelation. And that is what Paul was teaching in Romans 8:9.
Secondly, God giving to His Son the ones who believed in him before Pentecost does not force the conclusion that the disciples were the New Testament people of God while Jesus was here, walking among them. That was impossible, “for Jesus was not yet glorified.” Do you not know that God could have given His Son anything at any time, or in this case, could give His Son anybody at any time, without that person being born again? That’s where Jesus was coming from in John 17:6.
Thirdly, in case John 17:6 still gives you problems, let me point out that Jesus occasionally spoke of the future as if it was already present, as in John 16:11, 17:24, and 20:21-22.
You’re thinking too hard and too much. Take a break. Logic cannot lead us into the knowledge and kingdom of God.
Pastor John