John 12:32 does NOT teach Universalism

[JasonPratt]

This would be more pertinent if you reported their rationales. (Or if someone else would care to do so.)

The verse doesn’t explicitly teach universal salvation of all sinners from sin–or any kind of salvation at all, if it comes to that!

But it does indicate the scope of Christ’s intention and action, and that’s an important component–one shared by Arminians but denied by Calvinists. A systematic exegetical soteriology, like any other systematic exegetic theology, adds up and factors in this kind of testimony for a total position.

Any trinitarian Christian (as you profess elsewhere to be) ought to be familiar with that practice; because the total doctrinal set of orthodox trinitarianism isn’t spelled out explicitly anywhere in the Bible. We put it together from a bunch of scriptural data, each of which testifies to part of it.

To say that John 12:32 does not teach universalism, therefore, is trivially true, but only in the sense that John 12:28 (a few verses prior) “doesn’t teach trinitarianism” either. They both nevertheless witness to important components of each belief: the total scope of Christ’s intention to save in one case; and a distinction of the persons of the Father and the Son in the other case.

Similarly, to say that John 12:32 does not teach universalism, is only trivially true in the same sense that John 12:32 does not explicitly teach salvation of anyone from anything at all: we know salvation is intended there thanks to a logical relation with other related testimony, not because it explicitly says so (which it does not).

[Sherman]

Verses do not “teach” anything; rather, they communicate information and the beliefs and passions of the author. We then interpret these passages and then either gain from them (exegesis) or see in them (eisegesis) information that either affirms or denies various beliefs. And I believe we all study scripture with a mixture of exegesis and eisegesis. For many years, I too would have read Jn.12:32 from a anti-Universalist point of view and thus eisegetically interpreted it as NOT being support for Universalism. But a few years ago I sat down to, as best I could, study this and other pro-Universalism passages from an exegetical point of view. The more I studied them, doing my best to set aside my preconcieved ideas, the more I came to understand this and the other passages to support Universalism. So to me when Jesus says that “IF I be lifted up I will draw all to myself.” it sounds to me like He invisions that the trial He was about to undergo, the crucifixion, was going to have universal significance, impacting all of humanity, yes even all of creation. And when I consider the meaning and usage of “draw” elsewhere in scripture, I find that it is used to speak of the disciples “drawing” (dragging) in a net full of fish. And Jesus elsewhere in John says that no man can come to the Father except he is drawn by the Spirit. So in its literary context it seems to me that Jn.12.32 indicates that Jesus believed that the purpose of Him going to the cross was to effect the reconciliation of everything to God. It sounds to me like this is the foundation for what Paul wrote in Col.1.20.