John 20:31 is commonly cited in non-Calvinist arguments against the idea that regeneration precedes faith. John states the purpose of his entire Gospel: "these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." The non-Calvinist argument is that John puts believing first and life second, and that he wrote his Gospel expecting readers to respond to it.

The Purpose of John's Gospel

The verse comes at the close of the Gospel's main narrative. John has just recorded Thomas's confession, "My Lord and my God!" and Jesus' words, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (20:28–29). He then explains why he has written:

"Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." (John 20:30–31)

Two purpose clauses follow one another: so that you may believe, and so that by believing you may have life. John selected his material, the signs and the words of Jesus, as evidence meant to produce faith in those who read it.

How Calvinists Read the Order

Calvinists hold that a person must first be born again before they can believe, because the natural person is spiritually dead and unable to respond. The Calvinist reply to John 20:31 is usually that "life" here means the full experience of eternal life, not the initial new birth, and that John elsewhere teaches regeneration comes first: those who believe were "born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13), and "everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God" (1 John 5:1).

What the Passage Establishes

The verse states an order, and it states it plainly: believing, then life. By believing, you may have life: the believing is how the life is received. John does not say "these are written so that, having been given life, you may believe." Nothing in the verse suggests the reader must first be regenerated before the signs can do their work.

John's Gospel says the same thing repeatedly. "Whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (3:16). "Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life" (5:24). "You refuse to come to me that you may have life" (5:40). And John 1:12–13 puts believing first as well: "to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." Verse 13 describes the source of that new birth, God rather than human descent, not its timing relative to faith.

Life as John Uses the Word

The Calvinist distinction between new birth and "life" in John 20:31 is hard to sustain in John's own vocabulary. For John, eternal life is not only a future experience; it is something the believer "has" now (3:36; 5:24), and it is the same life Jesus describes as being born again (3:3–16). Jesus moves directly from "you must be born again" (3:7) to "whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (3:15). In John, life is what faith receives. We look at 1 John 5:1 and the grammatical argument in more detail under Regeneration Precedes Faith.

Conclusion

John wrote his Gospel to be believed, and he expected that believing to result in life. That is the plain order of John 20:31, and it is the order of the whole Gospel. The verse does not by itself settle every question about how God draws people to Christ, but it does show that John thought of the written word as the means through which people come to faith, and of life as what they receive by believing. See more passages where faith precedes regeneration.