The Irresistible Call of the Gospel (5)

 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God.  Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.  John 6:44, 45.

We have discussed this important text in John's Gospel narrative for a number of issues, but we have two or three more points that need to be made.

Our readers will remember that we ended the last article with an emphasis on the fact that drawing a sinner to Christ could only be God's work because the difficulty of doing such a work lies beyond human capability.  The sinner is completely resistant to such a work, and that resistance must be overcome.

C. S. Lewis, in his description of his conversion, said that he was drawn kicking and fighting into the kingdom of Christ so that, without a doubt, he was England's most reluctant convert.

Is this an accurate picture of how the Father brings His people to Christ?

The answer must be an emphatic, No!  We are not dragged fighting and screaming to Christ so that we are, against our will, jarringly set down at Christ's feet whether we like it or not.  God does not work that way.

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That God does not work that way is already suggested by the fact that Christ uses the word, "Father" in the text.  "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him."

Jesus is referring, first of all, to His own relation to God by His use of the word "Father."  The triune God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and as Christ's Father, the triune God sent Christ into the world to carry out the mission of divine redemption and to do all that had to be done for salvation to be accomplished.

That is why Christ adds the words, ". . . the Father which hath sent me . . . ."

But God is also the Father of His people -- for Christ's sake.  God and His elect people form a family.  It is a family in which the triune God is Father, Christ is the elder Brother and Heir of the birthright; and in which all the elect are brothers and sisters in Christ.  It is a covenant family.

But the members of the family are so only by God's sovereign choice, not by their choice.  They are, by nature, of their father, the devil, whose works they do -- as Jesus reminded the Jews who did not believe in Him.  And so they have to be made members of the family.  They are made members, of course, by the great work of adoption (Eph. 1:5).  But here the emphasis is different.  They are made members by the gracious work of their Father.  And a father always deals patiently, lovingly, tenderly with his children.

So God does the same.  He makes us members of His family by the work of salvation which He works within our hearts.  It begins with regeneration, by which we are "born again" into spiritual sonship within the family of God.  But it includes all the work of salvation by which we more and more are "conformed unto the image of God's dear Son" (Rom. 8:29).  That work includes conversion, faith, sanctification, justification, preservation and glorification.

But here in the text the emphasis falls on faith -- a faith which comes to expression in our coming to Christ.  That faith is also the gift of God (Eph. 2:8, 9), but it is worked by God in such a way that out minds are enlightened so that we are able to understand spiritual things -- that we are hopelessly lost sinners, and that all our salvation is only in Christ.  And God works in us so that our wills are changed so radically that, while once we were opposed to all that is of God and violently hateful of His will, we now long to come to Christ.  We are even able to sing: "As pants the hart for streams of living water, so thirsts my soul, O God, for Thee."

That is an astonishing work of God whereby He makes saints out of sinners, men and women who pray and sing God's praises instead of blaspheming, people who run to Christ instead of crucifying Him, and humble folk who bow in worship before Him, in Whose face they once shook their fists.

They come to Christ willingly, longingly, eagerly, impatiently; but they come so because that is how their Father draws them.

This is the meaning of verse 45.  But that must wait till next time.