In the last blog, I tried to give a biblical defense for the first of two highly contested conclusions Calvinists draw from Scripture concerning sin’s effect on man. The two were: (1) that through the Fall man has lost free will — at least pertaining to our ability to make positive, or God-pleasing, choices, and (2) that man cannot come to God in faith without God having done a special work of grace upon their heart first. Let us now turn our attention to the second point before discussing how these two are related and what the logical implications of these beliefs are if, in fact, they are shown to be biblical truths.
(2) Man’s Inability to Come to God: As previously stated, most Christians agree that the Fall resulted in mankind being plunged into the bondage of sin. We looked at a few passages in Scripture that establish this point. All men are born under the condemnation of God, guilty, and in need of a Savior. That we are born guilty is sometimes objected, but the very fact that we all receive the consequences of Adam’s disobedience (ie. spiritual death, as well as physical death for that matter) should prove to us that we are guilty in Adam. As our Federal Head, Adam represented us in the garden. He stood as our representative just as a king over a nation makes decisions that impact every person in his kingdom. If this concept makes us uncomfortable, let us not forget that by this same pattern we are saved, forgiven, and delivered in Christ. These are the only two categories that will exist on the judgement day: those in Adam and those in Christ. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22 ESV).
Of all the Christians who do acknowledge that we are sinners, bound by sin, I wonder how many have truly thought about what that would entail, let alone how many have looked intently at what the Scriptures have to say on the subject. When we think of bondage we think of prison bars, chains, restraints — contraptions that keep us from doing what we would really rather be doing. But this is not at all the way the Bible speaks of our bondage to sin. We enjoy sinning. We commit sins because we desire sinful things. As Jesus says, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” (Matthew 15:19 ESV). Again, elsewhere, He says, “…people loved the darkness…” (John 3:19 ESV). Paul says, too, of the Ephesians (and us by extension) that before conversion, “…we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind…” (Eph. 2:3 ESV). So we see that our bondage to sin is quite different than how we would typically imagine enslavement. In our case, we are bound to do what we want to do! The problem is that the things we want to do transgress against the Law of our thrice Holy Creator, “who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers of the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:7 ESV). This God, in mercy, did give man an internal “voice” (a conscience) that “accuses or excuse them” (Romans 2:15)— to warn, convict, and guide man. In this way, God writes His laws onto the heart of man so that he would know how he ought to live. Even this mercy we spurn. The voice within tells us not to lie, not to cheat, not to steal, not to commit wicked acts, yet we do them anyway. (C.S. Lewis brilliantly elaborates on this odd paradox in Part One of his well-known work, Mere Christianity.) This phenomenon further proves that man is in fact bound by sin; even though we know to do good, we do the opposite — over, and over, and over again. We are slaves to sin and we love to have it so.
So, we love to sin, love darkness, hate the light, bound by sin, living in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our body and mind… and what exactly does the Lord command of us? The Law of God condemns man at every step. Take the 10 Commandments for instance: serve only God, honor your parents, do not kill, do not steal, do not lust, etc. … These are the very things we are so inclined to do! To help illustrate this point, an example has often been given contrasting a lion and a rabbit. If you put a carrot and a fresh steak in a cage with a lion, one of those will most certainly be eaten and the other will be left alone. Now let the rabbit choose from the same options for dinner; the undesirable orange snack to the lion is the delight of the bunny. The rabbit has little desire for the steak, yet the lion craves the meat (and the rabbit, of course). Their choice is determined by their natures. The same applies to man. Our natures are sinful, our desires are corrupt, our wills are fallen. When presented with the choice between continuing in our sinful lusts and passions OR loving the Lord with all our hearts, mind, and strength and loving our neighbors as ourselves, which do you assume we will choose? By God’s Law all of mankind are found guilty. The prophet Jeremiah asks an interesting question and gives an answer worth considering: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.” (Jeremiah 13:23 ESV). We, “who are accustomed to do evil” (that would include everyone pre-conversion), have just as much ability to do good as a man has the ability to change his skin tone or as a leopard to remove his spots. And did not our Lord testify that, “no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit,” (Luke 6:43 ESV). Does this not explain why it is that we need God to “remove the heart of stone from (our) flesh, and give (us) a heart of flesh, that (we) may walk in (His) statutes and keep (His) rules and obey them.” (Ezekiel 11:19-20 ESV)?
We see the problem plain enough: (1)we are bad, we need to be good, or else we incur God’s wrath and just punishment. (2) We cannot be good so we need a Savior. (3) God sends His Son to be that Savior. (4) Jesus tells man to come to Him in faith and we will be saved. (5) But we CAN NOT come to Him unless the Spirit of God changes our hearts so that we WILL come to Him. (6) If we do not come, we receive the just punishment of God for our sins. (7) Those who do come have no room to boast, because they only came to faith by the grace of God.
This is the gospel in a nutshell according to the Calvinist’s understanding of the Scriptures. Now, 99% of Christians will most likely agree with 6 of the 7 points— #5 being excepted (and some may want to reword or modify #7 slightly). I’d like to wrap this part of the series up by showing how #5 is just as biblical as the other six points that we generally hold in common.
John 6:25-71 is an extremely heavy passage. This is just after Jesus fed the group of 5,000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. The crowd follows Him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee amazed by the miracle and wanting more grub. There’s no way I could give it all the attention it deserves in what’s left of this blog post. I’ll merely hit the highlights and try to show that this passage explicitly teaches exactly the 5th point I made above and leave you to study further.
Vs. 27: Jesus tells them not to work (strive for, desire) the food that perishes, but to instead strive for “the food that endures to eternal life,” and that He (“the Son of Man”) gives that food.
Vs. 32 and 35: Jesus identifies Himself as that bread — “the bread of life”. He states that those who “come to Him” and “believes in Him” will never hunger nor thirst. (Notice that He equates coming and believing.
Vs. 36-37: They saw Him, BUT, they did not believe. Then, (in vs. 37 and following) Jesus introduces this concept of God giving some people to the Son — “All that the Father gives me…”, What will these people do (those given) ? “…[they] WILL COME to me…” There’s a certainty in Jesus’s words. Those given, will come. And Christ says of those people who WILL come, “I will never cast [them] out.”
Vs. 38-39: He ties this giving of persons to the Son to the will of God in the work of Christ. He says that He has come down from heaven to do “the will of him who sent me.” (Vs. 38). What is that will? “That [Jesus] should lose nothing of all that [the Father] has given to [Jesus], but raise it up on the last day.” (Vs. 39). This will be a perfect work of Christ; He will lose none that the Father has given to Him. They WILL be saved in the end.
Vs. 40: “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” — the temptation (and is exactly what some do) would be to take this verse and then read it back into the previous verses. Some would conclude by saying “They who look on the Son and believe in Him, they are the ones God is giving to the Son. But this would destroy the flow of the text. Jesus has already said in verse 37 that the very reason why these come is BECAUSE they were given, not that they were given because they believed. Instead, if we read the dialogue the way it has been delivered to us in Scripture, we see that Jesus is again connecting the coming and believing just as He did in verse 35. The will of God is that Jesus saves those given to Him; those given WILL look and believe (ie. come to Jesus). We cannot reverse the order.
Vs. 44: “No man CAN come to [Jesus] unless the Father who sent [Jesus] draws him.” — now we are presented with a drawing ( pulling, dragging) used in connection with the previous giving. The Father must first give = the Father must first draw. We know this because Jesus goes on to pronounce the same outcome on those who the Father draws to Christ as those in verse 37 who were being given to Him — “And I will raise him up on the last day.” — thus, fulfilling the will of God in Christ. But why can “no man come [to Jesus] unless the Father draws Him” ? Hopefully I’ve already addressed this question in the first half of this post as well as the previous one: because of the hardness of their hearts, because they hate the light and love darkness, etc. Unless they are given and drawn, they WILL NOT come; They CAN NOT come.
Vs. 45: Again, let us not try to read this verse back into the previous statement (as we were tempted to do above in verse 40). They who are “taught by God” and who “has heard and learned from the Father” are those who it is said “comes to [Jesus]”. Who is it that comes to Jesus according to this whole passage? Those who are given by the Father to Him. The giving comes first, the coming follows after. The drawing comes first, the hearing and learning come after.
There is so much more that could be said of this passage. For the sake of time, I’ll leave it to you to go through it yourselves. I hope you will go back and consider the things said here as you read it again. Hopefully you can see that depending on whether you follow the text straight through OR if you come to the text with certain presuppositions of how you expect this all to work, then it’s possible to come to very different conclusions. And this is just one passage! We have to be aware of this type of danger when we read any text of Scripture. We’re called to “be diligent” in our exposition of the Word, “accurately handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15 NASB). I believe a fair, honest reading of John 6 will reveal that man cannot come to Christ unless he is given to Him by the Father. What does this giving entail?: God drawing him to Christ. And what of those given and drawn?: They WILL come to Him, they WILL look and believe in Jesus, and they WILL be raised on the last day. For this is the will of God: that Jesus saves ALL those who the Father has given Him.
These two points (that man has lost his freedom of the will, and that he cannot come to God in faith without God doing something to him first) are certainly difficult to take in upon first hearing them. They go against so many basic principles contained in the modern evangelistic message. These are definitely “hard sayings, who can listen to them” (vs. 60). Nonetheless, if the Bible teaches them, we must accept them despite our own preferences. It will be said of some, “But what about all the Whosoever passages? Whosoever believes will be saved, right?” Absolutely! But who are the “whosoevers” that will believe? Jesus tells us; they are those who are given and drawn by the Father to the Son. Exactly what is this special work of grace that is necessary before a sinner can and will come to Christ? That will be the topic of the next blog post. Until then, be blessed in the Lord.
Soli Deo Gloria
(For God’s Glory Alone)
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