Unless the Father...Draws Him - John 6:44

"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws Him, and I will raise him up on the last day."

This is the key scripture verse, in my opinion, about the irresistability of God's grace. Jesus is, first of all, giving a qualification to what He just said a few moments ago.

"For this is the will of the Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day." (John 6:40)

Now He is saying that not just anyone who wants to can "come to Me". Only those who are being drawn by the Father. But this is not the aspect of God's irresistible grace that I want to discuss. Nor is it the fact that Jesus here makes it very clear that those who are drawn by the Father to the Son will inevitably believe. As He says immediately after the statement that no one can come to Me unless drawn by the Father, "and I will raise him up on the last day". There is no doubt that whoever is drawn by the Father will believe and will thus have eternal life, and thus be raised by Jesus on the last day. But this is still not what I want to talk about.

I also do not want to dwell on the fact that a short time later Jesus said that "...if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to Myself" (John 12:32).

Now we know that "all" does not mean every single person on earth, as we know there are many people who have lived and died rejecting Christ. Christ Himself said that "...the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few that find it." (Matthew 7:14) It must be that Jesus is saying that if He is lifted up (on the cross), He will draw people from every tongue, tribe, people and nation (see Revelation 5:9)

But what I really want to explain about the irresistibility of God's grace is that when God the Father draws us to Christ He attracts us to Jesus by His beauty and love, He does not drag us or forcibly compel us to believe.

I know that C.S. Lewis talked about being dragged kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God. I also know that the Greek word used here in John 6:44 refers to dragging or forcibly moving someone in Acts 21:30 and James 2:6. But as the standard Greek lexicon points out, the use of this word in a figurative sense means to "draw or attract" (see BAG, p. 251).

God, precisely because He is God, knows exactly what we need to hear and understand about Jesus to attract us to Him. God in His wisdom, love and sovereignty arranges the circumstances of our life and employs His Spirit so that in His time and His way we are drawn to Jesus because of His incredible beauty, love and greatness. As Bill Bright used to say, he was not drawn to Jesus because of a fear of hell, but rather the beauty and desirability of Christ. We are drawn to Christ by God's irresistible grace, not by God forcing us to believe something or in someone we really don't want to believe in. This is the way a lot of pastors and theologians explain God's drawing work, i.e., that God forcibly compels us to believe. What the Scripture teaches is that God "quickened" us (see Ephesians 2:5) so that we could believe, and then He draws us by showing us in an undeniable way how much we need Christ and how wonderful He truly is. As D.A. Carson puts it, "When He compels belief, it is not by the savage constraint of a rapist, but by the wonderful wooing of a lover" (The Gospel According to John, p. 293). Couldn't put it better myself. God's grace is irresistible, make no mistake about that. But that grace is attractive, not brutal. We believe not because we have to, but because we want to! Thank you, Heavenly Father!