God’s sovereingty and Man’s responsibility (The Book of John #32)

ATT: Is there someone in your life that you trust so much so that if you ever disagreed with, you go with his judgement rather than yours? In other words, If he told you do something, you bypass your judgement and do it no matter what it was? If you don’t trust anyone like that, but you always have to filter it through your judgment as to whether it’s right or not, then you are not a Christian. That person you trust more than yourself must be God.

Here’s why I start with this. As you read the Bible more in depth, there will be parts that will offend your 21st century mindset. For example, when God tells Joshua to wipe out a small nation, including women and little children. “Wipe out the soldiers, yes, but how could it ever be justified to wipe out the women and especially the children? I’m sorry, I just cannot see how a good God would command that.” What we are doing at that moment is to be the judge of God. We are judging God and measuring Him according to our sense of right and wrong. In other words, rather than trusting God, we are trusting our own sense of right and wrong. By definition, that’s not trusting God. Trusting someone has as implicit condition of trusting him over against trusting our own sense and judgement.

Here’s what trusting God looks like. “God, I don’t get it. My small head cannot figure out how killing the children could be justified. But God is way more loving than I am, and way more just that I am. “He who did not spare His own son for us, how much more will he give us all things.” (Romans 8:32) I trust that if that’s what He commanded, it was because it is the most loving thing to do for them. There must be more than what meets the eye that I cannot yet see…”

Today, we come to a passage in the Bible that will make us question the way God works. But rather than questioning Him, we trust Him that this is the best way. Let’s read and I will make some comments. Then, I will affirm three doctrines pretty clearly stated in these verses.

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

I want to focus on the last verse – “All that the father gives will come to me.”  Not some, not those who choose to come to me, not most. ALL! That is an absolute assertion. No exception. Every person that the father gives Jesus WILL come to Jesus. And just to make sure that the word “all” means all, I looked up the Greek text and the word “pan” in greek does mean “all,” “Total”, “every” “whole” What about our choice then? Don’t we have to choice in the matter? Let me leave it there for now and I will come back to it.

 

1. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

This shows me that God’s will is by no means automatic. God needed an agent in Jesus who had to act in order to bring about God’s will. Just because it was God’s will didn’t mean that it happened automatically. Someone had to will Himself to execute the will of God. Jesus, of course, acted God’s will, and what is the result? “I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” All that the father chooses will come to Jesus and none of those who come to Jesus will be lost. It’s an absolute guarantee. It’s not up to the people to hang onto Jesus to keep their salvation, but it’s Jesus who is holding onto them, protecting them, and keeping them.

 

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.”

So, Jesus has now repeated several words that convey the same thing – coming to Jesus, believing in Jesus, feeding on Jesus – which means we get our viality, energy for life from Jesus, and purpose and meaning from Jesus. How did people react to this, at the promise of eternal life?

 

1. 41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

People were offended by this. They didn’t like what Jesus said. Why? It wasn’t so much that they were disappointed that he said he’s the bread of life, because they wanted physical bread but that he said he came down from heaven, and that contradicted what they thought they knew. They thought they knew Jesus’ origin because he grew up in their town. Familiarity breeds contempt! .

How does Jesus respond to this? How would you respond to this from the crowd if you were Jesus? If I were Jesus, I would present evidence that would prove that I’m from heaven. “Hey, Ask my mother,  Mary, to tell you how I was conceived. My dad almost divorced her b/c she was pregnant with me while she was a virgin. Ask my aunty elizabeth, the mother of John the baptist my cousin, how her baby leapt for joy when she saw my mother visiting her also pregnant. There was a guy named simeon whom when he saw me, he praised God for letting Him see God’s salvation.  And the the miracles that I’ve been performing. Come on guys. Look at the evidence!”

But Jesus doesn’t go there. Instead he says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him… everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me…”

In other words, Jesus is saying, “I don’t need to explain myself to you to believe. I’ve presented plenty of evidences. But if you are still not believing, it’s because the Father has not given you to me. And if you do come to me, it’s not because you are smarter than others and can work through the evidence better than others, but it’s because my father has given you to me. So, ultimate deciding factor in you believing in me is not you or your choice, but it’s my Father.”

ILL: When I was young, I naively thought that if I can present solid evidence as to why Christianity is true, people will believe. But they won’t. Why? Because it’s not that people don’t believe for lack of evidence, people don’t believe for want of sin. They love the darkness more than the light. They don’t believe because they don’t want to believe. What changes their desire? God. God has to intervene. God has to override our will.

It does not mean that apologetics is totally useless. “We are to be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have (1 Peter 3:15).” But we must also recognize it’s limitation.

That’s the overview of the few verses we’ve read. Now to the specifics. What important doctrines is this passage teaching? At least three.

 

1. God’s grace overcomes our evil will (Irresistible Grace)  
2. 37, “All that the Father gives me will come to me…” This shows me that the decisive factor in me coming to Jesus is not me making the right choice, but God choosing me. He’s not just God offering us a plan of salvation and letting us choose. (red pill and blue pill…) If we choose right, then we shall be saved, and if don’t choose him, then we are not. If that was true, he could not say “all that the father gives me will come to me.” He should’ve said, “all those who choose right, will come to me.” so God Himself is the one doing the choosing, which means that at a certain point, He has to overcome our evil will, b/c according to many other passages, we are evil all the time.

I know this opens up a whole can of worms regarding our free-will. Doesn’t God have to let us choose? If not, aren’t we just like robots? Also, if all that the Father gives to Jesus will be saved, why doesn’t God give everyone to Jesus so that ALL will be saved? I can’t tackle all those questions because we do not have enough time and even if we did, I cannot answer everything to your satisfaction because I myself do not know the answers to many questions. But I can at least attempt it for one of these because Jesus addresses it…

What about our free-will? If God’s the one choosing who will come to Him or not, doesn’t that violate our free-will? I will say “Yes” to this question, and also add that that’s a good thing. And the reason is the second doctrine that is implicit in this passage.

 

1. We are absolutely unable to come to Him on our own (Total depravity)
2. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” In other words, no one comes to God on their own. The only way is if God draws them. We will never choose God in our natural state. Why? Because we are evil and unable to do good. Many verses in the bible that attest to this: Ephesians 2:3 – we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Is there an exception to this? Maybe, some are good? No. Romans 3:10-12, None is righteous, no, not one; 11no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

Now, for the record, I do believe in free-will. But our free-will will only choose among the evils and never from the good on our own. We are free to choose evil, but we are not free to choose good, if we define good as that which will glorify God, which is the ultimate purpose of the universe.

Then, are we just robots doing what’s programmed into us by God? No. We are different from robots in that they don’t even have that choice, nor are they conscious of that choice. They only do what they are programmed to do. But human being are conscious beings who are aware of good and evil. But we will only choose evil unless God intervenes and bends our will to choose good, which is God.

Now, before you have a cow and cry foul for God violating our free-will that way, please consider that we are not as free we think we are. For example, none of us chose where we were to be born, when we were to be born, with what physical and mental characteristics we were to born with. All those are pre-determined. At best, we are semi-autonomous beings. And unless God opened our eyes to see spiritual reality, gave us spiritual taste buds to taste that He is good, in other words, intervened and interjected our evil will, we will never turn to Him and be saved.

So, the first two teachings go together: 1) God’s grace overcomes our evil will, 2) We are absolutely unable to come to Him on our own. Now to the third doctrine Jesus teaches.

 

1. Our salvation is secure in Him (Perseverance of the saints)
2. 37 Whoever comes to me I will in no way cast out. V. 40 … everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.

This answers the question, can we lose our salvation? The answer is “no.” Not because the reason dictates we can never lose what we can never gain on our own, but there are scripture verses for it. V. 37. And many other verses like that. John 10:28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. Phil 1:6, And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. And many many other verses like these.

The picture I used to draw: Our holding onto God’s IS God’s holding onto us. (I used to think, grace is God holding onto us and faith is us holding onto God. if either let go of the hand, we will be lost). But the more accurate picture is, our holding onto God IS God’s holding onto us.) It’s not simply God enabling us to hold onto him but He is acting within us to hold onto him… so that we WILL persevere.

What about those who gave up on Christianity? Who abandoned their faith? 1 John 2:19 “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”

That’s why I’m very concerned for those who have been active in church but no longer. It may be that they are backsliding and may come back to God, but it may be that they were never HIs to begin with. They might have all the appearance of being His – tears, zeal, sacrifice, but I believe the greatest evidence is time… faithful till the end.

Three proper reactions to these three teachings. 1) God’s grace to overcome our evil will should teach us gratitude 2) We are absolutely unable to come to God on our own should teach us humiltiy. And 3) Our salvation is secure in him should teach us to abide in Him.