What were the attributes of Jesus that drew sinners to Him?

Maybe I can try to answer that question by asking, “How would you answer it?” You could answer it by reading the Gospels and seeing what it was about Jesus that drew people to Him. That would be a revolutionary study for some people. I have a suspicion that many people read the Gospels and try to find themselves in them. This study would help reverse that tendency so they can see that all of the focus in the Gospels is not on the people Jesus met but who Jesus was to the people He met.

You could go to John 3 and ask, “What was it about Jesus that drew Nicodemus to Him?” Nicodemus was the great theologian of Israel. What drew him to Jesus was the sense that there was something about Jesus’ teaching that had the ring of truth about it.

Then, there is the woman in John 4. What was it that mysteriously drew this woman? It was the sense that Jesus had exposed who she really was. When she ran off to tell the neighborhood, she said, “This man told me everything I have ever done.” While Jesus didn’t literally tell her everything she had ever done, she realized that in the presence of Jesus, she was discovering who she really was.

If you go through the whole of John’s gospel and the other Gospels, you will find that there was a compassion that drew people to Jesus. There was a patience that drew people to Jesus. In a wonderful way, there was a willingness in Jesus to pause for the people who did not think anyone really cared about them. You can work through the Gospels and learn about Christ as well as the answers to that question.

This transcript is from a live Ask Ligonier event with Sinclair Ferguson and has been lightly edited for readability. To ask Ligonier a biblical or theological question, email ask@ligonier.org or message us on Facebook or Twitter.