Only Jesus can meet our deepest spiritual hunger. Yet no one will come to Christ for eternal life unless the Father draws them. In this sermon, R.C. Sproul explains why instead of taking offense at Jesus’ words, we should take rest in them.

I will be reading this morning from John 6:35–51:

And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

The Jews then complained about Him, because He said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” And they said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

Jesus therefore answered and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let him hear it. You may be seated. Let us pray.

O God, this text is so rich, and we are so poor. It is so strong, and we are so weak. It is so deep, and we are so shallow. How can we understand these things unless You open them by the illumination of Your Spirit? So, we ask for that even now. Amen.

Teach What the Bible Teaches

I received a letter from a woman who said that she had subscribed to Tabletalk magazine for many years and had been diligently reading the daily devotions. That year, the daily devotions were based upon a commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans, written by the late James Montgomery Boice. The woman went on to say that she read the pages covering the doctrine of predestination, and she wrote: “I want to cancel my subscription. I will no longer read that magazine because I don’t believe in predestination.” I thought, “I’m glad she didn’t say she would no longer read Paul’s letter to the Romans, but that she was satisfied simply to discard this daily devotional that we had provided for her.”

That response to the doctrine of predestination is not unusual, I am sorry to say. Some people get very exercised about it, while others who struggle with it will go the second mile and search the Scriptures to learn what they teach.

I remind you that when I preached through Romans and we came to those passages in Romans 8 and 9, I told you my own pilgrimage of struggling with them. When I was a student in seminary, I had a card on my desk that read, “You are responsible to believe and to teach what the Bible teaches, not what you would like it to teach.”

I find that, even now, I still struggle with certain things that are plainly taught in the Word of God that I do not like. I have come to realize that when there is something in the Word of God that I do not like, the problem is not with the Word of God. It is with me.

I say this before we come to the difficult and profound text I just read for you—a text that those who love the doctrines of grace can only read with chills going up and down their spine, so magnificent is it. In this discourse on the bread of life, we have Jesus’ pronouncement that He has descended to this world from heaven. Just as manna, which perished, came from heaven, so the living bread has descended from the Father’s presence.

Not all of those who rushed to listen to Jesus after seeing His miracles, particularly the feeding of the five thousand, were pleased by the content of this discourse. We will see next time that at the end of this discourse, after they listened to this speech that is so manifestly predestinarian, many of those who had been following Jesus and claimed to be His disciples cancelled their subscription and walked no more with Him.

All That the Father Gives Me

Let us take a few moments to look at some of this difficult text. When Jesus announces that He is the bread of life, He says that those who had seen Him did not believe. In verse 37, we have this crucial text where Jesus says, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.”

Ladies and gentlemen, if we understood the importance of this single verse of Scripture, all the theological battles of the ages over election, divine sovereignty, and human responsibility would vanish, because here it is in this text. Notice what our Lord says. He is talking about those who will come to Him, respond to Him, receive Him, embrace Him, and place their trust in Him. He says, “All that the Father has given to Me will come to Me.”

I want us to understand a couple of things about this pronouncement. The first thing that Jesus is teaching those who are gathered, including His disciples, is that the Father has determined a number of people who will come to the Son. They are the gifts of the Father to the Son. We will review this again when we get into the Upper Room Discourse and the great High Priestly Prayer of Jesus, where He prays for those whom the Father has given Him and rejoices that none whom the Father has given to Him will ever be lost.

The deepest theological question I can think of, the one I have no adequate answer for, is the question, “Why me?” My students come to me with all kinds of conundrums from theology, but they rarely ask the question, “Why did God save me?” It is almost a given, as if they are thinking: “Why wouldn’t He save me? Heaven really wouldn’t be what it ought to be if I’m not there.”

We have little aphorisms like, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Do we really believe that? Are we really amazed by the measure of God’s grace that He has poured out on us? Can we say with John, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God” (1 John 3:1)? I cannot give a single reason under heaven why God would save me other than—as the prophet Isaiah says in Isaiah 53—that the Suffering Servant of Israel would see the travail of His soul and be satisfied. God has determined to honor His Son by giving to His Son adopted brothers and sisters in His family.

The only reason, in the final analysis, that you are a Christian is that the Father wants to honor the Son. From all eternity, He determined that the Son’s work would not be in vain and that He would be the firstborn of many brethren. He did not just determine to make salvation possible and then step back and cross His fingers, hoping that someone would take advantage of the ministry of Jesus. But God the Father, from all eternity, determined to make salvation certain for those whom He has determined to give to His Son.

None Will Be Lost

Our Lord said, “All that the Father has given Me come to Me.” That is the rock of offense. That is the thing we trip over. That suggests God does not intend to save everyone. A few weeks ago, my doctor asked me: “R.C., I struggle with limited atonement, the idea that God did not intend to save everyone. How am I going to handle that?”

I said: “Let me ask you a question. When you prescribe medicine for me, do you cross your fingers and hope that it will have some healing impact on my life? Or do you have a reasonable degree of confidence that the medicine you prescribe will actually effect what you intended it to effect?” She answered: “It’s the latter.”

I responded: “You’re educated. You’re a doctor, but you’re still mortal. You’re finite. You don’t have omniscience. You don’t know for sure that the medicine you prescribe will do what you want it to do. I may be one of that small percentage of people who has a violent reaction to that medicine, and you don’t know that in advance. Nevertheless, you prescribe it with great hope.”

Then, I said: “But let’s think about God. Do you think that when God planned His way of salvation, He just threw some medicine out there and hoped that some would take advantage of it and be healed? Or did He know the effect that it would have and sovereignly determine that people were going to be healed by the medicine of His grace, to honor His Son?” She said, “I never thought about it that way.”

So, there are some salutary benefits to my illnesses, at least for the sake of my doctor. How wonderful it would be if she could heal my body and I could heal her soul—but I cannot. But this is how most people interpret this text. The overwhelming majority of Christians today are what we call semi-Pelagian in their theology. Here is the way they would write these words: “All who come to Me, the Father will give to Me.” That is Arminianism. We come; we decide. Then, the Father recognizes our decision and makes us gifts to His Son.

That is not the way Jesus taught it. Jesus said, in essence: “The ones that the Father has given Me will come to Me, every one of them, and those who come”—which are the ones whom the Father gives—“I will by no means cast out.”

There is a technical grammatical structure here, and what Jesus is saying so manifestly is this: “All who the Father gives to Me, when they come to Me, will never be sent out. They will never be separated from Me. When the Father gives Me someone, and that person comes to Me, they are Mine forever.” This is not just unconditional election. This is not just effectual grace. It is the perseverance of the saints with a vengeance.

Jesus is saying to them, “Those who went out from Me were never a part of Me.” If you have it, you never lose it; and if you lose it, you never had it. “None that the Father gives to Me will be lost.” The only one who will be lost is the one who was the son of perdition from the beginning, referring to Judas.

Then Jesus expounds this even further, and while He expounds it, He confounds His listeners. “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me.” Think about this personally. If you have come to Christ, it is because the Father in heaven gave you to His only begotten Son. It does not get any better than that. Jesus continues, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” You want to know what God’s will is? “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing.”

God’s will regarding those whom He gives to the Son, whom the Bible over and over again describes as the elect, those who are called and chosen by God, is this: “that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

The Father Compels

At this point, the Jews complain, and they say: “Why do You say You have come down from heaven? Isn’t this Joseph and Mary’s son? We know their family. We’ve seen them around Nazareth. How can He say that He comes down from heaven?” Then He answers them, “Stop the murmuring.” He gives this statement in verse 44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Put on your thinking caps for just a second. Remember your grammar from when you went to elementary school; remember your logic. Jesus makes this astonishing pronouncement in the form of a universal negative proposition. “No man”—which means in the text, “No person,” not just referring to males—is a universal negative proposition, which allows for no exceptions.

What is it that is universally negative about people? What is it that no man does? Jesus says that no man “can.” He is talking about a universal condition due to our fallenness, which we call moral inability. There is something that no human being has the power or ability to do. That is what He is telling these people. He says, “Listen, no one can do—” something. What is it that no one can do? “No one can come to Me.”

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, but no one even has the ability to come to Me unless . . .” That little word “unless” signals the presence of a necessary condition, a sine qua non, something that must take place before the desired result happens. In this text—and we will see it again later—He is saying, “No one has the power or the ability to come to Me unless the Father draws him.”

Let us look at that. No one can come to Jesus unless the Father does something. This translation, which I think reflects the influence of semi-Pelagianism in the history of the church more than sound translation, uses the word “draw.” “No one can come to Me,” Jesus says, “unless the Father draws him.”

When we talk about drawing people, we think of flies and honey. We think of trying to woo, entice, or persuade. It is not that no one can come to Jesus unless the preacher persuades him, but no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him. If you look at the Greek word here in Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, the most definitive lexicographical source for the meaning of Greek words in the New Testament, the translation of this term is the word compel.

Why is compel not here in the English text? It is not here for the same reason that the people walked away when they heard Jesus give the original message. People do not like it. It is not as though Jesus says, “No one is going to come to Me unless the Father woos them, entices them, tries to attract them to Me.” No, the Greek word is much stronger. It is the same word used in the book of Acts when Paul and Silas are dragged into prison. It is not that the prison guard got inside the cell and tried to woo Paul and Silas to come inside.

When we studied Romans, I told you about an experience I had in a public debate at a Methodist Arminian seminary in the Midwest. I was debating the head of the New Testament department on the doctrine of election, and we were looking at this very text. I was pointing out to him that this word means “to compel,” not “to entice,” or “to woo.” He quoted an obscure text from the secular literature of ancient Greece in which the same Greek word was used to mean drawing water from a well.

He said, “Now Dr. Sproul, when you get water out of a well, do you compel or drag it out of the well?” Everyone roared, and I said: “You got me there. I didn’t even know that that text existed in classical Greek.” I said: “But let me ask you, how do you get water out of a well? Do you look down and say, ‘Here, water, water, water’? Do you woo it out? Of course not. That water is inert. You have to get it. It’s not able—unless it’s an artesian well—to come up out of there for you.”

That is our human condition, and that is what Jesus is saying. We are so corrupt in our hearts, and our hearts have been so hardened toward the things of God that the same thing He told Nicodemus is true of us: “You can’t even see the kingdom of God unless God the Holy Spirit does something to your heart, illumines your mind, and changes your heart of stone into a heart of flesh. Where before you were completely unwilling and morally incapable of coming to Christ, now, if the Father wants you to come to Christ for the sake of Christ, He will effectually draw you to His beloved Son.”

God’s Merciful Call

If you are a Christian, that is exactly what God did to you. He brought you to the bread of life, the bread who comes down from heaven. Please do not despise the marvelous work of grace that God has done in your soul. Please do not take credit for what God has so mercifully done for you by working in you, by removing the blinders from your eyes and the wax from your ears. He has given you the capacity to hear the Word of God, to see the sweetness and loveliness of the Savior.

I can hardly stand this text—it is so magnificent when I think that the Father has given me to His Son. The Father has prepared a bride for the Bridegroom, and we are that bride, if we are in Christ. Not only does He come to us to open our eyes initially, to regenerate our souls and change the disposition of our hearts, but He comes every time we come to the Lord’s table. He comes that we may feast upon Him, that we may taste anew of the living bread that comes down from heaven and be strengthened internally by Him who is our Savior.

So now, I invite every person here who is a Christian, who has seriously examined their own soul, who is not under the discipline of an evangelical church, who wants to come to the fountain to drink freely, and who wants to be fed by the eternal bread of life to come to His table this morning. I remind you of the words of institution, that in the night in which our Savior was betrayed, He took bread, and when He had blessed it, He broke it, and said to His disciples, “This is now My body, broken for you. Take and eat.” After they had eaten, in the same manner He took the cup, and when He had blessed it He said, “This is now the cup of the new covenant, a covenant that is established through the shedding of My blood for you.” As often as you drink of it and eat of these things, you show forth the Lord’s death until He comes. Let us pray.

Father, first of all, prepare us for this meeting with Christ. We ask that You prepare these ordinary, common elements of bread and wine by sanctifying them and setting them apart for an uncommon purpose, that they may be the sign and the seal of the efficacy of the death of Christ for us. O Father, draw us to Christ in His immediate presence. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.