This is a lightly edited transcript of what I actually said when I delivered this message at Spring Creek Bible Church on November 22, 2020. It differs from what I planned to say; for the prepared text, see the manuscript.
Father, thank you that we can gather as your people to worship you and consider your Word together. Open your Word to our minds and hearts; help us to apply it, love it, and live in light of it. In Jesus’ name, amen.
When the world around us is shifting and uncertain, nothing is more stabilizing than knowing who our God is, what he’s like, and what he’s doing—in the world, in the church, and in our own lives. In times like these the church takes great comfort in God’s sovereignty—his power and control over all things, over presidents and nations, economies and cultures, riots and viruses, catastrophes and climates. But even more stabilizing is a fresh realization of his sovereignty over us and our salvation. I want to focus tonight on one aspect of that: God’s work of drawing sinners to himself—and to see that the God who sovereignly draws us into his family is the same God who sovereignly keeps us and will bring us safely home.
Our text is John 6:25–69. In the preceding context Jesus had fed the five thousand and walked on water, and some of the crowd who’d had their bellies filled came looking for him. He tells them not to work for perishing food but for the food that endures to eternal life, declaring, “I am the bread of life” and that he himself is the true bread from heaven. As the crowd grumbles, he says the words at the heart of our study (v. 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.” The discourse continues through hard sayings about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, until “many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him,” and Peter confesses, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” It’s a rich passage; rather than expound it all, I’ll focus on verse 44 and touch the rest as we go.
The Sovereign Grace of God Draws Us In
Jesus is answering why these unbelieving Jews don’t know him: because the Father hasn’t drawn them. What does it mean for God to “draw” a sinner? Is it decisive? Does it always result in salvation? We’ll want to read the text carefully—that’s the difference between eisegesis (reading our ideas into a passage) and exegesis (drawing out what the author intended). In English, “draw” can be unsuccessful (“let me draw your attention to verse 44”—and you might not look) or effective (“he drew his gun,” “a horse-drawn carriage,” “they drew money from their 401(k)”). But the English isn’t what matters; the Greek word here (helkō, or the closely related helkyō) is what we need to understand, and several contextual clues point us to a decisive, effective sense.
First, the promise of resurrection in verse 44b: “I will raise him up on the last day”—there’s a connection between those the Father draws and those Jesus raises, with no dropout in between (the necessary condition of coming stands in the middle). Second, verse 65 restates verse 44 in different words: “no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” So the Father’s drawing (v. 44) corresponds to his granting the gift of coming (v. 65). Is that gift a mere enablement, leaving the outcome to us, or is it decisive? Several clues say decisive. In verse 64 the issue is why some don’t believe, and Jesus gives a single explanation in verse 65—they don’t believe because it hasn’t been granted—not two explanations (enabled but then declined). Note that throughout the passage, “coming” and “believing” are used interchangeably (v. 35: “whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst”; cf. vv. 29–30, 36–38, 40, 44–47). And can you even receive the gift of faith without exercising it? To possess faith is to exercise it—you can’t put it in storage and decide to use it later. So there’s an unbreakable continuum from drawing (v. 44) / granting to come (v. 65) to coming and believing—the necessary outcome, not merely a possible one. Verse 66 reinforces it: if Jesus were only offering a little divine help, why would his hearers find it so offensive that they turned away? Their offense suggests they understood something far more decisive.
One more clue, verse 37: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” Every last one the Father gives to the Son will come—will believe—and the only way God can guarantee that is for his work, not ours, to be decisive. (Note that the “giving” in verse 37 differs from verse 65: in verse 65 the Father gives the sinner the gift of coming; in verse 37 he gives the Son a people—repeated in verse 39, John 17:2, 24, and Hebrews 2:13.) So the same group runs the whole course—from the giving (election) in eternity (vv. 37, 39), to the drawing (vv. 44, 65), to coming and believing (throughout), to being raised on the last day. This is what theologians call the golden chain of salvation, seen most clearly in Romans 8:29–30—foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, glorification—where no one is lost. Verse 39 says it plainly: “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.” From God’s eternal plan to our eternal home there is no falling out. Verse 45 makes the same point with another metaphor: “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me”—a hearing and learning from God that guarantees coming and believing.
“Draw” Across the New Testament
Beyond John 6, this Greek word occurs eight other times—four in John, twice in Acts, twice in James—and only one of them (John 12:32) is theological; the rest are ordinary. That’s helpful, because all our great salvation terms began as everyday words, and seeing them in ordinary use sheds light on their theological meaning. In John 18:10, Peter “drew” his sword and cut off the servant’s ear—he acted effectively on it (an inanimate object, granted). In John 21:6 the disciples “were not able to haul” the net for the many fish—which only makes sense if the word means successfully drawing; you can’t say they “were not able” if the word merely meant trying. In 21:11 Peter “drew the net ashore”—fish, which have no free will. In Acts 16:19 they “dragged” Paul and Silas into the marketplace, and in 21:30 they “dragged” Paul out of the temple—effective actions, not invitations. In James 1:14 each person is tempted when he is “lured” and enticed by his own desire—lust powerfully dragging the sinner toward temptation—and in James 2:6 the rich “drag you into court.” A word of caution: some translations render these “drag,” and we shouldn’t conclude God drags us into salvation as they dragged Paul from the temple—there are different shades of meaning, to be read contextually. But what they all share is that the drawing is always effective: when someone does it, it succeeds. That’s the consistent pattern.
“I Will Draw All People” (John 12:32)
Now the other theological use: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). Bring the effectual sense here and you might think Jesus teaches universalism—but John 6 itself shows that not all believe (6:64, 66, 70). So either the word carries a different sense here (not every word must mean the same everywhere), or there are contextual clues that keep the effective idea while reading “all” rightly. I think it’s the latter. The passage (12:20–36) begins with Greeks coming to Philip, saying, “We want to see Jesus”—set against the great New Testament shift from a Jewish-centered to a Christ-centered people of God, Jews and Gentiles on equal footing, a theme especially prominent in John. In verse 31 Jesus says, “Now will the ruler of this world be cast out”—he’s about to drive Satan out and lay claim on those under his dominion, the Gentiles. So “all people” here is best read as all without distinction—all peoples, nations, races—not all without exception, every individual who ever lived. This may surprise you, but “all” in the New Testament rarely carries a completely unrestricted sense; context almost always qualifies it, just as in English. This morning my son Beckham, hearing about candy at church, declared, “I love all treats”—he didn’t mean every treat ever created (he doesn’t know them all); he meant he likes lots of kinds of treats. That’s how language works. We needn’t feel guilty, as if we’re forcing our theology on the text, when “all” is contextually constrained. And the Jew–Gentile reading is reinforced by the unbelief of the Jews described immediately after (12:37–40)—much like Paul’s argument in Romans 11, where the Gentiles are drawn in and unbelieving Israel is broken off.
So the consistent meaning of “draw” across the New Testament is effectual. Theologically, it operates much like effectual calling—a different term at the same place in God’s work of salvation, between election in eternity past and believing. This is what theologians call irresistible or effectual grace, the fourth point of the five points of Calvinism. Both drawing and calling are closely tied to regeneration, the new birth, which brings the dead sinner to life and issues in that first cry of faith—so the order runs from drawing/calling, to regeneration, to conversion (faith, coming to Jesus). We’ve seen the same concept recently: “the Lord opened” Lydia’s heart so she responded to Paul (Acts 16:14)—you could just as well say God drew her, or effectually called her—and God who “said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’” shines that same creative power into our hearts (2 Corinthians 4:6). Different metaphors, one theological reality.
The Sovereign Grace of God Keeps Us Safe
This doctrine has powerful implications for everyday life in a fallen world—it fortifies us in our struggles with sin, our temptations, and our uncertainties. The big idea: the same God who acted effectually on our hearts to bring us from death to life—who called us and drew us—is still acting on our hearts today to keep us safe through sanctification and bring us home. We see this keeping in several places. In verse 35 Jesus, the bread of life, promises that those who come and believe will have their spiritual hunger and thirst quenched permanently—a permanent satisfaction. In verse 37 we see unbreakable membership in the family: “whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” That’s a double negative in Greek, which doesn’t cancel out as in English but intensifies—“certainly not, never, in no way whatsoever”—the strongest possible negative promise. And eternal life—mentioned throughout this passage—carries both a present and a future dimension: you have eternal life now, and you will have it forever. We tend to focus on the future, but the present reality guarantees that future; the sovereign grace that begins in our drawing and continues in our sanctification will necessarily culminate in our glorification.
The Sovereign Grace of God Brings Us Home
Verses 39, 40, 44, and 54 make it unmistakable—four times Jesus says, “I will raise him up on the last day.” Once wasn’t enough; he says it four times to make crystal clear that he will succeed in raising up every last one the Father gave him, drew to him, and brought to faith. That’s something to take confidence in amid our daily struggles with sin: God is sovereign, his promises are unfailing, and he will accomplish his purposes. One of my favorite hymns—an old one made new—captures it: “When I fear my faith will fail, Christ will hold me fast….I could never keep my hold through life’s fearful path; for my love is often cold—he must hold me fast….Those he saves are his delight….He’ll not let my soul be lost; his promises shall last; bought by him at such a cost, he will hold me fast.”
Whenever we focus on one truth, we risk distorting a balancing one, so let me state what should be obvious: God’s sovereign work of calling, preserving, and glorifying us is not against our will but through it. He works so that we willingly come, willingly believe, and willingly repent, work, and persevere. We mustn’t sit idly by at any stage—there is no salvation without coming and believing, without pursuing holiness, without fighting and persevering to the end. But underneath it all is the sovereign, invincible, drawing grace of God, who has promised to bring us safely home. Four brief applications. First, this should make us humble—salvation from beginning to end is all of grace, undeserved and free; “what do you have that you did not receive?” Second, it should move us to worship—the goal of God’s grace is the magnifying of his glory, and if this grace doesn’t stir your heart, you may not yet know it. Third, it should give us confidence and hope—the invincible purposes of the eternal, omnipotent, triune God are unwaveringly for you; the God who overcame your unbelief at conversion can overcome your weak faith now and guarantee your safe arrival home. And fourth, it should motivate us—to believe, strive, and persevere to our final breath, giving God all the credit; a proper view of sovereign grace never makes us passive but, as the New Testament constantly shows, moves us to work, run, and fight.
Pray with me. Our Father, thank you for this amazing and mysterious sovereign grace—grace given us in Christ from all eternity, displayed at Calvary, that raised us from spiritual death, that won’t let us go and holds us fast, that will invincibly bring us safely home. May we believe this grace, love it and the God of it, teach and defend it, be driven by it, and live for the praise of the glory of your grace. Grant us such stability and rootedness in union with Jesus and his gospel that we are unshakable in the days and years ahead. We don’t know what they hold—but you do, and we know that you hold us. In Jesus’ name, amen.