In our last session in our
study of predestination, we looked at the
concept of free will, and at the end of that
lecture I set forth some ideas that were originally
presented by Jonathan Edwards and also by Saint Augustine,
some references to Luther and to John Calvin. But as much respect
as we may or may not have for these great teachers
in the history of the church, I think we would all recognize
that none of them individually, and all of them
collectively are to be regarded as infallible
teaching authorities. And so, we need to
go to the next step as we examine the whole question
of man's moral ability, or lack of it, and listen to what
our Lord Himself teaches because though we may be prone
to disagree with Augustine or Luther or Calvin, or
any other great teacher, far be it from us to stand
in opposition to the teaching of Christ Himself. So in this session, I want
us to give some attention now to some very crucial
statements that Jesus made regarding man's
ability, or the lack of it. I'll turn our
attention, first of all, to the sixth chapter
of John's Gospel, where Jesus says in verse
65, "And He was saying, 'For this reason I have said to
you that no one can come to Me unless it is given to him by
the Father.'" Now let's look at that verse: "No one can come
to Me unless it is given to him by the Father." The first two words in
this statement, "no one," - or some translations
read "no man, no person" - "no one," that
statement, if we apply the categories
of logic to this and the laws of immediate
inference and so on, we see that this
statement is what we call a universal negative. That is to say, it
is all-inclusive. What Jesus is saying
is, without exception, there is no human
being, who (whatever it is He's going to say about
them), that is, can come to Him unless it is given
to him of the Father. So this is an absolute. It's a negative absolute, and
we have to understand that. Now the next word is also
crucial to our understanding. It is the word "can." No one "can." Now the word "can,"
or at least the word that is used in the Greek
text, is less ambiguous than the word "can"
is in our language because in our language
the word "can" is often mistaken for what other word? "May." That's right. We've all been
corrected - I remember when we were children
and going to school, and we'd put our hands
up and say, "Teacher, can I sharpen my pencil?" And she would always
say, "I'm sure you can, and you also may." And she would then
take that opportunity to teach us that lesson that
seems so difficult for us to learn of the difference
between the word "may," which suggests permission,
and the word "can." The word "can" has
to do with ability. So what this verse is saying is
that, to say that no man "can," is to say that no one has
the ability to do something. If I say no one can
run 30 miles an hour, that means no one
has the ability to run 30 miles an hour,
or 300 miles an hour. (I don't know how
fast people can run). All right, now what is it that
no one has the ability to do, that Jesus is
talking about here? No one has the ability
to "come to Me," He says. Now let me ask this question:
Does man, in and of himself, according to Jesus, have the
ability to come to Jesus? No. Do some men have
the ability to come to Jesus in and of themselves? No. No man can come
to Jesus - "No man can come to Me,
unless" Now we see a clause that follows that
we call an exceptive clause. "Unless" introduces
an exception. And "unless" points to
what we call in philosophy a necessary condition. Now, what is a
necessary condition? A prerequisite. Something that has to
happen before something else can possibly happen. That's what a prerequisite is. And so Jesus is
saying that there is a necessary condition
that must be met before anyone can come to Him. Now what does He
identify in this verse as the necessary
condition for anyone to be able to come to Him? "Unless the Father
gives it to him." Or, other translations, "unless
it is granted by the Father." Another translation
reads, "unless the Father enables him." Now those words don't
all mean the same thing. "To grant" means
to give permission. "To give" means to give a gift. And "to enable"
means to empower. All right? So, there is a
certain ambiguity here about what that
necessary condition is, and there's another question
that is still hanging out here, and that is, if a necessary
condition is provided - now we're not talking
about coming to Jesus - in any situation, if a
necessary condition is provided in a situation, does
a necessary condition guarantee that the result you
want will in fact take place? No. That's why we make a distinction
between necessary conditions and sufficient conditions. A sufficient condition is a
condition that if it is met, guarantees the result. It suffices. An example of a
necessary condition would be in the case of fire. If you want to
build a fire, oxygen is a necessary condition
for there to be a fire. But the mere presence of oxygen
does not guarantee a fire. Now, if you have a dry piece
of paper and plenty of oxygen and then you light a
match and touch that match onto the piece of
paper, then you'll have a fire because the burning
match is a sufficient condition to ignite the dry piece of
paper under those conditions, granted that the other necessary
conditions have been fulfilled. Do you understand
the difference now? So all that this
verse is teaching is that in terms of man's
natural ability, none of us has the ability, in and of
ourselves, to come to Christ, unless God does something. We're still not sure exactly
what it is that God does. And we're still not sure
that if God does it, it will guarantee
that people will come. All we know is that
whatever it is that God does is a necessary condition,
a prerequisite, okay? Some have jumped to another
verse here in John 6 where Jesus says, "All whom the
Father give to Me, come to Me." And that suggests
that everybody who gets this necessary condition,
then indeed do come, but that's not exactly
how those two verses are related to each other. Let's see if we're sharp
enough to see the difference. Jesus says, "All whom the
Father gives to Me, come to Me. No one can come to Me unless
the Father gives it to him." Now it almost sounds
like, that everybody that is given to
Him to come, are those who are
included in the ones that the Father
gives to the Son. But remember, in the one
case, the giving is to us. In the other case,
the giving is to Jesus so we can't equate
those two sentences; even though I believe,
they are in fact parallel. But linguistically
we can't prove it. So we're still left
with this ambiguity as to what must happen. What is the nature of
this necessary condition? Well, notice that Jesus here
said that He had already told them that,
that He's indicating that this is a repetition. He says, "For this reason,
I have said to you" So, He's now repeating
Himself, so let's see if we can find the
earlier statement that is either identical
or close enough to probably be the statement
that Jesus is referring to. Well, if we look
earlier in the chapter, we have another universal
negative, and another statement about necessary conditions
and about man's moral ability. We find that in verse 44. "No one can come to Me
unless the Father who sent Me draws Him." Now it's not quite as ambiguous. Here the necessary condition
that Jesus spells out is that the Father
draws somebody. So, can we say
this, categorically, without any fear of being
contradicted that our Lord Jesus taught that it is
impossible for a human being to come to the Lord Jesus
Christ unless that person is drawn by the Father? Now I might add at this
point that both those of an Augustinian persuasion
and of a semi-Pelagian persuasion agree that
there is some kind of necessary condition
that God must supply. God must draw people, but
there's still a debate. And the debate is: What
does it mean that God draws? Now the classical
Arminian approach to this, or semi-Pelagian
approach to this is, that nobody
can come to Jesus unless the Father
entices him, or woos him. Again, that's usually
tied in to some notion of prevenient grace, or the
influence of the Holy Spirit to woo, and to entice. And the word "draw"
here is interpreted to mean "to woo, or to
attract," just as honey draws bees and
lights draw moths; but the idea is that the
drawing that God does is still resistible,
and those who respond to the enticement, those
who respond to being wooed, are then redeemed,
according to Arminianism, and those who do not
respond to being drawn are subsequently lost. The Augustinian
interpretation of the verse is that the word "to draw"
means more than simply "to entice or to woo." Now, let's see how this
Greek word is used elsewhere in the New Testament. If we would turn our Bibles here
to James, to chapter 2 verse 6, we will find this same Greek
word used in the New Testament. In the second chapter
of the book of James, in the sixth verse - I
shall read the verse. "But you have
dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who
oppress you and personally drag you into court?" I'm going to ask you to
guess which word is used in this verse that is exactly
the same Greek word that is translated by the
word "draw" in John 6. Does anybody have a guess? Drag. Now let's supply the
semi-Pelagian interpretation. "But you have
dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who
oppress you and personally woo you into court?" Let's look at another one. Let's look at Acts, chapter 16
verse 19, which I will read. "But when her masters saw that
their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and
Silas and dragged them into the marketplace
before the authorities." Can you guess again
which word in this text is the same Greek word? Again, it's the word "dragged." Again, substitute
"enticed, or wooed." "They seized Paul and Silas and
wooed them into the marketplace before the authorities." This text clearly
indicates an act of force in dragging Paul and Silas
into the marketplace. That would make
you wonder why it is that the translators
used the word "draw" rather than the word "drag". And I can only guess, and
I'll try to guess in a moment, but first let me
just go further. Whenever we have doubt
as to the precise meaning of a word in the Scriptures,
the first thing we do is that we go to the Greek, but
then after we go to the Greek, we're still dependent upon
the science of linguistics and lexicography
in order to have an understanding of the meaning
of that term at the time it was used in the
writing of the documents. I think it's safe to say that
in the academic world, the most highly respected linguistic
and lexicographical source that the church has ever had
for the meaning of Greek words is Kittel's "Theological
Dictionary of the New Testament." In Kittel's "Theological
Dictionary of the New Testament," the word that
is being translated "draw" here in this text
is defined by Kittel as meaning "to compel by
irresistible superiority." I might add that the
framers of the Dictionary were anything but Calvinistic. But they recognized
that the classical -- that is the meaning in the
Greek language of this verb is "to compel." Again, we ask, though,
if that's the case, if the linguistic and
lexicographical evidence is so heavily weighted to mean
something that is compelling, why would translators,
in various translations, use this term "draw," when
they translate the same word "drag" elsewhere? Well, when you have
a word like this, oftentimes how you
choose to translate it will be determined
by the context. It will also be determined
somewhat by your theology. And maybe, I'm just
guessing, it could be that the
translators just felt it would be offensive
to English readers to read in here,
"No one can come to Me unless the
Father drags him," or "unless the
Father compels him." That may be the reason why
they chose not to do it. But again, most translators
and teams of translators are not that arbitrary
when they're working on translations of the Bible. They try to be as honest
and as careful as possible in rendering the
Greek into English. And I've puzzled about
this for a long time, and I think I have found the
answer because I'll tell you a story to illustrate it. I was invited to debate the
subject of predestination at an Arminian seminary --
that is the seminary was self-consciously and by it's own
doctrinal standards Arminian. We had a warm and
friendly relationship with that seminary,
and they knew that I did not advocate
Arminian theology, and they thought it
would be a good thing to have a debate there in
front of the whole student body and faculty because they
wanted their students to be exposed to the other
side, which I represented. And my opponent,
friendly opponent I should say, in this
particular debate happened to be the head of the
New Testament department, and as we were discussing this
question, he came to this verse and cited this verse,
"No man can come to Me unless the Father draw him." And he was interpreting it
to mean, "attract or woo." And I quickly pointed to
his attention something that I really didn't think I
needed to, since he was the New Testament scholar,
and I'm not, I said, "What about the use of it
in James 2 and in Acts 16?" And he granted that
those texts did indeed use the more forcible
interpretation of the verb, and that the verb was capable
of being translated "to drag." He granted that. And I asked the question, "Well,
then why are you insisting that 'draw' is less compelling than
'drag?'" He said, "Because, we have an instance of where
this verb is used in classical Greek language, like in
some play by Euripides, or something I had never
heard of, where he said, "This is the verb that
the Greeks used when they 'drew' water out of a well." And he said to me, and I
was completely nonplussed - I mean, I had no idea of that. He said to me, "So you see,
Professor Sproul," he said, "It's a perfectly legitimate
use to use the word 'draw,'" he said, "because nobody
drags water out of a well. And the place
broke up, you know, and I was caught,
you know embarrassed, because I didn't even
know that that occurred. And I said, "I grant that you
don't drag water out of a well; but sir, how do you get
water out of a well? Do you stand up at the top of
the well and say, 'Here, water, water, water'? Do you woo water out of a well? Do you entice water
out of a well, or must you do something
that will compel that water to go against
gravity and get it up there where you can use it?" And now they laughed
at the other side, and we went on to another verse. But this, I think, even
that obscure reference in the Greek language,
underlines the fact that this, the
force of this verb is the force of
divine compulsion. And if that is
true, then I would say that verse and
that verse alone is sufficient to end
the debate forever, with respect to man's
ability, or lack of it, to incline himself to
choose Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Himself
says that no man can do it unless the Father
compels him to do it. And that is pure Augustinianism,
only stated much earlier than Saint Augustine. But if that isn't sufficient
with respect to man's ability, let's look earlier in chapter
3 of John's Gospel where John describes the encounter that
Jesus has with the Pharisee, a theologian, Nicodemus, in
which He says in verse 3, "Jesus answered and said to
him, 'Truly, truly I say to you, unless'" - what does
that word indicate? What's coming? A necessary condition. "Unless one is born again, he
cannot see the Kingdom of God." Now what has to happen,
according to Jesus, before a person can
see the Kingdom of God? He has to be born again. So regeneration precedes
seeing the Kingdom of God. Is that a legitimate
interpretation of this passage? In fact, nobody can see it at
all unless they are first what? Born again - regenerate. All right. Now He goes on to say
- Nicodemus is puzzled. "How can a man be
born when he is old? He can't enter a second
time into his mother's womb to be born, can he?" Jesus said, "Truly,
truly I say to you, unless one is born of
water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into
the Kingdom of God." So regeneration
is a prerequisite for entering and seeing
the Kingdom of God. Semi-Pelagians have
people choosing Christ before they are regenerate. Semi-Pelagians have people
in their human nature cooperating with
prevenient grace, responding to this wooing
and enticing and attracting of God the Holy Spirit, when the
Holy Spirit is not yet in them, having regenerated them. So the bottom line is,
the Arminian position has people who are not yet
born again seeing and choosing the King of the Kingdom of God. Boggles the mind, doesn't it? That's why the axiom of
Augustinian theology is this: regeneration precedes faith. Regeneration is seen as a
necessary condition for faith, even as Paul elsewhere
teaches in Ephesians 2 when he says that while we were
dead in sin and trespasses, God has quickened us, that is,
made us alive in Christ, okay? When we were dead! And then tells us
that therefore it is by grace you are
saved, through faith and that is not of yourselves,
but is the gift of God. And so we see faith
is the gift of God that is the result of the
Spirit's work of regeneration within us. That God Himself supplies
the necessary condition to come to Jesus. That's why it is "sola
gratia" - by grace alone - that we are saved. Now Jesus says, "That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born
of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you
that you must be born again." Jesus is saying, "Why
should this surprise you? You're a theologian, Nicodemus. Don't you understand
the fundamental point of man's fallen nature, that
that which is born of the flesh is flesh?" And elsewhere He tells us
that the flesh profits - what? Nothing. But if we believe that
God entices us to Christ, and all we have to do in the
flesh prior to our regeneration is cooperate, or assent to that,
if we can in fact cooperate and assent to prevenient
grace, to the end that we enter into the Kingdom of
God and are redeemed forever. And we're doing that while
we're still in the flesh, then I ask you, what would
the flesh profit? Not just something - everything! Your eternal salvation! Now, Paul speaks about
this himself in chapter 7 - oh, I'm sorry, it's
chapter 8, verse 7 - let's start at
verse 5. "For those who are according to the
flesh set their minds on the things of
the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit,
the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on
the flesh is death, but the mind set on the
Spirit is life and peace because the mind set on the
flesh is hostile towards God. For it does not subject
itself to the law of God, for it is not even
able to do it." Now here the Apostle
tells us something about man's moral
inability in the flesh. He says that man in his
fallen state, in the flesh, is hostile to the law of God. And he does not
obey the law of God, he is not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed what? Can he be! So that fallen man, the
Apostle is saying here, (is he not?) cannot
obey the law of God. And those who are in the
flesh cannot please God. I might add to you that if
God only wooed us to Christ, and left it to us to
make the final decision, I can't think of anything
that would please God more than that we would respond
positively to that enticement and to that wooing. But the Apostle here
tells us that in the flesh there's nothing that man
can do to please God. But now here is the
crushing point, verse 9. "However, you are not in the
flesh, but in the Spirit." How do we know if somebody is
in the flesh or in the Spirit? "You are not in the
flesh, but in the Spirit" - the next word
is crucial - "if"! What does "if" indicate? A necessary condition. That's right. "if indeed the Spirit
of God dwells in you." Now, how many regenerate
people have the Spirit of God dwelling in them? All of them, okay? So if you are regenerate, then
you are no longer in the flesh. If you are in the flesh,
you are not regenerate. Is that clear? So when he speaks about
those in the flesh, he is speaking of
unregenerate people, and it's unregenerate people
who cannot please God, who cannot obey God, who
cannot do or be subject to God, who experience this dreadful
situation of moral inability about which we
have been speaking. But if indeed the Spirit
of God dwells in you - "But if anyone does not
have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him." He goes on to say,
however, if anyone does have the Spirit of Christ,
then he does belong to Christ. And so that the crucial
prerequisite for salvation is a work of the
Holy Spirit that is the necessary condition, the
prerequisite for faith to be present. That's why we insist
that the first step of our justification,
that which quickens us from spiritual
death and makes us, enables us to come
to Jesus at all, is the gracious work
of God the Holy Spirit, and is never the
fruit of the flesh.
