The Sword Room

We saw yesterday  in John Six that before a sinner can come to Jesus in saving faith he must be one of those given to Christ by the Father . Once given, coming, believing, and being raised on the last day are certain because they ultimately depend on God.

A second prerequisite is seen in v. 44: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. This thought is repeated in v. 65 and refers to the process of regeneration wherein the dead sinner is made alive in Christ and his heart is opened to respond to the gospel call. Faith does not precede the new birth inasmuch as a dead person is incapable of responding to any outside stimuli. He must be made alive before he has the ability to believe. Nor does Scripture teach the erroneous doctrine of prevenient grace, whereby God grants to all the ability to either receive or reject the gospel.

Now here is where it gets interesting. In v. 45 we read: It is written in the prophets: “And they shall all be taught of God.” Everyone who has heard  and learned from the Father comes to me. This rounds out the three prerequisites to coming to Jesus in faith: (1) One must be given to Christ by the Father; (2) One must be drawn to Christ by the Father; (3) One must hear and learn from the Father. 

This third prerequisite is highly instructive when we think that faith involves not only knowledge of Christ, but also assent to the truth and trust in the person of Christ. But how does one get the knowledge that Christ is real and that the gospel is true? When our oldest daughter was little she asked me once how I knew Jesus was real and that he came back to life after his death. Many ask this same question, and assume that because we cannot prove the truth of the gospel scientifically, we cannot know it for certain. This would be the case were it not that God Himself imparts the information and conviction of its truth revelationally in the process of regeneration. This is what it means when it says that those who come to Christ have heard and learned from the Father.

A practical application is that you cannot argue someone into faith by providing evidences and rational proofs. Such an evidential approach presupposes that man in the unregenrate state somehow has the ability through rational investigation to come to the knowledge Christ. Better yet to encourage the sinner to get on his knees and beg God to open his heart and mind to the truth.

God bless you richly as you ponder and apply these precious truths from the lips of the Savior.

In Acts 10:2 Cornelius the Roman Centurion is described as “a devout man, and one who feared God with all his household…and prayed to God continually.” But Cornelius had never heard of Jesus Christ and was technically unsaved. Some will object and say Cornelius was already saved “in the Old Testament sense” (whatever that means). But in relating the Cornelius incident to the Jews in Judea later, Peter recounts that the angel had told Cornelius that “he (Peter) shall speak words to you by which you will be saved, you and all your household” (Acts 11:14). Similarly we read in Acts 16:14 of Lydia, who was a “worshipper of God” before God opened her heart to receive the gospel message spoken by Paul.

The obvious question is: How can an unbeliever be described as godly, devout, and a worshipper of God? The answer to this question is that in these Acts passages we see examples of the calling/regenerating/drawing process of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the elect, as described in John 6:44 and Romans 8:29-30. At the point a person believes the gospel message God has already been working in his/her heart in preparation for the implanting of the free gift of saving faith. This process, which precedes faith, is called regeneration, or the new birth. Contrary to popular opinion, being born again comes before rather than after faith. Why? Because in the unregenerate state man is dead in trespasses and sins and thus incapable of responding to the general call of the gospel (Eph. 2:1). He must be made alive before he can believe, and at the point of faith he has already passed out of death into life (John 5:24). If a person could believe the gospel before he was born again then his saving faith would be a product of his dead unregenerate flesh, and he could boast in having caused himself to be born again. 1 Peter 1:3 declares, however, that God is the one who causes us to be made alive in Christ in regeneration.

Watch my short video series on regeneration where this subject is treated at length. Suffice it to say here that the Bible teaches a monergistic rather than synergistic view of the new birth. Simply put, God unilaterally regenerates us, and we do not cooperate with Him in the process. To be sure we do participate in salvation when we believe; but we do not believe until God makes us alive and imparts the free gift of saving faith.

In terms of evangelism it is encouraging to see that God prepares the hearts of sinners to receive the saving message of the death and resurrection of Christ. God saves sinners! Keep praying for your friends, relatives, colleagues, and fellow students. Pray that God would quicken and incline their hearts toward Him, as he did in the cases of Cornelius and Lydia. May the Lord give us discernment and sensitivity to observe His preparatory work in the hearts of those with whom we associate daily. And may we be ready in and out of season to give a timely word.