John 6:37–39

This is the key, and it has two sides. We only know the truth when we hold both. Take one side and leave out the other, and the teaching is incomplete. The result is likely to be error on one side or the other... The theologian who sees only the divine decrees pays little attention to the encouragement the Lord gives to the person who comes to Him. The man who argues for what he calls free will tries to cancel out the statement that all the Father gives to Christ will come to Him — if he does not ignore it altogether.

There is the sovereign grace of the Father, which has given certain people to the Son, and every one of them comes to Him. As far as they themselves are aware, many different things draw these happy people to Him, and those things differ in almost every case. Yet beneath it all, as the ultimate explanation, lies this gift of the Father to Christ — a love gift, we may call it.

If blessing depends on man's responsibility, then it is all over; no one will be blessed. But, as always, when man stands fully exposed, God falls back on the purposes of His own heart. He will not allow all to perish; nor will He allow that the coming of the Son of Man shall be all in vain.

Suppose I ask someone who has no peace with God, "Have you come to Christ?" If that person can answer, "Yes," then I can say: "This shows that you are one whom the Father has given to Christ. He said, 'All that the Father gives me will come to me' — and you have come to Him."

Whatever their nationality or their character — Jews or Gentiles, fallen women or hardened thieves, Pharisees or tax collectors — if they only come to Christ, He will receive them. Their coming is the proof that they are the Father's gift to the Son.

All that the Father has given come, and the Son casts out none who come. This is not only because of His own grace and personal love for them. It is because they are the Father's gift, and because the very purpose of His coming down from heaven was to carry out the Father's will, and so reveal the Father's heart... There is no possibility of any slip between the Father's gift and the Son's reception.

When He said, "whoever comes to me I will never cast out," it meant three things. First, I will receive him. Second, I will hold him fast. Third, I will never give him up — "never cast out."

The Son had come down from heaven of His own choice, and yet He was the Sent One of the Father. It was the Son's will to come, but to do His Father's will. The will of the Son and the will of the Father were not different. But the Son had come to reveal the Father, and to make known in everything what the Father wanted to do. The Father's will could only be shown and carried out in a place of complete subjection and obedience. The Son took that place.

The blessed Lord took His human body, "born of woman, born under the law" (Galatians 4:4). He did this so that obedience might become possible for One who had not only made all things, but also upheld them all "by the word of his power" (Hebrews 1:3). Before taking human form, He had never been in a position to obey. Once He had taken it, His delight was to carry out to the very end the will of the Father who had sent Him. The Psalm puts it this way: "Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."

He was not someone who had no will of His own, as people sometimes say. He had a will as a true man, but He subjected His will to the will of the Father. He never exercised His will independently. He would not have been a perfect man if He had had no will. Think of Him never acting on His own will!

Jesus never did His own will, though, as we know, blessed be His holy Name, His will was absolutely perfect. He was a perfect servant, from first to last. His rule of action was the word of God. His power of action was the Holy Spirit. His only motive for action was the will of God. So the ruler of this world had nothing in Him.

People miss the beauty of that well-known passage — "whoever comes to me I will never cast out" — because they do not read the context. "Whoever comes to me" is only the last half of the verse. The whole verse is seldom quoted. First comes, "All that the Father gives me will come to me." Suppose I ask someone who has no peace with God, "Have you come to Christ?" If that person answers, "Yes," I can say, "That shows you are one whom the Father has given to Christ." The Father sends these sheep to Christ, and in receiving them He is doing the Father's will. How would He be doing the Father's will if He cast out those whom the Father had given Him?

This is why He stayed two days longer where He was, even after the cry of these sorrowing hearts had reached Him. In coming down to this scene, He came not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. So He would not act at the promptings of His own heart. He had taken the place of obedience, and He waited for the Father's word before answering the appeal. Cold must be the heart that is not moved by this shining out of His moral glory. Here is infinite greatness joined with the lowliest grace and humility.

The Father has given souls to the Lord Jesus. His will is that the Lord should lose not one, but should raise it up at the last day. He cares for those given to Him. He guards them, so that the enemy does not destroy them and their own folly does not lose them. He keeps even the body that lies in the grave, so as to raise it up again at the last day. In doing all this the Lord Jesus is the Servant doing the Father's will.

The Lord Jesus has His own personal love for the sheep, proved in life and in death. Apart from that love, in this memorable passage He presents Himself as responsible to the Father — willingly so, no doubt. He is responsible to keep every member of the loved and valued flock through all the changing circumstances of this life, and to present them in resurrection glory at the last day.

It is beautiful to see how perfectly the Son of the Most High becomes His Servant, now to save, as later to administer the glory. He chooses none for saving; He leaves all with Him Who sent Him. "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out." One side is the security of the children. The other is the free grace of the gospel.

In John 6:39-40 the main difference, I think, is between the negative and the full positive. The negative says of "all that he has given me" that "I should lose nothing, but raise it up" — the "it" agrees with the "all" looked at as one whole. In the positive He brings in the person: "everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him." There the question is not about being lost, but about the present possession of eternal life.

It might seem that as generation after generation of God's people pass away, and are forgotten by men, that they are forgotten by God. The Lord's words assure us that it is not so. Not one is lost or forgotten. They will appear again at the last day. The resurrection power exercised by the Lord will be the final proof that He has lost nothing.

In John 6, as I see it, the Lord is putting a blessing in resurrection in place of any royal Jewish blessing... He does not come and set up the Jews. The Father draws, and a man comes to Him. He blesses that man in the power of eternal life, raising him up when this busy and rebellious scene comes to its close.

In John 6 our Lord refers to the resurrection no fewer than four times, and each time it is the resurrection of His people. The way He speaks shows that this resurrection is their own distinctive privilege. The "last day" is not, as people commonly suppose, a day of twenty-four hours right at the close of all things. It is the great closing period. In it God makes clear the character and results of what man and Satan have done, of His own eternal purposes, and of His gracious workings throughout the periods before it.