A Verse that Divides Us

Lesson #105

Jesus is making some very strong statements about himself; claiming to be the bread of life that came down from heaven from the Father; claiming to have the responsibility of the eternal security of every believer given to him as a gift from the Father; claiming to have the power to raise up every one the Father gives to him. Considering the fact that Jesus was born of Mary and grew up among them, how do you think the Jews might react to these claims of Jesus?

“So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”” (John 6:41 ESV). The people following and listening to Jesus and watching his signs were getting excited, but now we are beginning to see some negative reaction, especially among the Jewish leaders. They are beginning to grumble because things don’t seem to connect the way should in their minds. They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” (John 6:42 ESV). Again we encounter the inability to comprehend the spiritual. Those who grumble are unable to accept or understand the virgin birth that allows Jesus, the Son of God, to become man and live among them as their Messiah. This concept is foreign to them and totally unacceptable. Again and again we witness spiritual concepts to not be understood by the spiritually dead.

Jesus responds to their grumbling by saying to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:43 – 44 ESV). Jesus tells the Jews to stop grumbling and then tells them something that has divided the church to this day and has been hotly argued for the last 200 years without any resolution. I wrestled with this verse for many years before I realized how the two sides actually come together to establish a concept that is extremely important to understand. We will look at this in future lessons. How can this verse mean two different things?

Some say verse 44 means that no one can come to salvation without God drawing them, but they say that God draws everyone, but not everyone comes. This implies that God makes the coming possible, but that something else causes the process of coming to be complete by those who so choose. That something else is the ability of the one coming to understand their sinful condition and see their need met by coming to Jesus and accepting him into their live. It is assumed that God starts everyone and then each has the free choice to finish the process of coming. The mystery to me is where do these people obtain this ability or power to finish coming without God bringing them?

Others say that verse 44 means that no one can come to salvation without God drawing them, but they say the ones God draws he brings all the way, without exception. This means that the Father draws only the ones he gives to his Son as a gift. This also means that the decisive cause of coming to Jesus lies with God not with man.

This lesson is already too long, so we will delay any further comment until our next lesson. In preparation for future lessons you might want to watch the video by John Piper on this subject. It may cause you to do some hard thinking.

Prayer

Father, we have come to a verse that divides us with passionate believers on both sides. I pray that as I study this verse in its context that the Holy Spirit will guide my understanding and open the hearts of my readers to what Jesus meant to convey with his statement. I pray that we can set aside preconceived ideas and focus on what lies before us.