John 6:37,44,45
All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): The passage which is here quoted by Jesus is to be found in Isaiah 54:13…The way of teaching, of which the prophet Isaiah speaks, does not consist merely in the external voice, but likewise in the secret operation of the Holy Spirit. In short, this teaching of God is the inward illumination of the heart.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): God teaches a man to know himself, that, finding his need of salvation, he may flee to lay hold on the hope which His heavenly Father has set before him in the Gospel.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): We learn another thing from this passage: man’s natural helplessness and inability to repent or believe. We find our Lord saying, “No man can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” Until the Father draws the heart of man by His grace, man will not believe. The solemn truth contained in these words is one that needs careful weighing. It is vain to deny that without the grace of God no one ever can become a true Christian. We are spiritually dead, and have no power to give ourselves life. We need a new principle put in us from above. Facts prove it. Preachers see it.―This witness is true.
JOHN CALVIN: As Christ formerly affirmed that men are not fitted for believing, until they have been drawn, so He now declares that the grace of Christ, by which they are drawn, is efficacious, so that they necessarily believe. These two clauses utterly overturn the whole power of free will―for if it be only when the Father has drawn us that we begin to come to Christ, there is not in us any commencement of faith, or any preparation for it. On the other hand, if all come whom the Father hath taught, He gives to them not only the choice of believing, but faith itself―because the only wisdom that all the elect learn in the school of God is, to come to Christ.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Moreover, we believe that the new birth must take place, in every instance―we are convinced that this new birth is entirely a divine operation, effected by the Holy Ghost, through the Word, as we are distinctly taught in our Lord’s discourse with Nicodemus, in John 3.
JOHN CALVIN: That narrative is highly useful to us; especially because it instructs us concerning the depraved nature of mankind―and what is the proper entrance into the school of Christ, and what must be the commencement of our training to make progress in the heavenly doctrine. For the sum of Christ’s discourse is, that in order that we may be His true disciples, we must become new men.
JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): While a man is in a mere natural state, before he is born of God, he has, in a spiritual sense, eyes and sees not; a thick impenetrable veil lies upon them; he has ears, but hears not; he is utterly deaf to what he is most of all concerned to hear. His other spiritual senses are all locked up: He is in the same condition as if he had them not. Hence he has no knowledge of God; no intercourse with Him; he is not at all acquainted with Him. He has no true knowledge of the things of God, either of spiritual or eternal things.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The natural man―the man destitute of the Spirit of God―cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
JOHN WESLEY: But as soon as he is born of God, there is a total change in all these particulars. The “eyes of his understanding are opened;” and when He, who of old “commanded light to shine out of darkness,” shines on his heart, he sees the light of the glory of God―His glorious love, “in the face of Jesus Christ.” His ears being opened, he is now capable of hearing the inward voice of God, saying, “Be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee;” “go and sin no more.” This is the purport of what God speaks to his heart; although perhaps not in these very words. He is now ready to hear whatsoever “He that teacheth man knowledge” is pleased, from time to time, to reveal to him.
JOHN CALVIN: If, therefore, we wish to make good and useful progress in the school of Christ, let us learn to begin at this point: “Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” John 3:3.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): And the first lesson in the school of Christ is to become a little child, sitting simply at His feet, that we may be made wise unto salvation.
JOHN CALVIN: We know with what blind love men naturally regard themselves, how much they are devoted to themselves, how highly they estimate themselves. But if we desire to enter into the school of Christ, we must begin with that folly to which Paul exhorts us―“becoming fools, that we may be wise,” 1 Corinthians 3:18…So long as the flesh, that is to say, natural corruption, prevails in a man, it has so completely possession of the man’s mind, that the wisdom of God finds no admittance. Hence, if we would make proficiency in the Lord’s school, we must first of all renounce our own judgment and our own will.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): What is conversion then? Man must be a new creature, and converted from his own righteousness to the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing short of the influence of the Spirit of the living God can effect this change in our hearts; therefore we are said to be “born again, born of God, of the Spirit, not of water only but of the Holy Ghost,” John 3:5-7.
JOHN WESLEY: From hence it manifestly appears, what is the nature of the new birth. It is that great change which God works in the soul when He brings it into life; when he raises it from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. It is the change wrought in the whole soul by the almighty Spirit of God when it is “created anew in Christ Jesus;” when it is “renewed after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness;” when the love of the world is changed into the love of God; pride into humility; passion into meekness; hatred, envy, malice, into a sincere, tender, disinterested love for all mankind. In a word, it is that change whereby the earthly, sensual, devilish mind is turned into the “mind which was in Christ Jesus.” This is the nature of the new birth: “So is every one that is born of the Spirit,” John 3:8.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new, ” 2 Corinthians 5:17; or as the words might be rendered, ‘there is a new creation,’ and not only is he renewed, but all things are become new. He is a new Adam in a new world.
