Does God’s drawing mean that He drags people to Himself?

Another good article/exegesis. Calvinism is deductive, proof texted, eisegesis, wrong paradigm, not based on sound exegesis. God draws, influences, woos, persuades. He does not cause or coerce because He is loving, relational, not deterministic. A wrong view of sovereignty (meticulous control) and free will (compatibilism) is much of the problem with Calvinism. It is also an exegetical fallacy to assume one use of a word with a semantical range of meaning has to mean ‘drag’, as Cheryl points out. All relevant verses show that God’s will can be rejected/resisted, by His sovereign choice (hence evil, hell, suffering, Satan, Fall, etc. cf. Lk. 7:30; Matthew 23:37). The broader context of Jn. 6 also shows there is a conditional, manward element in justification/perseverence (vs TULIP/unconditional).

Thanks Godrulz37!

Cheryl, I didn’t realize you had written this yet and so I am sorry for the delay in responding. My first question would be does the word used here ever describe a co-operative act? Thanks for writing this, I really appreciate you doing this.

Welcome back, Derek! I was sick with the flu this week so didn’t finish the next post but it should be up sometime this coming week. Now to your question. Drawing in this context means teaching. Is teaching co-operative? Well, I would say that there are not 2 teachers but there has to be a student who does something with the teaching. That would be where the next verse comes in. God finishes His point that there is a response needed. There can be times when God does not want a response. When that happens he puts people to sleep. i.e. He put Abraham into a deep sleep and He made a unilateral covenant without Abraham responding. Is this what you are looking for?

Ok, this does confuse me because I have never (even in your article) seen this word used to mean teaching. Attracting, drawing, hauling, dragging,…just never heard teaching. Perhaps you could help me with this. Thanks Cheryl and I hope you continue to feel better. 🙂

John 6:45 (NASB95) 45“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. I will be going on in this passage very carefully through the important words and grammar. We need to see the big picture, but we also need to see the minute details that God wants us to see. To understand the passage we need to know what the words mean. That is the presupposition that I come to any passage with. What has God said and why did God say it? I believe that God makes Himself clear if we are willing to learn from what He has already said.

No translator has suggested ‘teaching’. Drag/causation/coercion is not right, but what is wrong with a concept of drawing, persuading, wooing, influencing, etc.? The Holy Spirit does convict and convince, even through teaching, but I do not see how ‘teaching’ is a legit word study here.

Thanks Derek, I am just feeling like my old self now. That made me really behind so I am scrambling to catch up. I have the next post mostly done and it will explain in detail who Jesus to talking to, why He said the things He did, and How He fulfilled God’s prophecy. I think when you read it, it will make a lot of sense. I believe that we need to strive hard to see what God has already said in the context rather than adding to the context. The reason is that when we add our own ideas to what God has said, we can really go far off in left field. We don’t need philosophy to answer these questions, just a good nose to stick into the text and keep it there until we understand. That is my two cents anyways. 🙂

godrulz37, It is fairly obvious if you follow Jesus’ words through. I won’t explain it here because I have already done that in my next article. I will get it finished as soon as I can. I think it will help to make it clear why Jesus said what He did to the Jews.

Cheryl, I know you are going to hit on a lot of this in the next article (which I am anxious to read) but focusing just on the word for draw it does seem strange to read it as teaching. Respectively, it seems as if you are reading into it a bit. I mean no disrespect saying that as you have shown yourself to try hard not to do that. Just what it looks like from my viewpoint. Thanks.

Derek, I don’t mind that you think I am reading into the text. I think that after you read the next article, you will see that I am not. I am only pulling out what is already there. After all when Jesus uses the word “draw” He needs to tell us what He means by it, right? If He explains, then we need to pay attention. I am finishing our next newsletter for our ministry that has to go for set up and then printing this coming week so that is my first thing to get off the list and when I am finished, I will get the next article finished as well and post it. If anyone is interested in receiving a free online version of our MM Outreach News & Views in the world of religion, we did give one edition for free for evaluation. Just send me an email that you would like a copy and I will put you on our list.

That should be “We do give a free evaluation issue” Present tense not past tense.

By the way, I always feel flattered whenever people say to me that I pay too much attention to the text. I believe that when it comes to the hard texts, we so often don’t pay enough attention, so I am happy when people see that I do pay attention. So I would like to offer a challenge on this text. Read it and meditate on it and keep reading until you can figure out what Jesus exposes is the meaning that He is giving to “draw”. Don’t go to a commentary! Just read God’s for Word for yourself. Read. Meditate. And pray. There is much meat in the text that we just buzz over and don’t stay in long enough to really understand what is being said. And then I will post my next article next week and see if it comes close to what you already figured out for yourself.

Your point is well laid out and it is true that some would use this passage to point out that a man has to be “dragged” to God even though this is not the meaning of the passage. Yet it is also easy to go the other direction. The passage does state a very important point, “no one can come” by their own choosing(will), but God must do the drawing. Which means that if God dose not do the drawing, there is nothing in us that will want to come. There is no desire in us to come. So in order for man to have any inclination to want to come to Jesus, it has to come from God first, otherwise, he will not come. So as a man draws water from the pool, so God draws a man from the dark into the light of the glory of the gospel. In the end, salvation is only possible because of His drawing us to Jesus who then gives us his faith by grace through the preaching of the Word of God,

Robert, Sorry that your comment got held up without me aware that it was even there. Your comment is up now and I would like to respond. It is absolutely true that God must draw a person before they can come to Jesus. However, Jesus has promised that He will draw all men to Himself. There are two important dynamics. The drawing must happen first (because man is unable to draw himself) and the drawing has been promised to all conditioned on Jesus’ death on the cross. Your last comment about God giving us faith by grace, I would say that God gives us the opportunity to respond in faith because He reveals Himself to us through the gospel. Faith is never said to be a gift to an unbeliever. But those who do respond in faith do so because of what God has done for them. I do agree that the preaching of the gospel is very important because saving faith cannot come without the gospel.

Hello, this is my grammatical and syntactical analysis of the word ἑλκύσῃ. Can you send me your comment on this to my email ..Thank you so much, I am from the Philippines The voice of the verb δύναται since it is middle means that the subject of the verb which is the pronoun οὐδεὶς (no one) is the focus of the verb. The subject indicated within the clause of which the verb δύναται appears is also the agent of the action and at the same time is also the one who experiences the action. This means that the subject who will act the ἐλθεῖν is not able to or does not have the power to come to με (me/Christ) except the condition which is stipulated in the next clause is met. Consequently, the word ἑλκύσῃ if rendered as “drag” would not give justice to the word δύναται. Since the word δύναται is in middle voice meaning the ability to come to Christ is done by the pronoun οὐδεὶς and is also the one who will experience it, then dragging would not be appropriate rendering since when someone is being dragged it is not him anymore who acts upon coming to Christ but someone else is doing it for him. Throughout the New Testament the usage of the verb ἕλκω which signifies involuntary in sense, the doer of the action does not experience or receive the result of the action. the other passages demonstrates that someone or something else becomes the receiver and experiences the action indicated by ἕλκω. However, the information that δύναται is in the middle voice means that if the condition in the next clause is met, the subject of the verb δύναται would still be the one to act and experiences the action. To meet the grammatical and syntactical sense of the word δύναται in relation to the word ἑλκύσῃ in the next clause it should have been in the passive voice not in middle voice. If rendered as “draw” which means voluntary in sense then it still falls upon the person to come to Christ by virtue of the ‘draw” of the father. This then gives grammatical justice to the middle voice of δύναται. This means that if conditional sense expressed by the particle/conjunction Ἐὰν is met then the person who being “drawn” by the father is still the one who acting and experiencing the coming to Christ. The passage highlights who has the δύναται (ability, able, power) to come to Christ. Those who can are only those who the father ἑλκύσῃ “draw.” This argument is further cemented by the preceding verbs in John 6:45 which passage also has the word ἔρχεται. Both ἀκούσας and μαθὼν which talks about the people who come to Christ are in active voice which means that the subject of these two verbs are the ones who performs, produces and experiences the actions stipulated in these two verbs. This means that the subject (the person) comes to Christ because of what he has heard (not forced to his ears) and what he has learned (not forced learning since it is not in the passive voice). If then ἑλκύσῃ is rendered as drag, then the two passages of John 6:44 and John 6:45 would be talking about two kinds of people who comes to Christ. The first being dragged which has the sense of involuntarily action coming to Christ while the other actively comes to Christ of his own accord which has the sense of voluntary action. If this is the case the word οὐδεὶς would entirely be out of place. Since it becomes grammatically inconsistent with the context to which it is found. The argument being that “nobody, no one” can come to Christ without him being “dragged” which expresses involuntary coming to Christ would then be immediately be supplanted in the next passage since it shows that a person can come to Christ himself actively not passively.

thank you