When Christ says in John 6; ‘No man can come to me, except My Father which hath sent me draw him’ (v. 44), what does he leave to ‘free-will’? He says man needs to hear and learn of the Father Himself, and that all must be taught of God. Here, indeed, he declares, not only that the works and efforts of ‘free-will’ are unavailing, but that even the very word of the gospel (of which He is here speaking) is heard in vain, unless the Father Himself speaks within, and teaches, and draws. ‘No man, no man can come,’ he says, and what he is talking about is your ‘power whereby man can make some endeavour towards Christ’. In things that pertain to salvation, He asserts that power to be null…But the ungodly does not ‘come’, even when he hears the word, unless the Father draws and teaches him inwardly; which He does by shedding abroad His Spirit. When that happens, there follows a ‘drawing’ other than that which is outward; Christ is then displayed by the enlightening of the Spirit, and by it man is rapt to Christ with the sweetest rapture, he being passive while God speaks, teaches and draws, rather than seeking or running himself. (Luther, The Bondage of the Will)
When Jesus said that in John 6 that ‘No man can come to me, except My Father which hath sent me draw him’ (v. 44), He made a very powerful statement that deals a death blow to modern methods of evangelism. No man has the ability to come to Christ apart from the drawing work of the Father. In other words, this is a complete slam on the ability of man to come to Christ and it throws man to the ground in utter despair of self leaving all souls totally helpless and in the hands of God to show grace as He pleases. How often in the modern day do we hear “preachers” telling men that they must go to Christ, but they don’t tell them the only way that can happen. Indeed men must go to Christ, but do they go in their own understanding and in their own power? According to Jesus, the only way sinners can come to Him is on the basis of the Father teaching them and drawing them.
This is an utterly vital point. While men try to tell other men to listen to their teaching and then come on the power of the outward man, Jesus is pointing us to something inward and something quite beyond the power and ability of the natural man to do. This is the real hope of the Gospel. Oh how Jesus delivers a lethal stab to the heart of human ability and the heart of human efforts in salvation. In the words of Luther again, “Here, indeed, he declares, not only that the works and efforts of ‘free-will’ are unavailing, but that even the very word of the gospel (of which He is here speaking) is heard in vain, unless the Father Himself speaks within, and teaches, and draws.” Man is not only told that the works and efforts of ‘freewill’ will and can do nothing, but he is also told that he cannot even hear the Gospel in truth unless it is the Father who speaks within to teach and to draw.
Again, this is a major and vital point and cannot be stressed beyond the level of its importance. The will is not free to act on the Gospel and the will is not free to even hear and learn the Gospel. There is a sense in which the natural man can hear the external fact of the Gospel and even give his assent to those truths, but no man can learn the Gospel in the inward man apart from the inward teaching of the Father. No will is free to come to Christ part from this teaching of the inward man. No will is free to give itself ears to hear and understanding. As Christ prayed to the Father in Matthew 11, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants 26 “Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. 27 “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” (Mat 11:25).
The Father is the One who hides or reveals. The very same words can be preached to one congregation and yet those same words will be hidden from one and revealed to another. The will is not free to reveal the words to self and the will is not free to hide the eyes to what God has revealed. We can see this same principle in Peter’s confession of Christ as well in Matthew 16: “He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (vv. 15-17).
Peter was not said to be blessed because he made this confession, but because it was not flesh and blood that had revealed that to him, but rather it was the Father in heaven who had revealed that. The will is not even free to hear or understand the Gospel, but that is left to the Father to reveal that. “A natural man does not accept the things of God” (I Cor 2:14), but only the spiritual man. A spiritual man is made by God and not by the will of man. A spiritual man is one that sees, understands, and so lives by spiritual things. The natural man is one that sees, understands, and so lives by natural things. However, the natural man can still be very religious, but he never gets beyond the natural man though he thinks of them as spiritual. But that which is spiritual is by the Spirit and it is not by the ‘free-will’ of man. The Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ will not and cannot be understood by the natural man. It must be taught in the inward man by the Father. The will is not free to teach itself the Gospel, give understanding to itself of the Gospel, nor is it free to take itself to Christ.
God Loves... Himself 
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