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)
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is indeed the Gospel of grace alone and the Gospel of the glory of God alone. Christ did not die in order to provide man what man lacked, He died in order to glorify God by saving those who were dead in sins and trespasses. Christ did not die in order to give man an opportunity to freely choose, but to make man willing to come to Christ. Christ did not die in order to purchase the Holy Spirit for all sinners so that they could be enabled to do what they wanted to do anyway, but He died in order to purchase the Holy Spirit for His people so that they could be made alive by the Spirit.
When the Scriptures speak of the Gospel as the power of God for salvation, it is not speaking just of the words of Scripture but of the power of God in acting out and fulfilling His words. God commands men to repent and believe, but as long as men believe that they can do that they will not look to God to enable them to repent and believe. Thus, the power of the fall and sin remains upon them and the veil remains over their eyes. The Gospel is about what God can and will do, not about what man can do. The Gospel does teach what man is required to do and what man must do in order to be saved, but it is the Holy Spirit alone who can work life in the soul and actually do what is required for man to be saved.
Here are Luther’s words again: “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’? The point is that there is nothing left for the ‘free-will’ to do. It is all to be done by Christ and the power of His Spirit, which is the Father drawing them. “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.” This is such a powerful and feeing passage of Scripture that Luther explains. No one will come to Christ unless the Father draws that person. But that is good news when this is seen. Dead sinners will not come and don’t really want to come thought they may want to escape hell. But the Gospel is such that the Spirit works in them so that they want to come and they are drawn by the Father. The good news is that this is not something that man can and therefore must work up himself, this is done by grace alone.
“When that happens [the shedding abroad of the Spirit], 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.” What good news this is to sinners. The Gospel does not add another work to the list that man must do in his own power, though indeed it is a lethal stab to the heart of pride. The Spirit enlightens the soul so that sinners may see their sin and see the beauty and glory of Christ. This enlightening of the soul is how “God speaks, teaches, and draws.” This work of the Spirit is in the inward man and is God teaching the soul of the glories of Christ and changing the inclinations of the soul. No amount of seeking or running of the sinner will save the sinner or contribute to salvation. The whole work of salvation is of God. The sinner must be broken from any hope in his or her own works of ‘free-will’ and learn to look to the work of God alone. As Romans 9:16 sets out so clearly, “it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” The soul must learn not to depend on its own works, running, or ‘free-will’ to work or run, but to be drawn by grace alone. In this way the soul is weaned from trust in itself and what it can do so it can lean on and rely (part of faith) on grace alone.
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