Chapter 7
Coming to Christ is a very common phrase in Holy Scripture. It is used to express the acts of the soul where we leave our self-righteousness and our sins at once and we fly to the Lord Jesus Christ, receiving His righteousness as our covering and His blood as our atonement. Coming to Christ embraces in it repentance, self-denial, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It sums up within itself all the things that are the necessary attendants of these great states of heart, such as the belief of the truth, earnestness of prayer to God, the submission of the soul to the precepts of God’s gospel, and all those things that accompany the dawn of salvation in the soul. Coming to Christ is the one essential thing for a sinner’s salvation. He who does not come to Christ, no matter what else he does or says, is still in the gall of bitterness and in the prison of iniquity (Acts 8:23).
Coming to Christ is the very first effect of regeneration. As soon as the soul is awakened, it immediately discovers its lost condition and is horrified at that fact. It then looks for a refuge, and believing Christ to be a suitable one, flies to Him and rests in Him. Where there is not this coming to Christ, it is certain there is still no awakening. Where there is no awakening, the soul is dead in trespasses and sins. Being dead, it cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. No one can come to me unless the Father who has sent me draws him (John 6:44).
Where does this inability lie?
First, it does not lie in any physical defect. If moving the body or walking with the feet were of any assistance in coming to Christ, certainly we have the physical power to come to Christ in that sense. I remember hearing a very foolish Antinomian declare that he did not believe that anyone had the power to walk to the house of God unless the Father drew him. That man was just foolish. He could plainly see that as long as a man was alive and had legs, it was as easy for him to walk to the house of God as to the house of Satan.
If coming to Christ includes the utterance of a prayer, we have no physical defect in that respect. If a person is not mute, he can say a prayer as easily as he can utter blasphemy. It is as easy for someone to sing one of the songs of Zion as it is to sing a profane and obscene song. There is no lack of physical power in coming to Christ. All that can be needed with regard to bodily strength, man most assuredly has, and any part of salvation that consists in that is totally and entirely in the power of man without any assistance from the Spirit of God.
This inability to come to Christ on our own does not lie in any mental lack. I can believe the Bible is true just as easily as I can believe any other book to be true. As far as believing on Christ is an act of the mind, I am just as able to believe on Christ as I am able to believe on anybody else. If his statement is true, it is pointless to tell me I cannot believe it. I can believe the statement that Christ makes as well as I can believe the statement of any other person. There is no deficiency in the mind. It is as capable of appreciating the guilt of sin as a mere mental act as it is of appreciating the guilt of assassination. It is just as possible for me to exercise the mental idea of seeking God as it is to exercise the thought of pride. I have all the mental strength and power that can possibly be needed, as far as mental power is needed in salvation at all. No, there isn’t anyone so ignorant that he can plead a lack of intellect as an excuse for rejecting the gospel.
The defect, then, does not lie either in the body or in what we are bound, theologically, to call the mind. It is not any lack or deficiency of the mind, although it is the corruption or the ruin of the mind that is the very essence of man’s inability.
Through the fall and through our own sin, the nature of man has become so debased, depraved, and corrupt, that it is impossible for him to come to Christ without the assistance of God the Holy Spirit. Now, in trying to explain how the nature of man renders him unable to come to Christ, consider this illustration. You see a sheep. How willingly it feeds upon the vegetation! You’ve never seen a sheep desire meat. It could not live on lion’s food. Now bring me a wolf. Ask me whether a wolf can eat grass and whether it can be just as docile and as domesticated as the sheep. I answer no, because its nature is contrary to that.
You say, “Well, it has ears and legs. Can’t it hear the shepherd’s voice and follow him wherever he leads it?”
Certainly. There is no physical reason why it cannot do so, but its nature forbids it. Therefore, I say it cannot do so. Can’t it be tamed? Can’t its ferocity be removed? It could probably be subdued to the point that it appears tame, but there will always be a marked distinction between it and the sheep, because there is a distinction in nature.
The reason why man cannot come to Christ is not because he cannot come as far as his body or his mere power of mind is concerned, but because his nature is so corrupt that he has neither the will nor the power to come to Christ unless drawn by the Spirit.
Let me give you a better illustration. You see a mother with her baby in her arms. You put a knife into her hand and tell her to stab that baby in the heart.
She replies very truthfully, “I cannot.”
As far as her bodily power is concerned, she can, if she wants to. There is the knife, and there is the child. The child cannot resist, and the mother has quite sufficient strength in her hand to stab its heart; but she is quite correct when she says she cannot do it. As a mere act of the mind, it is quite possible she might think of such a thing as killing the child, and yet she says she cannot think of such a thing as killing the child. She is telling the truth, because her nature as a mother forbids her to do something from which her soul revolts. Simply because she is that child’s parent, she feels she cannot kill the baby.
It is the same with a sinner. Coming to Christ is so obnoxious to human nature that as far as physical and mental forces are concerned (and these have but a very limited place in salvation), people could come if they would want to. It is strictly correct to say that they cannot and will not unless the Father who has sent Christ draws them.
Man is by nature blind within. The cross of Christ, so laden with glories and glittering with attractions, never attracts him, because he is blind and cannot see its beauties. Talk to him of the wonders of creation, show him the rainbow that spans the sky, and let him behold the glories of a landscape; he is fully able to see all these things. But if you talk to him about the wonders of the covenant of grace, speak to him of the security of the believer in Christ, and tell him of the beauties of the person of the Redeemer, he is quite deaf to all that you say. You are like one who plays a pleasant tune, but he doesn’t regard your music. He is deaf and has no comprehension.
Do you find your power equal to your will? You could say, even at the throne of God Himself, that you are sure you are not mistaken in your willingness. You are willing to be devoted to God. It is your will that your soul should not wander from a pure contemplation of the Lord Jesus Christ, but you find that you cannot do that, even when you are willing, without the help of the Spirit. If the awakened child of God finds a spiritual inability, how much more the sinner who is dead in trespasses and sin? If even the advanced Christian, after thirty or forty years, finds himself sometimes willing and yet powerless, does it not seem more than likely that the poor sinner who has not yet believed would find a need for strength as well as a lack of will?
There is another argument. If the sinner has strength to come to Christ, I would like to know how we are supposed to understand those continual descriptions of the sinner’s condition that we find in God’s Holy Word. A sinner is said to be dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). Will you agree that death implies nothing more than the absence of a will?
“Surely a corpse is quite unable as well as unwilling,” says one. “So then, if I cannot save myself and cannot come to Christ, I must sit still and do nothing.”
If people say this, their doom will be on their own heads. There are many things you can do. To be found continually in the house of God is in your power. To study the Word of God with diligence is in your power. To renounce your outward sin, to forsake the vices in which you indulge, to reform your life outwardly, is all within your power. You do not need help from the Holy Spirit for this – all this you can do yourself; but to truly come to Christ is not in your power until you are renewed by the Holy Spirit.
Your lack of power is no excuse when you have no desire to come and are living in willful rebellion against God. Your lack of power lies mainly in your stubborn nature. Suppose a liar says that it is not in his power to speak the truth, that he has been a liar so long that he cannot stop. Is that an excuse for him? Suppose a man who has indulged in lust for a long time tells you that he finds his lusts have so enveloped him like a great iron net that he cannot get rid of them. Would you accept that as an excuse? Truly it isn’t one at all. If a drunkard has become such a drunkard that he finds it impossible to pass a drinking establishment without stepping in, do you excuse him? No, because his inability to change lies in his nature, which he has no desire to restrain or conquer.
The thing that is done and the thing that causes the thing that is done both proceed from the root of sin. They are two evils which cannot excuse each other. So what if the Ethiopian cannot change his skin, or the leopard his spots? It is because you have learned to do evil that you cannot now learn to do what is right. Instead of letting you sit down and make excuses, let me put a thunderbolt beneath the seat of your apathy, so you may be startled and aroused by it. Remember that to sit still is to be damned for all eternity.
We tie up all our ends now and conclude by trying to make a practical application of the doctrine, and we hope it is an agreeable one. “Well,” someone says, “if what this man teaches is true, what is to become of my religion? You know I have been trying for a long time, and I do not like to hear you say a man cannot save himself. I believe he can, and I intend to persevere. If I am to believe what you say, I must give it all up and begin again.”
It will be a very good thing if you do. Remember, what you are doing now is building your house upon the sand, and it is even an act of love if I shake your house a little for you. Let me assure you, in God’s name, if your religion has no better foundation than your own strength, it will not be good enough for you at the throne of God. Nothing will last to eternity except that which came from eternity. Unless the everlasting God has done a good work in your heart, all you have done must fall apart at the last day.
It is all in vain for you to be a faithful church attender or to be religious and regularly say your prayers. It is all in vain for you to be honest with your neighbors and reputable in your life if you hope to be saved by these things. It is all in vain for you to trust in them. Go on and be as honest as you like, keep the Lord’s Day always, and be as holy as you can. I would not dissuade you from these things. God forbid! Grow in them, but do not trust in them. If you rely upon these things, you will find that they will fail you when you need them most. If there is anything else that you have found yourself unable to do unless aided by divine grace, the sooner you can get rid of the hope that has been generated by it, the better it is for you, for it is a wicked delusion to rely upon anything that flesh can do. A spiritual heaven must be inhabited by spiritual people, and preparation for it must be performed by the Spirit of God.
“Well,” cries another, “I have been sitting under a ministry where I have been told that I could, whenever I decided, repent and believe, and the consequence is that I have been putting it off from day to day. I thought I could come one day as well as another, that I had only to say, ‘Lord, have mercy upon me,’ and believe, and then I would be saved. I thought I simply had to make a decision to believe. Now you have taken all this hope away from me. I feel amazement and horror taking hold of me.”
I am very glad. This was the effect I had hoped to produce, and I pray that you feel this a great deal more. When you have no hope of saving yourself, I will have hope that God has begun to save you. As soon as you say, “Oh, I cannot come to Christ. Lord, draw me; help me,” I will rejoice over you. He who has the will, even though he has not power, has the beginnings of grace in his heart, and God will not leave him until the work is finished.
However, careless sinner, learn that your salvation now hangs in God’s hand. Remember that you are entirely in the hand of God! You have sinned against Him, and if He wills to damn you, you are damned. You cannot resist His will or prevent His purpose. You have deserved His wrath, and if He chooses to pour the full shower of that wrath upon your head, you can do nothing to prevent it.
If, on the other hand, He chooses to save you, He is able to save you completely; but you lie as much in His hand as a summer moth lies beneath your own finger. He is the God whom you are grieving every day. Does it not make you tremble to think that your eternal destiny now hangs upon the will of Him whom you have angered and enraged? Doesn’t this frighten and alarm you? If it does, I rejoice, because this may be the first effect of the Spirit’s drawing of your soul. Oh, tremble to think that the God whom you have angered is the God upon whom your salvation or your condemnation entirely depends! Tremble, and kiss the Son lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled in a little while (Psalm 2:12).