John 6:44 says: “No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him…”
John Piper had a great sermon on this that I will link to on my blog for future reference…or encouragement.
Excerpt From His Commentary:
This is in absolutely, totally, and undoubtedly not in any conflict whatsoever with your coming freely
by freely i simply mean coming b/c you want to come (freedom = doing what you want to do and not regretting it in years later)
nobody comes to Jesus who doesn’t want to come to Jesus
nobody comes to Jesus who hasn’t chosen to come to Jesus
nobody comes to Jesus who doesn’t come by an act of their own will
I’m just saying when you perform that act of will, experience this, when you do come — there’s a reason: GOD
Those whom the Father draws will come to me.
And when we come, we come to him freely…with zero coercion
We come freely with zero constraint
We do what we want to do, or it isn’t faith
Faith sees Him as life, treasure, all…and says YES
There is no constraint here
There is the freest moment of your life
My notes:
(I think this would shock most anti-Calvinists and Piper-haters. This is also extremely comforting to me, because I was starting to feel like I was a Calvinist nut-job and maybe John Piper was too…I praise God that I heard this sermon this morning. I still may be a nut job (ask my wife) but I feel much more assured and at peace and reinforces where I feel the Lord has me standing)
God is GOD. He is sovereign over ALL.
He knows EVERYTHING.
That’s His JOB. (not yours)
He is drawing you to Him thru His Son and the reconciliation he offers.
You respond to this drawing, you make a choice, of your free will.
…but don’t think for a minute that he didn’t know before the foundation of the world was laid what your choice would be.
…and don’t think for a minute that he didn’t ordain that choice
he’s God. Remember?
Another great post to remember for the future is here
Mike Ruel 
“This is in absolutely, totally, and undoubtedly not in any conflict whatsoever with your coming freely
by freely i simply mean coming b/c you want to come (freedom = doing what you want to do and not regretting it in years later)
nobody comes to Jesus who doesn’t want to come to Jesus
nobody comes to Jesus who hasn’t chosen to come to Jesus
nobody comes to Jesus who doesn’t come by an act of their own will
I’m just saying when you perform that act of will, experience this, when you do come — there’s a reason: GOD”
That whole statement is plain heresy. Sinners never want to be saved. You do not come to Jesus and ‘get saved’ –by anything. God hunts you down and Speaks to you. All sinners are in flight from God. That is the witness of God about all sinners.
I’d really like a link for that quote if you’ve got it. Piper has said some things in the past that indicate he is at best a closet Arminian.
Both the human will and the will of the new creature in Jesus Christ have nothing, nada, zip to do with the new birth in Jesus Christ. There is no such thing as “being drawn to choose God”. You are drawn to God by new birth, by being born again, not at all by pre-new birth ‘holy info’ that you process as a mental or emotional anything and then ‘choose’ to be born again. So Piper is ‘giving God all the glory’ for something that doesn’t happen at all.
You can get lost in ‘the will is not free’ as its own truth and disregard the new birth and that we are born again by hearing the Word of God. So while men such as Piper will seem to give God “all the credit” for doing what is fact not done at all, what they say is plain Arminianism –that men are ‘saved’ by an act of their own will.
The will is not free. But there is more to the whole truth. The fact that the will is not free is simply one part of the larger truth of new birth in Jesus Christ.
The whole statement is heresy from top to bottom while seeming to be truth because it ‘gives God 100% of the credit’. It mingles the truth that God is totally responsible for our salvation with the lie that the will ( either will ..the will of the old man or of the new creature in Jesus Christ ) has something to do with new birth in Jesus Christ. God plainly Says the will of man has nothing to do with receiving Jesus Christ:
John 1:12,13 but as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God, to those that believe on his name; who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh’s will, nor of man’s will, but of God.
note the verse does not say the ‘will be born’ but they were already born as they received Him as Word. In addition:
1Peter 1:23-25 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
James 1:18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
One of the purposes of the lie of human free will is to sidestep the necessity of out-right being born again because men have no word that can create anything. They need a ideal scenario to empower themselves –to stay themselves but ‘get saved’. When God through you exposes the will is not free to ‘choose God’, that is truth. The will is not free at all. But the will also has nothing to do with new birth. It is not at all a case of “God drawing you to choose Him” or “wooing you” or some such lie that pretends there is a pre-new birth desire to be a Christian. God plainly Says that the natural man CANNOT know God:
1Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him; and he cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned;
Piper / his type of preacher are big on popularizing God’s ‘good qualities’ and have a type of theater they perform exactly in line with pop emotion to make God out to be a great guy within the bounds of pop etiquette. Piper then plays a “reformed’ / “Calvinists’ theater / pantomime that is not Calvinism but ‘gives God all the credit’ and so may seem to some to be Calvinistic. But he is not. You have to reduce the whole distinction of Calvinism from Arminianism to ‘who gets credit/glory –God or man?’ to buy into Piper. The distinction is MUCH larger.
It may be nice to some to be forced to say God is ‘wonderful’ becuase Piper tells them God ‘draws them to choose Him’. But it is all a lie.
timothy
1Corinthians 2:12,13 But *we* have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we may know the things which have been freely given to us of God: which also we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, communicating spiritual things by spiritual means .
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
First… a confession. I’m having a real struggle not to roll my eyes at the comment of John Piper being a ‘closet Arminian’. That’s almost as irresponsible as me suggesting that the first comment here is coming from a ‘blatant hyper-calvinist’. There… I’ve ‘chosen’ to join the fray ;).
Humor aside, from one Timothy to another, have you read Piper’s Finally Alive? I think you’ll find that he argues most/much of your concerns.
Additionally, I realize we would all agree that God is Truth. All truth that we have is revealed by Him to us through His Word by the Holy Spirit. So, in that light, I find it difficult to raise my or your version of truth over the purpose of God to glorify Himself in all things. I’m not suggesting John Piper gets everything right wrt what reflects the glory of God best, but I’m not ready to call him a ‘closet anything’ in order to support my own agenda.
I did find it interesting that you have carefully chosen quoting scriptures from various translations that most support your perspective. Not saying you’re not ‘free’ to do that, but I did find it interesting.
I’m not suggesting that Piper is in the same theological boat that you (Timothy) are. But I am suggesting that wrt the will of God in regeneration… Piper is spot on and your comments above seem to indicate there is no argument to be had on this specific issue. Again, go read Finally Alive and see if you truly have any real substantial difference in the truth.
My thoughts anyway… this beautiful sunday morning.
Thanks, “Tims” for your comments. Obviously I respectfully disagree wtih the first Timothy. As for the question about the link to the quotes, I provided it at the start of the post. The actual comments Dr. Piper made don’t appear in the text version of the sermon, but you can see them in the video or hear them in the audio download.
As for the question at hand – I definitely agree that the lost run from God, as that was what I did for nearly 25 years, until God did a work in my heart do bring me back to him and made my heart yearn for him, regenerated me and made the choice irresistible.
You are definitely missing the major point of Piper’s sermon here – there is no way he is saying that we are that men “are ’saved’ by an act of their own will.”
My choice didn’t save me…Christ’s perfect finished complete work on the cross saved me and I thank God every day that he did. All glory to him, as I am not worthy of such grace!
Thanks again for your comments.
2 Cor 4:4-6
-mike
Check out the Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 3.
“I. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass;[1] yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin,[2] nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established”
No violence is done to the will of the creature. God changes us in regeneration so we are willing to come.
Last I checked, the Westminster Divines were Calvinists.