By Angus Harley

Ah, the ol’ chestnut. The question is genuine, and seems to have only one answer: all men commanded to obey God’s word must have the innate ability to obey it. Otherwise, why call them? Would it not be unjust for God to punish them for not obeying it if they did not in fact have the ability?

But was this Jesus’ way of thinking? I could start by reciting normal Calvinistic responses, but I will leave that for the moment. A far more interesting starting point is Jesus’ preaching. It is commonly taught that Jesus came and preached universally, and the free offer of the Gospel was given to everyone. The Gospel was offered to all, every person, every type of person, regardless of who they were. His apostles and disciples followed the same model. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, all of this is true. Does it entirely represent how the NT thinks of Jesus’ preaching?

Jesus’ preaching: merely to bring salvation to all?

He tells us again and again that he came preaching for the sake of a specific group, “ “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance”” (Luke 5:32; see Mark 2:17; Matt.9:12-13; 11:28-30; John 9:39).  He is that pronounced on this issue that he goes as far as to warn his hearers, “ “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” ” (Matt.10:34). Nor does he leave his belligerence there:

“49 “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! 51 Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; 52 for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” ” (Luke 12:49-53).

Still, Jesus is not content with this. No. He drives the sword in further, “
“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” “ (Luke 14:26).

Usually, all these verses of division, the sword, and hatred- ‘the divisive Gospel’- are swallowed up by the Gospel of peace and love, reinterpreted, reassigned, peripheralized, and generally ignored.

Due to our generalizing tendency in making theology, we so easily forget that Jesus taught the parables with both positive and negative purposes in mind:

“10 And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” 11 Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. 12 For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. 13 Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14 In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,

‘You will keep on hearing, but will not understand;

You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive;

15 For the heart of this people has become dull,

With their ears they scarcely hear,

And they have closed their eyes,

Otherwise they would see with their eyes,

Hear with their ears,

And understand with their heart and return,

And I would heal them.’

16 But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. 17 For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” ” (Matt.13:10-17)

Allow this information to sink into your mind: Jesus taught parables simultaneously both to advance and to deny, to liberate and to prevent, to encourage and to harden.

What relevance do this belligerent Gospel and divisive Messianic teaching have for the issue of man’s ability to obey God’s commandments?

What is going on in the call?

The above model forces us to reassess what is happening when God commands sinners to repent. John the Baptist called upon all Jews he came in contact with to repent for the kingdom of heaven was at hand (Matt.3:3). This is the model we are all familiar with. It is the ‘control’ of our way of representing biblical preaching. But it is merely the external face of preaching, its appearance, its outward act. For the Gospel was going forth deliberately to divide. It was separating the wheat from the chaff, the sick from the whole, the unrighteous from the righteous. The results were never left up in the air, waiting for responses. The Gospel’s proclamation always and invariably achieved its aim of dividing. There will be those who respond because they can, for they are of the light; and there will be those who do not respond because they cannot, for they are of darkness.

John 3:16 is typically used as a vindication of the broad, universal, free offer of the Gospel paradigm, and also of an ‘open-endedness’ as to responses to the Gospel: ‘Will they believe, will they not? Let’s wait and see’, type of thing. But notice how John goes on to unfold this most famous of all verses:

“19 This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

Tell me that this is not the Gospel of division! It is impossible, by the measurement of v20, that that which is darkness comes to the light. Impossible, I say! It is certain (not merely possible) that those who practice the truth come to the light, as v21 teaches. Certain, I say!

As brothers have correctly pointed out recently on an online forum: the Gospel command or ‘offer’ (I don’t like this term, but I’m using it to accommodate certain opinions) is actively and virulently separating true from false. As someone else said by way of illustration, a cop commands a very drunk driver to walk in a straight line. He doesn’t and can’t. Not even mountains of ‘free will’ combined with ‘normalized’ behaviors and abilities will enable that drunken fool to walk in a straight line. Impossible! God calls in the Gospel. He is calling out in the hearing of what are, for sake of illustration, a myriad of super-sodden, drunken fools. But some are not. Some do walk the line. A few respond and come to the light, for they are of the light.  This is the sick and the unrighteous Jesus came for, the burdened and heavy laden. They are on the Messianic side of the division in homes, between families. Thus, the Gospel command hardens or liberates, pushes away or draws out; it always categorizes and confirms a person in one of those two states.

Where is God’s creative power?

We focus so tightly on man’s ability, that we forget God’s creative power. When Jesus called forth Lazarus, commanding him, did Lazarus press the free will button? Did he remind himself of his ability to obey? Surely, as certain as the planets ‘obeyed’ the voice of their Creator and came into being, so Lazarus awoke from the dead, and lived again, solely by the life-giving voice of Jesus, the Son of God. And even if we insist on Lazarus’ will not being bypassed, didn’t Lazarus come forth because God worked in him to will and to do his good pleasure (Phil.2:13)? To begin with some innate ability in man makes it unnecessary for God to do any kind of creative work so that man both wills and does his good pleasure. Tell me, what about the “new” creation is new if it’s always been there in the form of an innate ability in man?

Where is Jesus’ flock?

John 3:16ff. is, from the angle of God’s possession and choice, elaborated upon in John 10. Jesus came as the Good Shepherd for his flock alone. His sheep alone hear his voice. They will come forth, because it is the Shepherd’s job to bring them into his flock. His sheep follow his voice; those not his sheep do not, and will not, follow his voice. In other words, Jesus was not preaching merely to give an opportunity for the sick and unrighteous to repent and follow him. His preaching was his voice going out to them, because they were marked out as his sheep. Jesus says, “ “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd” ” (John 10:16). Before he even calls them, they are  sheep. They do not spring into life as his sheep when his voice goes forth. They are already sheep, and, more to the point, they are already his sheep, his pre-chosen sheep, separated, and awaiting his voice to bring them into the fold.