"He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4).
As you have probably observed from reading Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, regeneration is based solely on God’s choice. He is the one who changes our hearts and enables us to come to faith. He does not give us a new heart after we put our faith in Christ; this is just not possible. Unless God gives us the ability to repent and turn to Christ, we will never do so.
Jesus reiterates this fact in chapter 6: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44). Notice that Jesus says “no one can come.…” In other words, no one is able. It’s not that they won’t come, but that they cannot. How then are they given the ability to come to Christ? Only by the power of God.
The Greek word translated “draw” in this passage does not mean to persuade or to entice. God does not call for us to come like a master to a puppy. This is not the imagery Jesus wanted to invoke. The word draw means to drag, just as one would drag water from a well. You do not yell down to the water, “Come here water! Please come up out of the well!” But you put in a bucket, scoop the water up, and pull it out of the well. This is what God does in regeneration. He reaches down into our hearts and pulls us out of darkness into the light.
It is easy to think that our salvation began when we put our faith in Christ because we did not detect when God changed our hearts. We simply saw the fruit of that change: faith and repentance. But we must understand that we could never have put our faith in Christ unless God had sovereignly intervened in our lives and enabled us to humble ourselves before Him and put our faith in His Son.
Why God has chosen to change the hearts of some people and not others will be discussed extensively later in our study of John. But for now, let us find our answer in Scripture, which tells us that God’s choice is based not on anything we have done or will but by the good pleasure of His own will and by His sovereign decree—a decree that was established “before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4–6).
Read Romans 8:31–39; 11:29. What comfort do you have concerning your salvation? Why is your salvation secured? Could your salvation remain secure if you initiated your conversion? What freedom is there in knowing that God chose you, changed you, and promises to bring you to glory? Praise God for His sovereign grace.
