A Biblical Case for Election and Predestination

The Difference Between Systematic Theology and the Doctrine of Election

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist. On today's program, we're going to be doing something a little bit different, as we're going to be listening in on a recent lesson that I gave at Set Free Church on the subject of election and predestination.

So stay tuned. Conversations with a Calvinist begins right now. We are continuing with our study of systematics or systematic theology. We do 12 weeks of systematic theology each week with a new category of study.

Last week, we looked at the doctrine of justification, which is a subset of the doctrine of salvation. So we have soteriology, which is the doctrine of salvation. Out of that, we have multiple subsets of doctrines.

We have justification, also known as sola fide, which is justification by faith alone. And we could talk about sanctification. We could talk about glorification. There are various subsets of this doctrine.

But because this is only a 12-week course, and by the way, if you are here for phase one, you will go through this course at least once, sometimes twice, because it's 12 weeks and phase one is longer than that.

But the goal is to have you go through each of these classes at least once. And so some of you may have been through this before. So what we're going to look at today is the doctrine of election. All right, so when we talk about the doctrine of election, it is closely tied to the doctrine of predestination.

And that is why people get upset. Because when we talk about the doctrine of predestination, everybody has an opinion and opinions are like armpits. We all got them. Most of them stink. That's just the truth, man.

So when we talk about opinions, well, whatever. I want to know what the Bible says. One thing I know for sure, if I talk to somebody and they say to me, I don't believe in election. I say, we ain't never read the Bible.

The word election is all in the Bible. Or if they say, I don't believe in predestination. I say again, you either don't believe the Bible or you have so twisted word meanings that you've come to the point where you think you know better than what the Bible says.

So we talk about words, we talk about meanings, and then we look at how those words are used in the Bible. So first of all, let's talk about the word election. Now we know what an election is when we think of our own government.

Every few years, well, every year we have local elections. Every couple of years we have state elections. And then every four years we have an election to the highest office in the land, and that is the office of president.

And in that election, every one of us has the opportunity to go down and to punch a card or sign a little circle or whatever and drop it in a box. And when we do that, we are making a choice. So the word election means a choice or to make a choice, to choose.

Ephesians 1 and the Meaning of Election

Okay? So with that in mind, turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1 speaks on the doctrine of election. We're going to begin at verse 3 because the first two verses are Paul's introduction where he introduces himself and his audience.

And I'm in the ESV. If you're reading a different translation, it may be slightly different, but probably won't be much different. And it says this, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

In love, He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the beloved. In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Let's pray. Father, I thank You for Your Word. Lord, Your Word is precious. And Lord, I pray now that You would help me to teach Your Word and to do so without error. For Lord, I am a fallible man, and I am capable of teaching error, and I don't want to.

For the sake of Your name, for the sake of my conscience, and for the sake of these men who I love, I pray, Lord, that You would give me patience and strength to teach well, give the men open ears and open minds and open hearts to learn well.

And may Your Spirit ultimately be the teacher who applies this truth to our hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen. All right. So we see in this passage several key words. The first word that we see is in verse 4.

It says, He chose us. So as I said before, the doctrine of election is the doctrine of choosing. And I want you to notice the subject, the verb, and the object. All right. So it says, He chose us. We have here in our language a subject.

That is the one doing the action. We have the verb. That is the action being done. And then we have the object of the verb, which is the object being acted upon. Therefore, if I say, Cory threw the ball.

Cory is the subject. And threw is the verb. And the ball with the definite article the becomes the object. Now, I could change that. I could say the ball was thrown by Cory. Now, that's the same thing.

But I changed the subject. Because now the subject is the ball. And the verb was thrown changes to a different form of the verb. Right? Rather than saying, he threw, which is in the positive, was thrown is in the passive or active and passive.

So there's different ways to say the same thing. But if I say, Cory threw the ball, we know that that is a very simple sentence based upon a very simple principle of subject, verb, and object. So now we look at this sentence or this portion of the sentence and we learn the same thing.

He, who is he? Well, the context tells us, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he. He is known as a pronoun.

A pronoun requires an antecedent. An antecedent means a previous noun to which it attaches. And the previous noun, by the way, this is exegesis. If you want to know what I'm doing, I'm showing you how you interpret things.

This is the process of interpretation whereby you can be confident that you're coming to the right conclusion because you're using what is known as the grammatical historical method, looking at the grammar and the history of the text.

All right. So this is a process of interpretation whereby we go through this process slowly and look at every word and how it's being used in the sentence. He is connected to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So God is the he. So you could take out he and put the word God there. You could say God chose us. All right. So the word he is connected to God and God is the subject. And the reason why I make this point is because a lot of people, when we talk about the doctrine of election, people want to talk about our choosing God.

But notice that that is not what is said here. That what is said here is God chose us. And I've had this conversation many times where people will say, well, God chose me because I chose him. And they want to put their choice before God's choice in the scheme of causation.

I chose God. Therefore, he chose me. That's the circle of cause. But the Bible teaches, in my opinion, and I believe I can bear this out, that God chose us. Therefore, we chose him. And even one passage specifically, I always am reminded of is when Jesus told his disciples, you didn't choose me, but I chose you.

So that's just a good reminder of the key of the concept. Who is the first to do the choosing? And the Father, God, it says he chose us. And you say, well, how do we know he was first? Well, I want you to just notice that the text tells us.

It says he chose us in him. That is in Christ. And I'm gonna come back to that in a moment. Before the foundation of the world. What were you doing before the foundation of the world? Were you choosing?

No, you weren't there. You were not alive. You say, well, God looked down the corridors of time and he saw what I was going to do. That is the way that many people try to get around that. Well, I was there in the mind of God.

He could see what I was going to do. And that's why he chose me. But if you take that position, and that is the classical Arminian position, which I'm a Calvinist, so just to distinguish, there's Calvinism and Arminianism.

The classical Arminian position will say, God saw my choice and he chose me because I first chose him. And again, the issue with that is it don't say that. It don't sound right either, but it don't say that.

See, to get there, you have to insert an idea that's not in the text. My goal is first exegesis and then systematics. Exegesis produces a biblical theology, but exegesis is pulling out of the text what it says.

And then you produce from that a biblical theology and out of that, you produce a systematic theology. And it's sort of a process to get you to where we are. So he chose us. All right. Now, the big question is for a lot of people, because we know chose, we know that verb.

He chose us. The question people have is who is the us? Who is the us? Well, in this particular context, if you go back up to verse one, Paul delineates who the us are. He says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.

Notice that I'm an apostle by the will of God. I didn't choose. God chose me. It wasn't my will. It was his. So Paul, from the very beginning, is addressing even his own having been chosen by God. It was by God's will.

And you think about that. Paul wasn't on the road to Damascus to become a Christian. Paul was on the road to Damascus to arrest and enslave Christians. And Christ, by his mercy, blinded this man who had hatred in his heart, softened his heart and gave him a new heart.

And Paul didn't ask for any of it. In fact, if it were up to Paul, he would have rejected it. But God, by his mercy, chose Paul by his own will. He drew Paul in, opened his heart by blinding his eyes.

So we see God at work in the life of Paul. So he says here, he says, I'm an apostle by the will of God to the saints who are at Ephesus. Now, I'm going to erase a little bit so I can write a little more.

I just start up here when we use the word saints. This is not a word that everybody understands the same way. So I want to help you at least come to a couple of conclusions, because if you happen to have a background in either Roman Catholic upbringing or in Eastern Orthodox upbringing, then you may have been in a tradition that gives people the title of saint after they do something particularly special, like Mother Teresa, who worked with the poor people of Calcutta, or with somebody like one of the apostles, Saint Peter, Saint Jerome, Saint Andrew, Saint, you know, all these people.

Yeah, yeah, anybody, anyone. And the idea is that saint indicates a particular type of person. But the word saint, and the word saint is agios in the Greek, and the word agios means holy one, holy one.

And so the question is, how does someone become a holy one? Well, the Bible tells us when we are saved or when we are born again, God makes us holy. He takes us from the kingdom of darkness. He places us into the kingdom of light.

We become, we go from being children of wrath to being children of God, right? And by that, we become saints. So the word saint, from a biblical perspective, or agios or agiosmos is the sanctified or the saved.

It refers to everyone who is saved. Does not just refer specifically to super saints or super Christians, right? So if you're a believer today, and I pray that you are, I don't know, but I pray that all of you are.

I know this, you are a saint in the strictest of terms, because the Bible says we are either unsaved sinners or we are saved saints. Now, that doesn't mean that you don't sin, so be clear on that. But if you are saved, you have been made holy.

In that sense, you're a saint. So when Paul says he's writing to the saints who are in Ephesus, he's not talking about a particular set of Christians, a super group of people. He's talking to all the Christians.

And then he gives this word of blessing. He says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who's blessed us. Who's the us? Well, it's Paul and the saints. Now, you might say, well, this maybe is just the saints in Ephesus.

Maybe he's not talking to everybody. But I would contend that this letter is not just addressing the saints in Ephesus, but is addressing saints of all times because of the content of the letter. He doesn't say anything in the letter that would only be directed to them.

He's saying things in the letter that would be directed to them and to the others. In fact, what we know from the history of this particular letter is that after reading Ephesus, it was sent around and read in other churches.

In fact, the earliest books of the New Testament that were collected, grouped together as a book and sent out to the churches are what was known as the Pauline Corpus or the writings of Paul. They were all put into a book and sent around.

That was the earliest version of the New Testament, because at that point, all of the books of the New Testament had not come together. But the writings of Paul went around to the churches. So it was obvious that the churches understood that this wasn't just for Ephesus, but this is for everybody who is a Christian.

So knowing that, we go back to the he chose us statement. He is God. He chose. Who did he choose? He chose believers. Or maybe a better way to say it would be those who will believe. Those who will believe that is that is the us.

The us there is those who will believe. So it says even as he chose us or those who will believe in him. And that's where the in him come in, because what do they believe? You can answer. They believe in him.

That's the easy part, right? In him. Who's the him? Christ. Here's something to consider when you think of the doctrine of election. Understand this. It is never outside of Christ. No person is chosen who is not in Christ.

See, because somebody will say this. Well, if the doctrine of election is true, why even go out and evangelize? God's already chosen who he's going to save. And I don't need to go share the gospel with people.

You're missing a vital part. The choice is in Christ, which means the people who are chosen are the ones who believe in Christ. So how does a person believe in Christ? What does Romans chapter 10 say?

The hearing of the word, right? It says, how shall they hear unless someone preaches or teaches, right? How shall they hear without a teacher? So we go. See, people tell me all the time. When you're a Calvinist, you must not believe in evangelism.

Man, we got people in our church that preach on the street, like literally on the street. We set up booths and go and hand out tracts at events. We wear shirts that have gospel messages on it because we believe that people need to hear the gospel to be saved.

We believe that hearing the gospel is the means by which God saves his elect. No person is chosen outside of Christ. They are chosen in Christ and therefore they hear the gospel so that they may hear and believe.

That is so vital. No one is saved outside of Christ. And this text tells us he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. He chose us in him before even the world was created. Now that's, I don't know about you, that's absolutely mind-boggling to me.

God, before he laid one stone, before he formed one thing, and I know he didn't lay a stone. I know he spoke into existence. So that's a euphemistic phrase. But before God spoke anything into existence, he had already chosen to save me.

Which means he knew me before I ever was created. By the way, that's what Romans 8 tells us. For whom he foreknew, he predestined. He knew me before. That's what foreknew means. He knew me before I was ever created.

I mean, just basking that for, why don't we just take five minutes and meditate? I'm just kidding. But I mean, just seriously, just think about the fact that he chose us before the foundation of the world.

In fact, the Bible tells us in Revelation that Christ is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Now think about that. See, God not only had a plan before he created the world to save me, but he had the plan's outline already determined before the beginning of the world.

Because the plan's outline included the sinning of his son, the death on the cross, and the redemption of sins that would happen by virtue of that death. All of that God had in his mind, if you want to call it the mind of God, in his will before the foundation of the world.

This is like, this is like, what's the word I'm looking for? Metaphysical. It's like outside, it's hard to even imagine. It is crazy. Who said it? Yeah, this is crazy. But it's good crazy. Because what we're doing, excuse me, we're going through a pre-review apparently.

What we're doing is we are getting a glimpse behind the veil. Right? We're getting a glimpse into the inner workings of God's mysterious acts. The Bible says that the hidden things belong to the Lord, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children.

And so that tells us that there's things about God that we are not to know, that the hidden things, but that there are things that we can know. The things that are revealed are for us and for our children.

So I know there's things about God I don't know. I don't know why he does some of the stuff he does. Somebody comes to me, child dies. I don't know. I don't know. I know God has a purpose for it. I know that this is not a wasted life.

I know this is not a, that your pain is not without purpose. I know that, but I don't know why your child died. You know, I can't, I don't know the answer because the hidden things belong to the Lord.

And I can't answer every question when we suffer. Right? And the question of suffering is a big question. I don't know the answer. So we live in a sin. We live in a sinful world that's cursed by sin. And so there's a lot of suffering.

That's the one thing I can say. But I don't know why your child specifically became the object of that. I don't know. But I do know this. There are things about God I can know. The revealed things and the things I can know, I want to know.

And I want to know as much as I can know so that I grow closer to him. And this text tells me some things. It tells me that he chose us. And I could say, without being prideful, when I see the us, I can relate that to myself.

I could say he chose me before the foundation of the world. Now, I'm not saying he didn't choose you. I'm saying from a personal... It's sort of like John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son.

Sometimes you can kind of put yourself there and say, for God so loved me that he sent his only begotten son. Because God did. He loved you enough to send his son. He loved you enough that his son came to die.

And even though we should not make the Bible all about us because that would lead to a wrong understanding of stuff, we should understand where we fit in the narrative. God does love you and he sent his son for you.

That's the key, right? And in this, he chose me from the foundation of the world. I can see myself in this passage. All right. He chose me in Christ before the foundation of the world. For what purpose?

Why did he choose me? So I get to go to heaven, sit on a cloud and strum a harp for all eternity? No, no, no, no, no. Look what it says. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him.

Remember what I said the word holy means? Or the word saint means holy. He chose us that we would be holy and blameless. Now, let's break down these thoughts. He chose us that we would be holy and blameless.

And by the way, it says in him. It says in him he chose us that we should be holy and blameless in him. In him happens twice. It's all about Christ. It's all about being in him. All right. That's it bookends the idea with Christ at the beginning.

He chose us in him that we should be holy and blameless in him. Right. So the words holy and blameless. I've already talked about holy, but I didn't really give you a definition. I said, that's what we are.

But what does it mean? Holy means to be set apart. We are set apart and we are blameless. And you say, now, wait a minute. Does that mean we are sinless in this particular context? What it is saying is that before God, our sins have been atoned for.

And therefore, we are blameless. So you could say set apart and redeem. Because the idea is your sins have been paid for. You know what the word redeem means, right? It means something got paid for. Like you see a commercial redeem this coupon for free, whatever.

Right. The word redeem means it pays for something. And the word redemption comes from the word agora, which refers to the marketplace where the slaves were sold. And they would go and they would go into the agora and they would purchase the slaves.

And that idea is the picture of us. We were slaves of sin. Christ came into the world and died on the cross. And he paid the penalty for our sin. And he paid the purchase price for us. And he bought us out of that.

He redeemed us out of that slave market. And now we who were absolutely slaves to sin have been made children of God. We've gone from being... Jesus said we've gone from being slaves of sin to slaves of righteousness.

All right. We're still slaves because we're his. But we're not slaves to sin. We're sons of God and slaves to righteousness. So we are holy and blameless before him in love. In love, he predestined us.

Adoption, New Birth, and the Will Bound by Sin

I want to really focus on... I'm going to raise this up. Because when people hear the word predestined, they get upset. They hear the word predestined. They get a little concerned. But I want you to notice the phrase that is used right before the word he predestined us.

Because it is he. That again is God. Predestined us. That is believers. Right? And notice what it says right before that. There's a little phrase. It is a prepositional phrase. And it is the prepositional phrase.

In love, he predestined us. Before we get our emotions too high and get too upset about predestination, we should understand that it is an act of love. In love, he predestined us. Because notice what he predestined us to.

The next thing. For adoption as sons. What's the most precious doctrine of all the doctrines that we have in regard to our relationship with God through Christ? Is it not the doctrine of adoption? That God came and adopted us because we were not his children by birth.

And by the way, I want to remind you, no one is a child of God by birth. We are a child of God by rebirth. In fact, if you want proof of that, very quickly, just turn over to John chapter 1. In John chapter 1, it says in verse 11, all right, it says, He, that is Jesus, came to his own and his own people did not receive him.

But to all who did receive him, that means to believe on him, to all who did receive him, who believe in his name, he gave the right to become what? Children of God. Who were born not of blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.

I want to hang out there for a minute. Hold your place here because notice what it's saying. It says Jesus came to his own people. That was the Jews. They didn't receive him. And that was something that was the scandal of the ages, right?

The Messiah has come and he is rejected. But it says as many as did receive him. And what does receive mean? Who believed on his name. To them, he gave them the right to become children of God. And by the word, the word there, right, is actually the word power.

So we're dunamis in the Greek. And it literally is the idea that he empowered them to become children of God. He gave them the ability to become children of God. And how did he do it? Well, the next part says it.

Who were born, not notice the knots. They were born, not of blood. What does that mean? Means they weren't. They didn't get this by virtue of their heritage. You know, just because somebody's a Jew doesn't mean they're saved.

And just because somebody's white or black or whatever doesn't mean they're saved. It's not a blood, right? And not of the will of the flesh. Here's the here. Understand this, my friends. It's it's ultimately not your choice.

It's not the will of the flesh. Not you. They weren't born by blood. They weren't born by the will of flesh, nor the will of man. You can't save somebody else like you can't will to save yourself. And I can't will to save you.

But by what? But by God. They were born not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God. This, by the way, is another verse that affirms what I've been saying. God is the one who chooses to bring us into his family.

God is the one who chooses us to believe. God is the one who chooses us to become his. And in doing so, he adopts us back to Ephesians chapter one. He predestined us for what? Adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose.

Notice this purpose. And I love this word. The purpose of his will. A lot of people hear the word predestination or election, and they get upset because of the concept of free will. And they say, Pastor Keith, if you believe in predestination, then you have to deny that men have free will.

And here is my answer to that. Brace yourselves. OK. Because, because the Bible does not teach free will. It teaches a will that is bound in sin. Now, that doesn't mean you don't make choices because you do.

Every one of you make choices and some of the choices are what got you here. But every one of those choices that you make are bound by your nature. And we are sinners by nature. We are sinners enslaved to sin until Christ sets us free.

So the Old Testament says this. It says the leopard can't change his spots, neither can the Ethiopian change his skin. How then can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil? Hear that again. The leopard cannot change his spots, neither the Ethiopian his skin.

How can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil? The point is you have a nature and your nature is an evil nature. Your nature is a sinful nature. The Bible says we sin because we love it. And you think back to when you were in the worst conditions of sin in your life.

Why were you there? Because you craved it, whether it was sex or alcohol or drugs or women or theft or whatever it was. It was a craving. You loved it. You wanted it. Because your nature was that of a sinner.

You're not a sinner because you sin. You sin because you are by nature a sinner. You are a fallen son of Adam. And Adam's sin nature has affected all of us. And we sin because we're sinners. And the Bible tells us that in that condition, we will not choose to come to God because that is opposed to our nature.

You say, where does the Bible say that? Well, go to John chapter 6. Jesus is preaching to a group of people in Capernaum. He's just fed 5 ,000 people. Then He walks on the water and all these people find Him.

They go after Him because they want to hear more of what He has to say, but more specifically, they want to eat more of what He has to give. He's fed them once. He can do it again. So they're following after Him to hear Him and to be fed by Him.

And notice what He says. Verse 25, When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, Rabbi, when did You come here? Jesus answered them, Truly I say to you, you are seeking Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

See, Jesus ain't fooled. You ain't coming here for miracles of glory. You're coming here for miracles of fattening. You're coming here because you're hungry. Do not labor for food that perishes, but for food that endures to eternal life.

The Son of Man will give to you. For on Him, God the Father has set His seal. Then they said to Him, What must we do to be doing the works of God? Jesus answered them, This is the work of God that you believe in Him who He has sent.

So they said to Him, Then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness. As it is written, He gave them bread to eat from heaven.

Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, It was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

They said to Him, Sir, give us this bread always. See, Jesus is talking about Himself. They're talking about physical bread. Because He's the bread of life. And that's what He says in verse 35. He says, I am the bread of life.

Whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you've seen, and yet you do not believe. Hear that. Oh boy, hear verse 36. I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet you do not believe.

Understand, these people just crossed the sea to see Jesus. They have followed Him to Capernaum where He's at. They are there to listen to Him. And He looks out to a crowd of people. And He says, you're here, you're listening, but you ain't believing.

Jesus ain't messing around. Verse 37, one of the most important verses in the Bible is verse 37. Because hear what it says. All the Father gives Me will come to Me. And whoever comes to Me, I will never cast out.

That's a great promise. But notice the promise has two parts. One, it's the Father who gives you to the Son. That's what causes you to come. All the Father gives Me will come to Me. And if you come, He's not going to send you away.

He's not going to cast you out. He will receive you. Like the father of the prodigal son received the son back who had gone and was living in the pig slop. And he came home probably covered in pig snot.

And the father sees him from a distance. And he runs to him. And he embraces him. And he kisses him. And he holds him. And he's grateful and glad because his son is now returned. He was dead and now he lives according to what he understood had happened.

And the same thing happens when we come to Christ. He embraces us and He won't cast us away. In love, He predestined us. See? But I want you to notice. We're going to jump down a little bit. I want you to notice verse 44.

Because we've seen the context. But notice verse 44. What does verse 44 say? Verse 44 says this, No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. Notice what he says.

No one can come to Me. Again, that sentence. The phrase no one can is what we call a universal negative. A universal negative. So for instance, if I said, No one can ride a bicycle. And then we all look out the window.

Some little 10-year-old boy, Ching-ching, come riding by. You'd all look at me and say, What's that? You're wrong. Because you made a statement of universality. You said no one can ride a bicycle. And the little 10-year-old boy proved you wrong.

Understand this. When Jesus says no one can, He's making a statement about all men. He is making a statement of universal inability. By the way, if you're a Calvinist or if you've ever heard the term Calvinism, the first point of Calvinism is total depravity.

Also known as universal inability. Meaning the inability to go to God on our own because we have a sin nature that does not want to. You see, it's all about the desires of the heart. And the natural desire of the sinful heart is to be opposed to God.

This is why the Bible says at once we were enmity with God. Enmity means at war with Him. We were separated from Him. We hated what He had to offer because we wanted our own autonomy. We wanted our own kingdom.

We wanted our own liberty. We wanted our own power. We did not want a God to rule over us but we wanted to be the ruler ourselves. We told God get off the throne and allow me to sit in that chair because that seat is for me.

That is the natural inclination of the human heart to be our own ruler. And so Jesus says no one can come to me. Now the great thing is the sentence don't stop there because if Jesus just stood up and said no one can come to me, I'm out.