John 6:37-40

_ _ All that, etc. — This comprehensive and very grand passage is expressed with a peculiar artistic precision. The opening general statement (John 6:37) consists of two members: (1) “ALL THAT THE FATHER GIVETH ME SHALL COME TO ME” — that is, “Though ye, as I told you, have no faith in Me, My errand into the world shall in no wise be defeated; for all that the Father giveth Me shall infallibly come to Me.” Observe, what is given Him by the Father is expressed in the singular number and neuter gender — literally, “everything”; while those who come to Him are put in the masculine gender and singular number — “every one.” The whole mass, so to speak, is gifted by the Father to the Son as a unity, which the Son evolves, one by one, in the execution of His trust. So John 17:2, “that He should give eternal life to all that which Thou hast given Him” [Bengel]. This “shall” expresses the glorious certainty of it, the Father being pledged to see to it that the gift be no empty mockery. (2) “AND HIM THAT COMETH TO ME I WILL IN NO WISE CAST OUT.” As the former was the divine, this is just the human side of the same thing. True, the “coming” ones of the second clause are just the “given” ones of the first. But had our Lord merely said, “When those that have been given Me of My Father shall come to Me, I will receive them” — besides being very flat, the impression conveyed would have been quite different, sounding as if there were no other laws in operation, in the movement of sinners to Christ, but such as are wholly divine and inscrutable to us; whereas, though He does speak of it as a sublime certainty which men’s refusals cannot frustrate, He speaks of that certainty as taking effect only by men’s voluntary advances to Him and acceptance of Him — “Him that cometh to Me,” “whosoever will,” throwing the door wide open. Only it is not the simply willing, but the actually coming, whom He will not cast out; for the word here employed usually denotes arrival, as distinguished from the ordinary word, which rather expresses the act of coming (see John 8:42, Greek), [Webster and Wilkinson]. “In no wise” is an emphatic negative, to meet the fears of the timid (as in Revelation 21:27, to meet the presumption of the hardened). These, then, being the two members of the general opening statement, what follows is meant to take in both,