6:36-46 The discovery of their guilt, danger, and remedy, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, makes men willing and glad to come, and to give up every thing which hinders applying to him for salvation. The Father's will is, that not one of those who were given to the Son, should be rejected or lost by him. No one will come, till Divine grace has subdued, and in part changed his heart; therefore no one who comes will ever be cast out. The gospel finds none willing to be saved in the humbling, holy manner, made known therein; but God draws with his word and the Holy Ghost; and man's duty is to hear and learn; that is to say, to receive the grace offered, and consent to the promise. None had seen the Father but his beloved Son; and the Jews must expect to be taught by his inward power upon their minds, and by his word, and the ministers whom he sent among them.

Verse 45. - It is written in the prophets; either in the division of Scripture called "the prophets," or because the substance of the statement is found to pervade the prophets, and to receive express, if not literal, utterance in Isaiah 54:13. The prophet, on describing the glorious triumphs of the Servant of the Lord in his new kingdom, added (LXX.), Καὶ πάντας τοὺς υἰοὺς σου διδακτοὺς Θεοῦ καὶ ἐν πολλῇ εἰρήνη τὰ τέκνα σου, "And all thy sons [I will make] to be taught of God, and in much [great] peace thy children" (cf. also Jeremiah 31. [LXX., 38.] 34, for the same thought in other words). Godet suggests that the former passage was in the haphtora, from the prophets - the lesson for the day. If the discourse was uttered in the synagogue of Capernaum, this is not impossible. At all events, the "and" (καὶ) which here follows suggests that the quotation is taken from Isaiah. And they shall all be taught of God; i.e. direct teaching by God is the prime requisite of any spiritual apprehension, even of the mysteries of Christ the Revealer. This solemn truth is affirmed by the entire history of Christ. The vision of his majesty, even contact with his ineffable love, the sight of his humiliation and of the shedding of his precious blood, did not, by any necessarily acting law of mind, induce faith. Divine teaching by the Spirit of the Father and Son is the preliminary (see notes on John 16:5-8, on the mission of the Comforter) to believing on Christ. "Taught of God" (διδακτοὶ Θεοῦ), translated in Vulgate, docibiles Dei (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:9), means more than the reception of one lesson in the school of God, and suggests a prolonged experience and a rich communion between the Teacher and the taught. Every one (therefore) [πᾶς, referring to the πάντες of ver. 45a, and to the quotation, is not so much every human being, as the "all" of the Messianic kingdom - the "all" of God's "sons" and "children "] that hath heard from the Father, and hath learned (of him), cometh unto me. Hearing may end in heedlessness, even when the Lord God Almighty speaks with us. His revelations at great epochs, his inner voice at special moments in our religious history, may be disregarded. The voice of God may be heard, yet not obeyed; the voice of conscience and revelation and inspiration, the sacred monitions and warnings of the heart, may all be slighted. But every one that hath heard the Father, and has also accepted the lesson - has felt the Divine drawing; being willing to do the will of the Father, he knows of the doctrine, whether it be of God, and he comes to Christ. Later on, Christ said, "Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." It is one thing to "hear," another to "learn," another to "come." These three stages still further illumine the "drawing" of the Father, and the method which the Father has adopted of so giving men to Christ that he may ultimately fold them in his arms and press them to his heart. Lest, however, the hearers of Jesus, then or now, should conclude that the kind of direct teaching of which the prophets spake, and which he endorsed, was of that immediate kind which himself enjoyed, and which alone justifies this language, he continued -

It is written in the prophets,.... In the book of the prophets, as the Ethiopic version renders it: the Jews divided the books of the Old Testament into three parts, the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa; now in that division which was called the Prophets, are the following words: or in one of the prophets, namely, in Isaiah 54:13; so the Syriac version reads, "in the prophet"; though some think reference is had to more prophets, and more passages than one, as besides the above mentioned, Jeremiah 31:34 Micah 4:2;

and they shall be all taught of God; by his Spirit to know themselves, and Jesus Christ; that is, all that are ordained to eternal life; all that are given to Christ, and are chosen in him; all the children of Zion, and who are the children of God; these are all, sooner or later, in a special manner, taught of God: and which does not intend mere external instructions, and objective teachings by the ministry of the word, for many are so taught, who never come to Christ; but special teachings, such as are attended with the energy of divine grace, and the power of the Spirit of God, who guides into all truth, savingly and spiritually: for this is to be understood of their being taught in the Gospel of Christ, and not in the law, as the Targum paraphrases it,

"all thy children shall learn in the law of the Lord.''

And that this prophecy refers to Gospel times, is clear from the citation and application of the first verse of it, to the church in the times of the apostles, Galatians 4:27. The Jews themselves acknowledge the prophecy belongs to the times of the Messiah, to which they expressly apply (u) the words in Isaiah 54:5, "thy Maker is thy husband", &c. And one of their modern commentators allows (w), that this very passage, "all thy children shall be taught of God", refers, "to the time to come"; that is, to the times of the Messiah: in this citation, those words, "thy children", are left out, to show that the words are not to be restrained to the people of the Jews, as they might seem by that clause, and to whom the Jews would limit them: for so they say (x),

"they are truly taught of God from whom prophecy comes, which does not to all the world, but to Israel only, of whom it is written, "and all thy children are taught of God".''

But our Lord, by these words, instructs us, and would have us observe, that all that the Father hath given him, whether Jews or Gentiles, of whom he had been speaking in the preceding verses, should be taught of God; and so taught, as to be drawn and brought to him, and believe in him, and have everlasting life: wherefore he infers from hence, that every man, whether a Jew or a Gentile, that is taught of God, will come to him in a spiritual way, and trust in him for eternal life and happiness, as follows:

every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me; everyone that has heard the voice of the Father's love, grace, and mercy in the Gospel, and has learned of him the way of peace, life, and salvation by Christ, under the influence of his grace, comes unto Christ; being encouraged by the declarations and promises of grace he has heard and learned, and ventures his soul on Christ, and commits it to him; trusting and relying on his person, blood, righteousness, and sacrifice, for justification, pardon, atonement, acceptance with God, and eternal life.

(u) Shemot Rabba, sect. 15. fol. 102. 4. (w) Kimichi in loc. (x) Zohar in Exod. fol. 70. 1.

45. written in the prophets—in Isa 54:13; Jer 31:33, 34; other similar passages may also have been in view. Our Lord thus falls back upon Scripture authority for this seemingly hard saying.

all taught of God—not by external revelation merely, but by internal illumination, corresponding to the "drawing" of Joh 6:44.

Every man therefore, &c.—that is, who hath been thus efficaciously taught of Him.

cometh unto me—with absolute certainty, yet in the sense above given of "drawing"; that is, "As none can come to Me but as divinely drawn, so none thus drawn shall fail to come."

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