‘Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. No man can come to me except my Father who has sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Jesus now tried vainly to give them a chance. He reiterated what He had said to the people. He gently rebuked them for their attitude and contradicted their claim to know His father. He pointed out that it was God Who was His own Father (‘My Father’), the One Who is in Heaven. (There is possibly here a hint of the virgin birth. He has no human father. God is His father). Those whom His Father draws will come to Him and partake of the bread of life which has come down from Heaven, and this will mean that they will not die the final death but will live for ever. Those who refuse to respond merely indicate that His Father has not chosen them. They demonstrate that they have not been ‘drawn’ by the Father.

The verb to ‘draw’ is a powerful one. In Joh 21:6; Joh 21:11 the large fish are ‘drawn in’, unable to prevent it, . Paul and Silas are ‘dragged into’ the forum (Act 16:19). Paul is ‘dragged out’ of the Temple (Act 21:30). There is thus to it the sense of a necessary compulsion. God is at work calling men to Himself. Later it is Jesus Who will draw all men to Himself (Joh 12:32).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Joh 6:43-44 . Jesus does not enter upon a solution of this difficulty, but admonishes them not to trouble themselves with it; they should not dwell upon such questions, but upon something far higher; the “drawing” of the Father is the condition of participation in His salvation.

The is not simply a strengthening of the in Joh 6:37-38 , but specifies the method of it, an inner drawing and leading to Christ through the working of divine grace (comp. LXX. Jer 31:3 ), which, however, does not annul human freedom, but which, by means of the enlightening, animating, and impelling influence, and of the instruction appropriated by the man, wins him over. Comp. Joh 12:32 . (Joh 6:45 ) includes the Father’s teaching by His witness to Christ (Weiss), but this is not all that it comprehends; it denotes rather the whole of that divine influence whereby hearts are won to the Son. In the consciousness of those who are thus won, this represents itself as a holy necessity , to which they have yielded. Comp. Wis 19:4 , where the opposite, the attraction of evil, appears as a necessity which draws them along, yet without destroying freedom. See Grimm, Handb . p. 292 f. Comp. also the classical (Pind. Nem . iv. 56), (Dem. 563, 14), and the like. Augustine already compares from the Latin the “ trahit sua quemque voluptas ” of Virgil. The word [235] in itself may denote what involves force , and is involuntary (Act 16:19 ; 3Ma 4:7 ; 4Ma 11:9 ; Homer, Il . xi. 258; xxiv. 52, 417; Soph. O. C . 932; Aristoph. Eq . 710; Plato, Rep . iv. p. 539 B, and often; see Ast, Lex. Plat . I. p. 682), which is always expressed by (comp. Tittm. Syn . p. 56 ff.); but the context itself shows that this is not meant here (in the classics it may even stand for invitare; see Jacobs, ad Anthol . IX. 142). Accordingly it is not, as Calvin judges, false and impious to say: “ non nisi volentes trahi; ” and Beza’s “Volumus, quia datum est, ut velimus,” is true and pious only in the sense of Phi 2:13 . Comp. Augustine: “non ut homines, quod fieri non potest, nolentes credant, sed ut volentes ex nolentibus fiant.”

. ] a specific relationship with which the saving act of the essentially corresponds.

, . . . ] the same solemn promise which we have already, Joh 6:39-40 , but with the of Messianic authority and power, as in Joh 6:54 .

[235] The Attics also prefer the Aorist form of to that of , but they form the future rather than (Joh 12:32 ). See Lobeck, Paral . p. 35 f.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

43 Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves.

Ver. 43. Murmur not among yourselves ] q.d. I give you no just cause so to do. You carry your galls in your ears, as some creatures are said to do, hence you are so embittered; your mouths are out of taste, and hence you so disrelish my doctrine.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

43. ] Our Lord does not answer their objection, because it lay far from His present purpose to disclose aught of those mysteries which the answer must have indicated. It was not till the faith of the apostolic Christians was fully fixed on Him as the Son of God, and the outline of the doctrine of His Person was firmly sketched out, that the Spirit brought out those historical records which assure us of His supernatural conception (see Nitzsch, cited by Stier, iv. 244, edn. 2).

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Joh 6:43 . Therefore He merely says . That was not the way to light. Nor could He expect to convince all of them, for , “no one can come to me unless the Father who hath sent me draw him”. has the same latitude of meaning as “draw”. It is used of towing a ship, dragging a cart, or pulling on a rope to set sails. But it is also used, Joh 12:32 , of a gentle but powerful moral attraction; “I, if I be lifted up, , will draw, etc.” Here, however, it is an inward disposing of the soul to come to Christ, and is the equivalent of the Divine teaching of Joh 6:45 . And what is affirmed is that without this action of God on the individual no one can come to Christ. In order to apprehend the significance of Christ and to give ourselves to Him we must be individually and inwardly aided by God. [Augustine says: “Si trahitur, ait aliquis, invitus venit. Si invitus venit, non credit, si non credit, nec venit. Non enim ad Christum ambulando currimus, sed credendo, nec motu corporis, sed voluntate cordis accedimus. Noli te cogitare invitum trahi: trahitur animus et amore.” And Calvin says: “Quantum ad trahendi modum spectat, non est ille quidem violentus qui hominem cogat externo impulsu, sed tamen efficax est motus Spiritus Sancti, qui homines ex nolentibus et invitis reddit voluntarios”. All that Calvin objects to is that men should be said “proprio motu” to yield themselves to the Divine drawing. cf. a powerful passage from Luther’s De libero Arbitrio quoted in Lampe; or as Beza concisely puts it: “Verum quidem est, neminem credere invitum, quum Fides sit assensus. Sed volumus quia datum est nobis ut velimus.”]

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

among yourselves = with (Greek. meta. App-104) one another.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

43.] Our Lord does not answer their objection, because it lay far from His present purpose to disclose aught of those mysteries which the answer must have indicated. It was not till the faith of the apostolic Christians was fully fixed on Him as the Son of God, and the outline of the doctrine of His Person was firmly sketched out, that the Spirit brought out those historical records which assure us of His supernatural conception (see Nitzsch, cited by Stier, iv. 244, edn. 2).

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Joh 6:43

Joh 6:43

Jesus answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves.-[This is a rebuke. They were not honest inquirers, but cavilers.]

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Murmur: Joh 6:64, Joh 16:19, Mat 16:8, Mar 9:33, Heb 4:13

Reciprocal: Mar 14:5 – And they Joh 6:41 – murmured

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

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Murmur is from GOGGUZO, and Thayer defines it, “To murmur, mutter, grumble, say anything in a low tone.” That explains why Jesus added the words among yourselves. On many occasions Jesus read even the minds of his objectors and told them about it. It is perfectly right to hold certain subjects in confidence, but when people are making complaints against what they regard as wrong doing in another, the fair thing to do is to approach that person openly.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Joh 6:43. Jesus answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. For such murmurers Jesus has only reproof. It is very strange that in our day some writers on this Gospel should have had difficulty in understanding why Jesus did not refute the objection raised by declaring the truth of the miraculous conception. Men who could so mutilate His words as practically to pervert their meaning would have been brought no nearer to conviction by such a statement, however made, but would have gathered from it material for still more malicious accusation. At first the reply of Jesus deals only with the spirit His opponents manifest.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Vv. 43, 44. Jesus therefore answered and said to them: Murmur not among yourselves: 44. No one can come to me except the Father who sent me draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day.

In other words: A truce to these murmurs; it is not my word that is absurd; it is you who are incapable of comprehending it, and all your hows will serve no purpose, so long as you remain in this moral condition. Jesus goes back again to the source of their discontent; the spiritual drawing which results from the inward teaching of God is wanting to them. This is what Joh 6:37-40 already made known to us. The word , no one, is the antithesis of , all, Joh 6:37. There, Jesus said: all that which is given shall certainly come: here, nothing which is not drawn shall succeed in understanding and believing. This second declaration has a direct application to the hearers.

The drawing of the Father designates the same fact as the gift (Joh 6:37), but this term serves to explain the mode of it; the gift is effected by means of an inward drawing which makes itself felt in the soul. We shall see at Joh 6:45 that this drawing is not a blind instinct, like the natural inclinations, but that it is luminous in its nature, like God Himself from whom it proceeds; it is a teaching. This teaching should have been accomplished by means of the writings of Moses taken seriously (Joh 6:46-47), by the Word of God inwardly received (Joh 6:38). The law by making the Jew feel the insufficiency of his obedience and the opposition between his feelings and the Divine will, and prophecy, by exciting the expectation of Him who should remedy the evil, make Jesus a being known and desired, towards whom a profound attraction cannot fail to make itself felt as soon as He appears. Weiss sees in the drawing and teaching of the Father the divine testimony by means of miracles,Joh 5:36, rendered efficacious in the heart by the Holy Spirit. This seems to me too external; and why then exclude the principal divine witness, that of the Word mentioned also in chap. 5?

We must observe the correlation between the subject he that sent me and the verb draw; the God who sends Jesus for souls, on the other hand, draws souls to Jesus. The two divine works, external and internal, answer to and complete each other. The happy moment in which they meet in the heart, and in which the will is thus gained, is that of the gifton God’s part, of faith on man’s part. Jesus adds that, as the initiative in salvation belongs to the Father, thecompletion of it is the task of the Son. The Father draws and gives; the Son receives and keeps, and this even to the glorious crowning of the work, the final resurrection. Between these two extremes is included the entire development of salvation. The sense of the last words is: And I will bring the whole to its end.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

Jesus did not allow the people’s confusion about His origin to distress Him. He rebuked their grumbling dissatisfaction with what God had given them. However, He explained that those whom the Father had chosen for salvation among them would believe in Him regardless of their inability to reconcile His earthly and heavenly origins. The important thing for them to do was believe Him, not first harmonize all the apparent contradictions they observed.

"The thought of the divine initiative in salvation is one of the great doctrines of this Gospel, and indeed of the Christian faith." [Note: Morris, p. 328.]

Jesus clarified also that the Father’s drawing (Gr. helkyo) is selective (cf. Joh 6:37). He does not just draw everyone in the general sense of extending the gospel invitation to them. He selects some from the mass of humanity and brings them to Himself. It is that minority that Jesus will raise up to eternal life on the last day (cf. Joh 6:40). This truth does not contradict Joh 12:32 where Jesus said that He would draw (Gr. helkyo) all men to Himself. There He was speaking of all people without distinction, not just Jews but also Gentiles. He did not mean all people without exception.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)