"Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (cf. Jn 6:44). This is a weighty hint of grace.
No one comes unless he is drawn. There is one whom He draws, and there is one whom He does not draw. Why does He draw one and not another?
Do not seek to judge this, if you do not wish to make a mistake. Receive it at once and understand: you are not yet drawn. I pray that He may draw you.
What are we saying here, brothers? If we are drawn to Christ, then do we believe unwillingly? Is force applied, and is will not manifested?
A man can come to church unwillingly. He can approach the altar unwillingly. He can receive Communion unwillingly. But he cannot believe unwillingly.
If faith came through the body, it would also be found in those who did not will it. But people do not believe with the body.
Hear the Apostle: "With the heart one believes unto righteousness" (Rom 10:10). And what is said next? "With the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Rom 10:10).
This confession rises from the root of the heart. Sometimes you hear a man confess the faith aloud, but you do not know whether he believes.
Yet you should not call someone a confessor if you do not consider him a believer. To confess is to utter what you hold in the heart.
If one thing is in your heart and you say another, then you merely speak, but you do not confess. Therefore, since you believed in Christ in your heart, which certainly no one does against his will, how shall we resolve the question?
For the one who is drawn appears to act as though against his will. Yet the question is: "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (Jn 6:44).
If someone is drawn, one may say, he comes against his will. If he comes against his will, he does not believe. If he does not believe, he does not come.
For we do not hasten to Christ by means of feet. We come through faith, not through bodily movement, but by the will of the heart.
For this reason, the woman who touched the hem of His garment touched Him more than the crowd that pressed upon Him. Therefore the Lord said, "Who touched Me?"
The disciples were amazed and said, "The crowd surrounds You and presses You, and You say, 'Who touched Me?'" But He repeated, "Someone touched Me" (cf. Lk 8:44-46).
The woman touched, the crowd pressed. What does "touched" mean, if not "believed"? Hence, after His resurrection, He said to the woman who wished to cast herself at His feet, "Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father" (Jn 20:17).
"You think that I am only what you see. Do not touch Me." What does this mean? "You suppose that I am only what I appear to be to you.
"Do not believe in that way, that is, do not touch Me. For I have not yet ascended to the Father. For you I have not ascended, because for you I never descended from there."
She did not touch Him as He stood on the earth. How, then, could she touch Him when He had ascended to the Father?
Nevertheless, He wished her to touch Him in precisely this way. Those who touch Him rightly touch Him as ascended to the Father, as abiding with the Father, and as equal to the Father.
Therefore here also He says, if you are attentive, "No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him" (Jn 6:44). Do not think that He draws you against your will.
He draws the mind, and He draws it through love. We should not fear that men who know the value of words, but are far from understanding divine things, can accuse us concerning this evangelical saying from the Scriptures.
They may say to us, "How, then, do I believe by my own will, if I am drawn?" I answer: not only are you drawn by your own will, voluntate, but even with delight, voluptate.
What does it mean that you are drawn with pleasure? "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Ps 36:4).
There is a certain joy of the heart to which that heavenly bread is sweet. Moreover, if the poet was pleased to say, "Each one is drawn by his own delight," not by necessity, but by joy, not by obligation, but by pleasure.
How much more boldly should we say that a man is drawn to Christ when he rejoices in truth, blessedness, righteousness, and eternal life, that is, in all that Christ is?
Or perhaps the bodily senses have their delights, while the mind refuses its own delights? If the mind has no delights of its own, why is it said:
"The sons of men shall hope under the shadow of Your wings. They shall be filled from the abundance of Your house, and You shall give them drink from the torrent of Your delight. For with You is the fountain of life. In Your light we shall see light" (cf. Ps 35:8)?
Give me a man who has love, and he knows what I am saying. Imagine a man who loves. Imagine one filled with desire. Imagine one hungry.
Imagine one wandering in this wilderness and thirsting. Imagine one sighing for the fountain of the eternal homeland. Imagine such a man, and he knows what I am saying.
But if I speak to a man of cold heart, he does not know what I am saying. Such were those who murmured among themselves.
"The one whom the Father draws," He says, "comes to Me." What, then, does it mean that the Father draws him, when Christ Himself draws? Why did He choose to say, "the Father draws him"?
If we must be drawn, let us be drawn by Him to whom the one who loves Him says, "We shall run after the fragrance of your ointments" (cf. Song 1:3).
Yet, brothers, let us consider what He wished to make known, and let us grasp it as far as we can.
The Father draws to the Son those who believe in the Son because they understand that His Father is God. For God the Father begot the Son equal to Himself.
Therefore the one who acknowledges, holds in his faith, and never tires of repeating that He in whom he believes is equal to the Father, is drawn by the Father to the Son.
Arius thought that the Son was a creature. The Father did not draw him. For he does not see the Father who does not believe that the Son is equal to Him.
What are you saying, Arius? What will you say, heretic? What is Christ? "Christ," he says, "is not true God, but One whom the true God made."
The Father has not drawn you, because you have not understood the Father whose Son you do not know. You understand something else, which is not the Son.
You are not drawn by the Father, and you are not drawn to the Son. For the Son is one thing, and what you suppose is another.
Photinus said, "Christ is only a man and is not God." Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, taught that Christ was a mere man, born of Mary, upon whom the Holy Spirit descended only after His birth.
Photinus was condemned at several councils, and his teaching was finally condemned at the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 381. Whoever believes in this way has not been drawn by the Father.
The Father drew the one who says, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt 16:16). Not as a prophet, not as John, not as some great righteous man.
But as the Only One, as equal: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." See, this Peter has been drawn, and drawn by the Father.
"Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven" (Mt 16:17). This revelation itself is the drawing.
You stretch out a green branch to a sheep and draw it. Nuts are shown to a child, and he is drawn. He is drawn to what he reaches toward.
He is drawn by love. He is drawn without pressure upon the body. He is drawn by the bonds of the heart.
Therefore, if things shown among earthly joys and delights draw those who love them, for it is true that each one has his own delight, why should Christ not draw when He is shown by the Father?
And what does the soul thirst for more than truth? Toward what should it open its thirsty mouth and strive, with healthy palate, to recognize what is true?
Should it not be toward tasting and drinking wisdom, righteousness, truth, and eternity? Where will this be? There where we shall taste better, or rather, more fully.
For here it is easier for us to hunger, especially if we have good hope, than to be filled. For He says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness," here, "for they shall be filled," there (cf. Mt 5:6).
Therefore, when He said, "No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him," what did He add? "And I will raise him up at the last day" (Jn 6:44).
"I give him what he loves. I give him what he hopes for. He will see what he believed before seeing. He will taste what he hungers for, and drink what he thirsts for."
Where? "In the resurrection from the dead. For I will raise him up at the last day."
THEOSIS