The prince of this world held men in his thrall, but Jesus by His death judged the devil. “Lifted up,” He says, “I will draw all men to another prince. I will draw all men unto Me.” Oh, Satan is sadly foiled! Christ was crucified in weakness, hung on a tree, buffeted, derided, spat upon, despised of men, “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” but He endured the cross and thus draws all men to Him.
Those once proud run to the Meek and Lowly who in His humility, was crucified. Those who once sought honor one of another, and not the honor that comes from God, run to the Taunted, the Condemned, Vilified, and glory in the cross.
The worldling looks to the One not of this world, lifted up above the world on a gibbet of wood, a poor despised dying Man, and he leaves all, and runs to Him.
The votary of pleasure, sinful pleasure, looks on this scene of deepest pain, of holiest pain, and he quits his lusts, and runs to the holy Sufferer. Christ draws.
He draws the miser from his hoards, draws the sensualist from his pleasures, draws the self-righteous from his efforts, draws the proud from his arrogance.
What kind of men will you find that the Saviour draws? “I will draw all men unto Me. This He said signifying what death He should die.” Christ is all attraction. The world does not know that. The world thinks Him all repulsion, but He is all attraction. He repels not; He draws. “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out” (Jn. 6:37). He is all attraction; but lifted up on the cross He is most attractive.
All His drawing power is concentrated there. We might think there was more attractive power when He was lifted up on the Mount of Transfiguration; when He was lifted up and set on the right hand of the Majesty on high. There is attractive power there, and these only draw when the cross has drawn. If you do not see Him dying for you, you see nothing to attract.
It’s not a crown of glory; it’s a crown of thorns. These are not the robes of heavenly splendor; it is a coat of mockery. These are not all the angels of God worshipping Him; they are knees bent in derision. There is no honor there, no splendor there. Nothing that the world likes; everything that the world hates. So unless there is attraction in Himself and in His dealing that show us His heart, there can be nothing extrinsic to draw the sinner.
What do those drawn say about it? Some of them can give very little account of it at all, for a man may feel drawn rightly and deeply, and not be very good at explaining. And those who can give some account may give an inadequate account. Woe to the man who thinks he can tell all he sees in Christ!
But surely the drawn can give some account. Once we said: “He was despised, and we esteemed Him not” (Isa. 53:3). When drawn we see that “He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”
What did one drawn man say about it? “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live…and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
“Ah, now,” says the erstwhile pleasure lover, “there is a bitter cup for Christ–but a sweet cup for me of holy joy.”
“There,” says the ambitious man, “there is awful degradation for that glorious One. It humbles me in the dust to think of it. His head is encircled with the mock crown of thorns, that I may wear the crown of life.”
“And there,” saith the covetous man, “is He who was rich became poor for me that I might be rich with a treasure which fades not away.”
What a host He has drawn! He has drawn Jews, Romans, Greeks; distant isles have heard, and hearing have submitted themselves to Him, and the strange gods have faded out of the strong places. And He is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Lifted up once on a cross, His crucifixion in one sense is perpetual. In the proclamation of it, in the power of it and in the remembrance of it, He draws still.