Or, God AWAKENS Sinners to Life - The Doctrine of Irresistible Grace (or Efficacious Call)
Scripture: Selected Scriptures
Date: June 4, 2017
Speaker: Sean Higgins
In his Introduction to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, J.I. Packer writes:
For to Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners.
God saves sinners. So far in our Reformed and Still Reforming series we covered three petals of the TULIP: 1) Total Depravity: God Saves Spiritually Dead Sinners , 2) Unconditional Election: God the Father Chose Sinners to Save, and 3) Limited Atonement: God the Son Substituted Himself for Sinners.
At this point around the flower the Arminian still says that anyone can believe the gospel and be born again, AND anyone can reject it as well. The Arminian says that the Holy Spirit cannot regenerate fallen man until he believes. The Holy Spirit does all He can to woo every fallen man to salvation, but until a fallen man responds in faith, of his own free will, the Spirit cannot give life. Faith precedes and makes possible the New Birth. Personal faith yields spiritual life.
In order to believe this, the Arminian must assume two things, one about man and one about God. He must assume that man is not dead in his sin, he is more mostly dead, because man must not only be capable of recognizing his bad condition, he must also capable of doing something about it. This is, of course, a denial or redefining of total depravity and absolute inability. Yet the Arminian must claim that if man doesn’t act first, there is no hope of salvation. The Arminian is also compelled to assume that God is not in complete control, either because He isn’t powerful enough to be in control or that He has voluntarily chosen to give up His control.
The Calvinist, however, says the Holy Spirit regenerates every one of God’s chosen people, enabling them to believe. The Holy Spirit graciously regenerates every one of God’s chosen people, creating within them a new heart and enabling them to freely and willingly believe in Christ as Savior and Lord. In fact, if the Spirit doesn’t act first, there is no hope of salvation. The New Birth precedes and makes possible Saving Faith. Spiritual life yields personal faith.
The reason why 10 people believe in room of 20 is not because 10 people were smarter or more spiritually sensitive, it’s because the Father chose them to believe, the Son’s resurrection guaranteed their regeneration, and the Spirit gives them new life in faith.
This is known as Irresistible Grace, or other theologians use the term efficacious call. To say that grace is “irresistible” is not to say that God saves men kicking and screaming against their will but rather that His grace overcomes their desire for sin and gives them desire for righteousness. There is no sub-group gathering in heaven to grumble about how much they didn’t want to be there. The Spirit’s work is “effectual” in that He successfully overcomes spiritual deadness, blindness, hard-heartedness and brings spiritual life; He conquers our hatred of God and enables us to love God. His grace powerfully and wonderfully brings us to Himself.
The problem is with the “want to.” God is the only one who can change our wants for Him.
One of the clearest illustrations of this compelling work of the Spirit is the picture of new birth. Jesus Himself makes new birth the requirement for seeing the kingdom of God, but pay special attention to how a person experiences this new birth.
Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:3-8)
Jesus explains: no new birth, no salvation. Nicodemus responds with a relevant (albeit formed in a silly way) question, “Okay, so how do I get ‘born again’? What do I need to do?” But note that Jesus doesn’t give Nicodemus any steps to follow or any procedure to obey. Jesus tells Nicodemus that being born again isn’t about what you do, it is something that happens to you. He repeats the necessity of being born again in verses five and seven, then in verse eight He gives the behind the scenes clarification on being born again: it is a work of the Spirit.
Birth illustrates the child’s inability to originate, initiate, or intentionally participate. No child decides who its parents will be or determines the time or location of his birth. The child is obviously there, it is the child’s birth, but forces outside the child are responsible for it.
The same is true with spiritual birth. There are factors and forces outside a person that are responsible for this new life. Not only is this necessary because we were dead and unable to do anything, it is also a matchless display of God’s sovereign, irresistible, effectual, and sweet grace.
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)
We are more familiar with the concepts in verse 12 than in verse 13. In verse 12 we see men “receiving” Jesus and “believing in His name.” As we proclaim the gospel, every person that receives and believes is recognized by God and given the right to be His child. All this is true. But why do some receive and believe? Is it because they grew up with believing parents (by blood )? Is it because of their own spiritual insight (by the will of man )? Not at all. Some receive and believe because they were born of the will of God . It was the Father’s desire, decision, and determination that brought them new life, not their own choice or willpower. Our spiritual birth was His plan.
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)
This verse makes absolutely no sense at all apart from understanding the sovereign, invisible work of the Spirit. From the human, visible viewpoint we repent from sin, we receive Christ, and we believe the promise of salvation in the gospel. But there is more going on than what we see. Just as the wind is invisible, so is the Spirit’s work invisible. You can’t see the wind but you see the effects of the wind. You can’t control the wind, direct it, manipulate it, etc., and so the same is true with the Spirit. The emphasis is on the Spirit’s independent, self-determining work that causes new birth. Our spiritual birth is worked by the agency of His Spirit.
…according to His great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3)
Not only does the motivation (“according to His great mercy”) emphasize His initiative, not only does the illustration itself (“caused us to be born again”) emphasize His actions, the means (“ through the resurrection”) again makes it clear that our regeneration is a result of His resurrection. Our spiritual birth is enabled by the power of Christ’s new life.
…you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God (1 Peter 1:23; cf. 1 Peter 2:2, James 1:18)
Our being born again is His plan, worked out by His Agent, accomplished by His power, using His instrument: Scripture. There is a divine intersection between the Son’s work, the Spirit’s work, and the Word’s work in new birth. Both the Word and the Spirit reveal the Son, and the Spirit takes the living and abiding Word, preached by men, and gives new life to spiritually dead men.
This is an excellent place to point out that the plan of the Father, the purchase of the Son, and the work of the Spirit do not take place in a vacuum. God has planned not only the end, but He also planned the means to His end. The reason we preach, as foolish as that is (1 Corinthians 1:18), is because that is His chosen method to bring new birth. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ (Romans 10:17). Our spiritual birth is created by the Word.
That’s why our responsibility is to preach the gospel, corporately and personally. God is not looking for our creativity. The “ gospel is the power of God to salvation ” (Romans 1:16). He’s not looking for us to demonstrate words of wisdom, He uses what the world thinks is foolish. Celebrities and famous athletes and powerful politicians cannot cause new birth. Our witnessing power is not in contemporary (or traditional) music or two-minute (presuppositional) apologetics.
There are other descriptions of God’s effectual work of grace in the lives of His elect in the New Testament in addition to new birth.
Though this is similar to the picture of new birth, dead men are not capable of initiating their own resurrection any more than Lazarus could respond before Christ raised him to life.
For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. (John 5:21)
even when we were dead in our trespasses, (He) made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—(Ephesians 2:5)
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, (Colossians 2:13)
Men are responsible to come, and whoever comes He will receive. But who comes? And how do they come? Those who come do so because they were chosen by the Father for the Son. And how they come is by the powerful pull of the Spirit.
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. (John 6:37)
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— (6:44-45)
But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” (6:64-65)
Men are also responsible to repent and believe. But again, there is an invisible power that enables men to do so. Both repentance and faith are given by God. Repentance is a result of His work.
God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. (Acts 5:31)
When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.” (Acts 11:18)
And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponent with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:24-26)
Faith is a gift of God as well.
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, (Philippians 1:29)
And Ephesians 2:8-10. We are saved by grace through faith, and the whole of our salvation, including faith itself, is His gift.
We need His sovereign work. We need His initiating rescue operation for ourselves. It isn’t just that we couldn’t believe, we wouldn’t if we could. We are prone to wander as Christians, let alone how aimless we wander apart from Christ. It is our experience. We know that we needed His conquering work.
No one has ever completed a successful self-heart transplant. The Spirit must do it (see Ezekiel 36).
Charles Spurgeon said,
Born, as all of us are by nature, an Arminian, I still believed the old things I had heard continually from the pulpit, and did not see the grace of God. When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me…I can recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths in my own soul—when they were, as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron…
One week-night, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher’s sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, “How did you come to be a Christian?” I sought the Lord. “But how did you come to seek the Lord?” The truth flashed across my mind in a moment—I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, “I ascribe my change wholly to God” (Autobiography, pp. 164-5)
We need His rescue operation in our ministry to others as well. He is the hope of our discipling, our shepherding, and our preaching. If we had to depend on our own wisdom, our own persuasiveness, our own abilities and power, we would be highly frustrated and sorely disappointed.
We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jew and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:23-24)
Notice the two kinds of “calls” implied in this text.
First, the preaching of Paul goes out to all, both Jews and Greeks. This is the general call of the gospel. It offers salvation to all who will believe on the crucified Christ. But by and large it falls on unreceptive ears and is considered as foolishness.
But then, secondly, Paul refers to another kind of call. He says that among those who hear there are some who are “called” in such a way that they no longer regard the cross as foolishness but as the wisdom and power of God. What else can this call be but the irresistible call of God out of darkness into the light of God? If ALL who are called in this sense regard the cross as the power of God, then something in the call must effect the faith. This is irresistible grace.
It is further explained in 2 Corinthians 4:4-6,
The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God…It is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Since men are blinded to the worth of Christ, a miracle is needed in order for them to come to see and believe. Jesus doesn’t change, their ability to see Him changes. Paul compares this miracle with the first day of creation when God said, “Let there be light.” It is in fact a new creation, or a new birth. This is what is meant by the effectual call in 1 Corinthians 1:24.
Those who are called have their eyes opened by the sovereign creative power of God so that they no longer see the cross as foolishness but as the power and the wisdom of God. The effectual call is the miracle of having our blindness removed. This is irresistible grace.
Another example of it is in Acts 16:14 as Lydia listened to the preaching of Paul. Luke says, “The Lord opened her heart to give heed to what was said by Paul.” Unless God opens our hearts, we will not heed the message of the gospel. This heart-opening is what we mean by irresistible grace.
By the way, this is why you pray. Have you ever prayed that God would change someone’s attitude toward you? Then you are praying for God to overcome their wants. Do you ever pray for someone’s salvation? Then you are praying for God to conquer their wants. Do you ever pray for God to change your attitude, wants, etc.? Then you are asking Him to take control of your heart.
The hope of our lives, the hope of our work, is the sovereign, effectual, Spiritual work of God in the hearts of men.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 31 describes irresistible grace/efficacious call as follows:
Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.
Our new life was purchased by Christ. Our redemption was accomplished by Christ and applied by the Spirit. Our regeneration is a result of His resurrection, and that is why we proclaim that His resurrection is true and powerful. This is something not only to remember but to celebrate, and a reason for us to hopeful when we tell the gospel to others.