The Effectual Call of God

The following is a portion of my sermon manuscript that has been requested by some. Sorry that I have not provided the footnotes for the references. Some material below is not original with me; I am not plagiarizing but just providing some of my preaching notes. I preached three sermons on the subject of the effectual call of God and irresistable grace. Follow these links for audio files: here and here.

Why is one saved, and another lost?
What causes some men to repent and believe, while others, with the same external privileges, reject the Gospel and continue in rebellion and unbelief?
Why do some get saved and some do not?
Why do some accept the gospel and others reject it?
Can God’s calling to salvation be resisted by some and not resisted by others?

Lets look at the four of the most popular answers to these questions and discover which is Biblical:

I. Natural Ability to Answer God’s Universal Call

I call this The Needless God Position.

The British monk Pelagius (d.418) taught that if God has given us commands, then everyone must be capable of perfectly keeping them. To become spiritual, people have no need of a divine calling or spiritual assistance. Pelagius flatly stated, “Man is able to be without sin, and he is able to keep the commandments of God.”

Lyman Abbott (d.1922) the American Congregationalist pastor and writer said, “It has sometimes been said that there is no good in man. It would be truer to say that there is no evil in him.”

Shailer Mathews (d.1941) taught that salvation represents the gradual ascendancy of the spiritual personality (the higher self) over the animal nature (the lower self). Mathews said, “The loving God of the universe will save a man who tries to live like Jesus.”

In summary, the Pelagian and liberal position regarding the call of salvation could be stated as, “I came by myself.”

Under the covenant made with Adam, man’s destiny depended on his own works. We know the results of that trial. Now if Man in an un-cursed condition failed to remain sinless, what chance has he to do so since he is fallen? In an un-cursed condition man failed to obey God. Would it not be a mockery to have him only to repeat the process? If further works are to be wrought, then God, and not man, will be the author.

II. Special Ability Provided to Hearers of the Gospel that May be Resisted

I call this The Weak God Position.

The Lutheran Formula of Concord (1576) states that Christ provides salvation for the entire human race. “Through Christ the human race has truly been redeemed and reconciled to God.” The Formula plainly quotes John 6:44, “No one comes to Christ unless the Father draws him” but continues by saying, nevertheless sinner may harden their hearts and refuse the Spirit’s working in their lives.

The Lutheran theologian Francis Pieper said, “Men do possess the power to thwart the operation of the divine…”

In summary, this view of God’s calling could be stated as, “God brought me to Christ and I did not stop Him.”

III. Universally Restored Ability to Obey God’s General Call

This view is held by many denominations Protestant and Catholic, by people who are Arminian in their theology.

I call this The Totally Confused Position.

This is the theology of Universal Prevenient Grace. It is the belief that when Christ died on the cross a prevenient grace flowed unto all mankind neutralizing depravity and giving every man the ability to get saved or not.

It is a mixture of the first two positions. The determining factor as to whether persons heed the Gospel call is their own free decision. God’s grace can be resisted, thus God’s grace is submissive to man’s will.

It is unreasonable to suppose that the sinner can thus defeat the creative power of Almighty God. “He doeth according to His will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest thou?”

The Nazarene theologian H. Orton Wiley said, “The call may be resisted; and even after having been accepted, obedience may be forfeited.” Thus you can choose to get saved and choose to lose your salvation. Arminian-Wesleyans say that if God is sovereign over who gets saved then people aren’t really people. But I say, if people tell God what to do then God isn’t really God.

If, as Arminians say, God is earnestly trying to convert every person, He is making a great failure of His work; for among the adult population of the world up to the present time, where He has succeeded in saving one He has let perhaps a 100 fall into hell.

In light of Scripture is becomes impossible for us to imagine that God is struggling along with man as best He can, pleading, working, begging but unable to accomplish His purpose if His creatures will otherwise. If God does not effectually call, we may imagine Him saying, “I will that all men should be saved; nevertheless, it must finally be, not as I will but as they will.” If this were true then all the preachers and prophets in the Bible were confused. And if it is true that man’s will is more sovereign than God’s then there is no need to pray.

In summary, this position of God’s calling could be stated as “God started the process and I finished it.”

IV. That God’s call has two aspects: 1) a general call that may be resisted, and 2) a special effectual call unto salvation

I call this The Biblical Position.

This is the position of Reformed Theology.

By virtue of original sin and depravity, all people including the elect are incapable of responding to the Gospel. Sinners must be regenerated by the Spirit of God and given the ability to trust Christ by the gift of faith and repentance. The teaching of the Scriptures is such that we must say that man in his natural state is radically corrupt, and that he can never become holy and happy through any power of his own. He is spiritually dead, and must be saved by Christ if at all. Common reason tells us that if a man is so fallen so to be at enmity with God, that enmity must be removed before he can have any desire to do God’s will. If a sinner is to desire redemption through Christ, he must receive a new disposition. He must be born again, and from above (John 3:3).

As Calvinists we hold that the condition of men since the fall is such that if left to themselves they would continue in their state of rebellion and refuse all offers of salvation. Christ would then have died in vain. But since it was promised that He should see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied, the effects of that sacrifice have not been left suspended upon the whim of man’s sinful will. Rather, the work of God in redemption has been rendered effective through the mission of the Holy Spirit who so operates on the chosen people that they are brought to repentance and faith, and thus made heirs of eternal life.

There are dual aspects of God’s ONE CALL = a general aspect and a specific aspect. Mt 22:14 – “For many are called, but few are chosen.” They are two aspects of the one summons of God to salvation. God’s call is universal in one sense and specific in another.

When the Word is preached everyone within earshot is summons to God but no one is capable of responding. But the Spirit of God empowers the call in the heart of the pre-converted elect and it becomes effective. The General Call is ineffective on the spiritually dead ears of the reprobate. But the special call is affected by the Holy Spirit’s secret work on the heart of the elect. The Father’s Spirit enlightens the heart of the elect, frees stubborn wills, and inclines contrary affections toward Christ.

1 Co 2:9 – But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
1 Co 2:10 – But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
1 Co 2:11 – For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
1 Co 2:12 – Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
1 Co 2:13 – These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1 Co 2:14 – But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The Baptist theologian A.H.Strong agreed with this dual aspect. He added that the general call that is extended to the whole world is genuine and sincere. God has put no obstacle in man’s way to respond to the general call. It is man’s own darkened mind and evil will that is his obstacle.

To remedy the situation God graciously makes the call effectual in the heart of some, the elect.
The preacher’s sermon in the general call is made effective by the Spirit’s work in the special call.

The General call is “whosoever will” and the Special call is “according to God’s will”
We find that the “whosoever will” won’t unless the Spirit enables them to will.

Jesus reveals this effecual call in John 6:44 - “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.” This verse indisputably affirms that those who come to Christ in faith do so because the Father has efficiently drawn them. The following verse Jn 6:45 – “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.” Notice the definite success of God’s call in that “everyone…comes” who hears the specific call of the Father.

Augustine said of this verse that it teaches that every person who receives the special call of the Spirit will infallibly come to Christ. There’s no maybe in this verse as the Pelagians, Liberals, and Arminians teach. There is no work of man teaching himself, saving himself. Salvation is a work that only God gets the glory for.

Jn 6:63 – It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.

John Calvin said that by virtue of spiritual blindness caused by personal depravity, the Spirit’s powerful influence is needed to draw sinners to Christ. “The Word of God is like a sun, shining upon all those whom it is proclaimed, but with no effect among the blind. Now, all of us are blind by nature in this respect. Accordingly, the Word cannot penetrate into our minds unless the Spirit, as the inner teacher, through His illumination makes entry for it.”

Jesus said in Jn 6:65 – “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”

F.F.Bruce said of this chapter in John that it is clearly taught that “None can come to Christ in faith but those who are persuaded and enabled to do so by the Spirit; … And all these will come, drawn by the irresistible grace of heavenly love.”

If man is dead in sin, then nothing short of this supernatural life-giving power of the Holy Spirit will ever cause him to do that which is spiritually good.

Eph 2:1 - And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,

In the nature of the case the first movement toward salvation can no more come from man than his body if dead could originate its own life. Regeneration is a sovereign gift of God, graciously bestowed on those whom He has chosen; and for this great re-creative work God alone is competent.

It cannot be granted on the foresight of any thing good in the subjects of this saving change, for in their unrenewed nature Men are incapable of acts with right motives toward God; hence none could possibly be foreseen.

Note the clear inability of man in these verses:
Ro 3:11 – There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.
Ro 3:12 – They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.”
Ro 8:7 – Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it will not submit to the law of God, nor indeed can it.

As Dr. Warfield says, ”Sinful man stands in need, not of inducements or assistance to save himself, but precisely of saving; and Jesus Christ has come not to advise, or urge, or woo, or help him to save himself, but to save him.”

In the Scriptures this change is called a regeneration (Titus 3:5), a spiritual resurrection which is wrought by the same mighty power with which God wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead (Eph. 1:19, 20), a calling out of darkness into God’s marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9), a passing out of death into life (John 5:24), a new birth (John 3:3), a making alive (Col. 2:13), a taking away of the heart of stone and giving of a heart of flesh (Ezek. 11:19), and the subject of the change is said to be a new creature (II Cor. 5:17). This is how God effectually calls some while universally calling all to repentance and faith.

In summary, the Biblical position on calling to salvation could be expressed as “God brought me to Christ and I willingly and thankfully came.”

I will post more of my notes later this week, including how the effectual call of God does not violate Man’s free agency or cause a person to be saved against his will.