“Is God Successful in Salvation?”
Mike Abendroth
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Irresistible Grace
Two college students attend a Bible study of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. One says, “That’s great”; the other says, “Poppycock.” Two strangers hear a clear sermon on “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” One believes; the other does not. Two boys – in fact, twins – are brought up in the same home with the same religious instruction. One loves God, and the other hates Him. Their names are Jacob and Esau. Why? Why do two people in precisely the same circumstances react in opposite ways? Why does one person believe and another reject Christ? That is the problem of this chapter. The Biblical answer is irresistible grace. Irresistible grace is the sole cause for these different reactions. . . . Grace is undeserved. . . . p. 56 Palmer good quote
Irresistible means that when God has chosen some to be saved and when He sends His Spirit to change them from being hateful to being loving, no one can resist Him. He is irresistible. He does what He sets out to do. But do not misunderstand the word irresistible. To some it may give the meaning of causing someone to do what he does not want to do. . . . It is in this way that some conceive of irresistible grace. They picture God as forcing people to do what they do not want to do. He drags them struggling and kicking, as it were, into heaven against their wills. He forces, coerces, and does violence to man’s will. But this is not the meaning of the word irresistible in irresistible grace; and if it causes misunderstanding, then another word may be chosen. For example, efficacious, or effectual, or unconquerable, or certain. P. 57 Palmer
. . . God sends His Holy Spirit to work in the lives of people so that they will definitely and certainly be changed from evil to good people. It means that the Holy Spirit will certainly - without any and’s, if’s and but’s - cause everyone whom God has chosen from eternity and for whom Christ died to believe on Jesus. But God always does this ina way that man likes. AS we said before, man is always free. He does exactly what he wants to do. This does not mean that he has free will – that is, the ability to choose the good and the bad equally as well. He does not have that kind of freedom. For he hates God, loves sin, and freely, willingly sins without any external compulsion. He is never able to choose the good, God, and Christ, because he is in slavery to the devil and his own sinful desires. He has no real freedom. . . . By irresistible grace God does not leave the heart unchanged and thus drag man into heaven against his will. No, God regenerates the man, changes his nature, and radically alters his character so that man now is truly sorry for his sin and loves God. P. 58 Palmer
Why does one person believe on Christ, whereas another in the same circumstances rejects? There are basically two answers: man’s will or God’s will. . . p. 60 Palmer
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if you do believe, then you can know from the rest of the Bible it was because of God working in you both to will and to do according to His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). So believe. God commands you to. But if you do, thank God for causing you to do so. P. 66 Palmer
The gospel invitation extends a call to salvation to every one who hears its message. It invites all men without distinction to drink freely of the water of life and live. It promises salvation to all who repent and believe. But this outward general call, extended to the elect and non-elect alike, will not bring sinners to Christ. Why? Because men are by nature dead in sin and are under its power. P. 52 Steele/Thomas/Quinn
No amount of external threatenings or promises will cause blind, deaf, dead, rebellious sinners to bow before Christ as Lord and to look to Him alone for salvation. Such an act of faith and submission is contrary to the lost man’s nature. Therefore, the Holy Spirit, in order to bring God’s elect to salvation, extends to them a special inward call in addition to the outward call contained in the gospel message. Through this special call, the Holy Spirit performs a work of grace within the sinner, which inevitably brings him to faith in Christ. The inward change wrought in the elect sinner enables him to understand and believe spiritual truth; in the spiritual realm, he is given the seeing eye and the hearing ear. The Spirit creates within him a new heart or a new nature. This is accomplished through regeneration or the new birth by which the sinner is made a child of God and is given spiritual life. . . . Although the general outward call of the gospel can be, and often is, rejected the special inward call of the Spirit never fails to result in the conversion of those to whom it is made. . . . “efficacious,” “invincible,” or “irresistible” p. 53 Steele/Thomas/Quinn
Romans 1:6-7: “. . . including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints. . . “
Romans 8:30: “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”
Hebrews 9:15: “Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.”
Jude 1: “. . . To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ . . .”
1 Peter 1:15: “But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.” P. 62 Steele/Thomas/Quinn
1 Peter 5:10: “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” P. 63 Steele/Thomas/Quinn
God always gets his way in the matter of our conversion is not because of his raw power, forcing us against our will, but because he effectually persuades us and, in changing our will, gives us the desire for him that is entirely contrary to our sinful nature. . . “intoxicating grace.” For this is what God does by his Spirit: He overwhelms us with his love and grace, liberating us to freely embrace what we had before just as freely rejected. . . . p. 147 Horton
Sin controls our faculties, but the decisions we make really are our own and God holds us accountable for them. When the Holy Spirit descends and intoxicates us with his new desires and power, we just as naturally turn to God. Both the decision to turn from God and the decision to turn to God are really our decisions. But apart from God’s grace (intoxicating grace) a decision for Christ is never going to happen. P. 148 Horton
First of all, the word translated “again” should more accurately be rendered “from above.” . . . We do not cause or initiate regeneration. We are not born again because we believe. We believe because God reaches down from heaven and grants us the new birth. . . . Why? “Thos controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God” (Rom. 8:8). Jesus said, “a bad tree cannot bear good fruit” (Matt. 7:18). A person’s nature must be changed before his or her behavior will change. The old person must be replaced by the new. We had as much to do with our new birth as Lazarus had to do with his physical resurrection. P. 150 Horton
Efficacious Grace . . . . The grace of God’s calling is overwhelmingly efficacious. A good way of expressing this is to say that the Holy Spirit regenerates us, giving us a new nature, as a result of which we naturally do what the new nature does: that is, we believe the gospel, repent of our sin, and trust in Christ unto salvation. P. 135 Boice/Ryken
The Westminster Confession of Faith expresses the doctrine of efficacious grace in particularly effective language. All those whom God has predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly, to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace (Chap. 10, Sec. 1). Martin Luther was saying the same thing when he wrote, “When God works in us, the will is changed under the sweet influence of the Spirit of God. Once more it desires and acts, not of compulsion, but of its own desire and spontaneous inclination. P. 136 Boice/Ryken
George Whitefield used to say that the sinner’s condition is worse than hopeless. !!!! . . . . because of God’s sovereign grace – even the worst of blaspheming rebels may be turned from his or her folly to the Savior. Hope! . . . . Romans 1:6-7 “You also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ . . . called to be saints.” P. 139 Boice/Ryken
Romans 11:29 “God’s gift and his call are irrevocable.”
1 Corinthians 1:9 “God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.” P. 140 Boice/Ryken
Even if it were granted that “foreknew” means the foresight of faith, the biblical doctrine of sovereign election is not thereby eliminated or disproven. For it is certainly true that God foresees faith; he foresees all that comes to pass. The question would then simply be: whence proceeds this faith, which God foresees? And the only biblical answer is that the faith which God foresees is the faith he Himself creates (cf. John 3:3-8; 6:44, 45, 65; Eph. 2:8; Phil. 1:29; 2 Pet. 1:2). Hence his eternal foresight of faith is preconditioned by his decree to generate this faith in those whom he foresees as believing. P. 146 Boice/Ryken
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Thanks.
HBTN,
Mike Abendroth
www.bbcchurch.org