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From Invitation to Resurrection: The Doctrine of Irresistible Grace · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome back to the show. Today we are opening up a file
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that is labeled Reformed Thinking.
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Yeah, it's good to be here. So I want to start with a
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scenario. I want you to picture a Sunday
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morning. It is 11 AM and you have a room
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full of people, let's say 200 of them.
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They're all sitting in the same pews.
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The lighting is the same for everyone, the temperature is the
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same, and up front there's a preacher.
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And this creature is faithful. He isn't holding anything back.
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He is preaching the gospel clearly, Christ crucified, the
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need for repentance, the offer of forgiveness.
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A very common scenario. Right, it's the identical audio
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hitting every single set of eardrums in that room.
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But here's the mystery. You look at the reactions in the
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third row. You have a guy who is openly
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yawning. Yeah, checking his watch.
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Checking his watch, he's bored out of his mind. 2 rows back
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there is someone else who was actually annoyed.
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They are offended. Bristling at the talk of sin.
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Yeah, sin and judgement. Then maybe in the back you have
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someone who is interested. They are nodding along.
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They think it is a nice speech. But by the time they get to
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lunch, they have forgotten all about it.
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It makes no impact on their life.
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Right, the seed falling on rocky ground.
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Precisely. But then then there is one
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person. Maybe it is the person you least
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expect and they are absolutely arrested.
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It is like the words are bypassing their ears and
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grabbing their actual heart. They are broken over their sin.
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They see Jesus as the only hope they have.
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They're brought to saving faith right there in that moment.
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Right. But here's the question that
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drives this entire deep dive today.
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What accounts for the difference?
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Yeah, that is the big one. Why did that one person believe
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when the others didn't? Is that person smarter?
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Are they more sensitive? Or are they just better at
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listening? Yeah, do they have a higher
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spiritual IQ than the guy yawning in the third row?
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That is the question of the ages.
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And if we look at the source material we have in front of us
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today, Scripture forbids us from answering that.
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That person was better, right? It won't.
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Let us say, well, he just had more wisdom.
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So if the difference isn't in the person.
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Then the difference must be in the sender of the message.
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It brings us to a specific theological focus.
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OK, in the world of Reformed theology, this is known as the
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doctrine of irresistible grace, or perhaps a more descriptive
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term that we will use a lot today, which is effectual
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calling. Effectual calling, OK.
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And our mission for this deep dive is to unpack that.
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We want to examine why salvation depends on God's sovereign
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strength to raise the dead rather than man's Quote UN quote
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free will to accept an offer. Correct.
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We are looking at why God gets the glory for the believer's
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response, not just for the offer itself.
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So let's get into the diagnosis. I love how one of our sources
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puts this. To understand the cure, one must
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understand the disease. You cannot appreciate the
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medicine if you don't know how sick you are, or in this case,
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it is not even about being sick. That is the first correction we
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have to make. Because usually when we think of
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sinners, we think of people who are wandering or confused or
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maybe spiritually sick. But the Bible uses much harsher
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language. It does.
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We have to look at Ephesians chapter 2 verses one through 5.
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Paul writes that the state of the natural man.
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Meaning every one of us before God intervenes.
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Right, the state is dead in trespasses and sins.
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Dead, not injured, not handicapped.
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Dead. Dead.
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And we need to sit with that word.
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What can a corpse do? Nothing.
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If you go to a morgue and you offer a corpse $1,000,000, does
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it react? No.
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If you offer a warning, say wake up or the building will burn
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down, does it run? It does not.
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And this is the crucial point. Corpses do not cooperate with
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doctors, They do not reach for the medicine.
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Which destroys the popular idea that the human will is sort of
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sitting in neutral. Yes, you know the idea that we
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are sitting on a fence and God offers us something and we have
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the capacity to weigh the pros and cons and decide to jump off
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the fence. Like we are the deciding vote.
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Exactly, or rather precisely. But a dead man doesn't have a
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vote. He has no pulse.
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So if the biblical diagnosis is death, then the cure cannot be
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assistance, right? It has to be resurrection.
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That is a huge distinction. If I am drowning, I need
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assistance. I need a life preserver, right?
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But if I'm dead at the bottom of the ocean, a life preserver does
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me no good. Yeah, I need to be brought back
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to life. Spot on.
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And the sources go even further into this.
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It is not just that we are unable, it is that we are
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hostile. Hostile.
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Romans 8 verses 7 and 8 is frighteningly clear.
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It says the mind of the flesh, which is the natural human
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mindset, is hostile to God. Wow.
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It does not submit to God's law. Indeed it cannot.
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There is that word cannot that implies an inability.
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It is a moral inability and we need to parse this out because
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people get confused. They say, well, I have a brain,
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I have a will. I choose what to eat for
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breakfast. Why can't I choose God?
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Right. It feels like we have free will.
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You have natural ability. You have a mind that functions.
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You have a will that chooses what it wants.
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The problem, according to Reform thinking, is the what it wants
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part. Because we are fallen, Because
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we are dead in sin. We love darkness, we hate the
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light, so we choose freely, but we always choose against God.
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So it is like if you offer a plate of broccoli and a plate of
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candy to a child, they freely choose the candy every time,
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right. But this is way more serious.
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Yeah. It is like we are allergic to
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God. It is worse than an allergy.
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It is antipathy. Yeah.
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First Corinthians 214 says the natural person cannot understand
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spiritual things. Cannot.
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It says they are foolishness to him.
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It uses the analogy of a blind man trying to judge color.
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Oh, that makes sense. You can explain the color red to
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a man born blind all day long. You can describe the wavelength,
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the heat, the passion of it. But he cannot see it.
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He lacks the faculty to perceive it.
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So bring this back to the guy yawning in the Pew.
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The guy yawning in the Pew isn't just bored, he is blind.
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He is spiritually dead. The gospel is being preached.
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That is the light shining in the room, but he has no eyes to see
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it. So the problem isn't that he
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lacks an opportunity. Because the preacher is giving
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him the opportunity. Right, the problem is that he
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lacks life. He cannot come because he will
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not come. And he will not come, because
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his nature is to run away. This sets up the problem
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perfectly. If we are all in that boat, if
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we're all dead, hostile and blind, then nobody should be
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saved. The church should be empty.
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That is the logical conclusion. If it were left up to us heaven,
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would it be empty? But it isn't.
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Which leads us to the solution. And this is where we get into
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the two calls. Because clearly God does call
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people. Yes, to understand irresistible
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grace, we have to distinguish between two different ways God
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calls people. Otherwise you run into
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contradictions You. Do you see people in the Bible
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resisting God and then you hear theologians say grace is
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irresistible? How does that work?
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Right. It sounds like a paradox, yeah.
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So break it down for us. What is the first call?
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The first is what we call the external call.
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This is the public preaching of the word.
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It is what happens on that Sunday morning we talked about.
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The preacher says repent and believe.
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That command goes out to everyone.
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It hits the ears of the yawning guy, the angry guy, and the
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believing guy. And the sources say this call is
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sincere. Absolutely sincere.
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It is well meant. God truly commands all men
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everywhere to repent. It is binding, meaning if you
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hear it and reject it, you are guilty.
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But as we see in Scripture, like in Acts 751 where Steven tells
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the Pharisees you always resist the Holy Spirit, this external
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call can be resisted. In fact, it is resisted by the
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majority of the world. OK, so that is the external
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call. It is the invitation, but
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clearly that is not enough for a dead man.
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Correct. That brings us to the internal
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call or effectual calling. Effectual calling.
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This is the secret saving work of the Holy Spirit.
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It doesn't just stay on the outside, it accompanies the Word
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and goes inside the person. What does he actually do?
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It enlightens the mind. It is like turning the lights on
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in a dark room. And suddenly the blind man sees
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the color red. Exactly, or well, precisely.
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It removes the heart of stone, that hostility we talked about,
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and gives a heart of flesh. It renews the will.
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So going back to the yawning guy, if the internal call hits
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him, what happens? He stops yawning.
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Suddenly the message he thought was boring becomes the most
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weighty thing he has ever heard. He sees his sin as terrible.
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He sees Christ as beautiful and here is the key, He comes
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freely. That is the part that trips
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people up. Yeah.
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When we hear irresistible grace, I think a lot of us imagine God
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dragging someone kicking and screaming into heaven, Right?
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Like I don't want to go and God says too bad you're going.
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That is a caricature and the sources are very careful to
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correct that. It is not that God drags you
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against your will, it is that he changes your will.
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Oh, I see. Think of it this way.
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He makes you willing. When the Spirit changes your
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heart, you suddenly want Christ more than anything else.
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You run to Him. The source uses a beautiful
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phrase. The Sinner runs to Christ as to
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a treasure, not as to a prison. I really like that.
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So irresistible doesn't mean coerved, it means overcoming.
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Yes, it means that God's grace is stronger than your
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resistance. It triumphs over your rebellion.
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It doesn't bypass your will, it heals it.
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So we have the diagnosis dead in sin.
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We have the definition, the internal call that raises the
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dead. Now I want to get into the proof
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because this is a bold claim. You are saying God decides and
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God does it alone. Where do we see this in the
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text? The souls is point heavily to
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John chapter 6. Let's go there.
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John 6 is the Mount Everest of this doctrine.
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You cannot get around it. Specifically John 644.
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Let me call that to mind. Jesus says no one can come to me
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unless the Father who sent me draws him.
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That is the verse. Now let's put on our exegesis
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hats. The expert in our source
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material, who sounds a lot like a very intense preacher, breaks
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this down grammatically. OK, first look at the negative.
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No one can. Universal negative.
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No one is able. That is a diagnosis again
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inability. Then comes the condition unless.
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Unless what? Unless the Sinner decides.
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Unless the Sinner gets smart, no.
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Unless the Father draws him. OK, let's unpack that word draw.
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The Greek word is helko. Helku Now in modern church
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culture, we often hear this word draw and we think of something
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very gentle. Like the smell of fresh coffee
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draws me to the kitchen. Right.
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Or a gentleman wooing a lady with flowers.
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An invitation like I'm drawing you in.
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The sources are adamant here. That is not what Helko means,
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no. The expert points out that in
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ancient Greek literature and in the New Testament, this word
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almost always denotes an overcoming force.
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It means to drag. Drag.
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Yes, look at how it is used elsewhere.
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Acts 1619. Paul and Silas are seized by the
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mob and dragged into the marketplace.
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Oh wow. That is Helker.
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He definitely didn't go willingly.
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James, 26, the rich man drag the poor into court again.
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Helco. OK, I'm seeing a pattern here.
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And my favorite example, John, 21 Peter is fishing.
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He catches 153 large fish and he drags the net to shore.
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The Invincible Net. Yeah, that was the title of one
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of our sources. Precisely.
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Now think about the fish in that net.
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Do the fish cooperate? No.
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Do they swim along nicely because they want to be caught?
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No. They are mastered by the net.
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The fisherman's strength overcomes the resistance of the
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fish. That is a striking image, yeah,
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but it is also kind of violent. It is an act of strength, and
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Jesus chose this word specifically.
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There is a Greek word for invite college.
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He didn't use that, He used helco.
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He wanted to show that this is a monarchistic act.
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Monarchistic. That is a theological term we
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should define for the listener. Monarchism means one worker mono
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erg God works alone to raise the dead.
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OK. The opposite is synergism
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working together. The world thinks salvation is
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synergistic. God offers.
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I accept. We team up right?
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Jesus in John 6 is saying no, you are the fish, I am the
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fisherman, you are the corpse. I am the resurrection.
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I do the work. And there's a guarantee in that
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verse, too, isn't there? Yes, this is crucial.
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Jesus says. No one can come unless the
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Father draws him and then immediately adds, And I will
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raise him up on the last day. So everyone who is drawn gets
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raised. Everyone.
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There is no drop off rate. Wow.
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In a synergistic system, God tries to draw everyone, but only
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some accept that would mean God fails a lot of the time.
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Because he tries to draw the guy in the third row, but the guy's
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will is too strong. But in John 6, Jesus says if the
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Father draws you, you will be raised up.
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The draw is effective. It always works.
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That is comforting. It means God is actually in
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control, not just hoping to be in control.
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It changes God from a hopeful bystander into a mighty savior.
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OK, so that is the external force, the drag, but we also
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talked about the heart change, the making willing.
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How does that mechanics work? The sources go to the Old
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Testament for this Ezekiel. Ezekiel 36.
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This is the promise of the New Covenant.
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God says I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and
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give you a heart of flesh. A heart transplant.
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The spiritual heart transplant and again look at the glamour.
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I will remove. I will give.
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God is doing the doing. The source notes that in Hebrew
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this uses the high fill stem. That is the causative stem.
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God causes the action. He doesn't ask the Stone Heart
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if it wants to leave, he takes it out.
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Because a stone heart cannot feel, it cannot beat, it cannot
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respond. Correct.
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It is dead to God, but a heart of flesh is soft, it is
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responsive, it feels. So when God performs this
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transplant, suddenly the person has a new nature.
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And this explains the psychology of it.
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We aren't robots. We don't just March into church
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like zombies. Yeah, we go because we want to,
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right? Think of a starving man.
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If you put a banquet in front of a corpse, nothing happens,
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nothing at all. But if you take that corpse, put
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life back into it, and give it a raging appetite, you don't have
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to force him to eat. You cannot stop him from eating.
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Spot on. He runs to the food.
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Why? Because his nature has changed.
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He is hungry. I see.
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That is what effectual calling does.
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God gives you a hunger for Christ.
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You see Jesus as the bread of life and you starve for him.
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So you come. You come running, but you only
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run because God gave you the appetite.
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We have a case study of this in the New Testament too, Lydia.
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Lydia in Acts 16. I love this story because it
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balances everything we were talking about.
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Paul is preaching by the Riverside.
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That is the external call. Lydia is listening.
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But then Luke, the author of Acts, gives us the behind the
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scenes commentary. He writes, The Lord opened her
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heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.
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The Lord opened her heart. She was listening, but the Lord
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flipped the switch. Without that opening, Paul's
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words would have just been noise.
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But because the Lord opened her heart, she believed.
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It illustrates the perfect balance.
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Preaching matters. Paul had to speak, but God gives
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the increase. He had to open the heart.
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It seems so clear when you line up the verses like that, but
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obviously this has been a massive debate in church
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history. So massive.
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Let's look at the theological synthesis and history, because
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we aren't the first people to talk about.
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This, no, this is the heritage of the Reformed faith.
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The Westminster Confession of Faith, which was written in the
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1640s, devotes an entire chapter to this Chapter 10, right?
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Yes. Chapter 10 of effectual calling.
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It aligns perfectly with what we have been saying.
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And it fits into a chain. The Golden Chain of Redemption.
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Romans 830 Those whom he predestined he also called, and
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those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he
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justified he also glorified. It is an unbreakable chain.
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It is. And notice the call is in the
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middle. It connects predestination,
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God's plan and eternity past with justification, our right
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standing with God. Now if that link breaks, if the
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call depends on us and we say no, then the chain falls apart.
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God predestines calls and then we block it.
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No, Paul says. If you are called, you are
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justified. It is a done deal.
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But people have fought against this.
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Who are the main opponents in history?
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The sources highlight two main battles.
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First, in the 4th century you have Augustine versus Pelagius.
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Oh, I've heard of that one. Pelagius basically taught that
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man as well. We aren't dead.
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We can choose God on our own. In Augustine.
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Augustine said no, we are dead. Grace must do it all.
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And the church sided with Augustine.
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Eventually, yes, but the error keeps coming.
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Back in the 17th century you had the Synod of Dort.
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This was the Reformed Church versus the Remonstrance or the
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Armenians. What was their argument?
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The Armenians taught prevenient grace.
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That is a term I hear sometimes. What does it mean basically?
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The idea is that grace comes before salvation to everyone.
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It lifts everyone up to a neutral state.
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Oh I see. It wipes the mud off your eyes,
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unlocks the handcuffs and then steps back and says OK, now it
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is up to you. You decide.
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So it makes salvation possible for everyone, but actual only
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for those who choose it. Correct.
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And the Reformed response at the Synod of Dort was that is not
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what the Bible teaches. Because why?
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Because if grace just brings us to neutral, then why does one
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person choose Jesus and another doesn't?
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It comes back to our opening question.
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Right, if we are both neutral and I choose Jesus and you
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don't, then I am smarter or I am more spiritual.
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Precisely. I have a reason to boast.
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I made the right choice. But Paul asks in First
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Corinthians 47, What do you have that you did not receive?
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If I contribute the deciding vote, I share the glory.
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And Reformed theology is jealous for God's glory.
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Soledo, Gloria If God does it all, including the calling, the
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drawing, the heart transplant, then God gets all the glory.
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This also pushes back against some modern church trends,
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doesn't it? The sources mentioned
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decisionism. Yes, decisionism is the idea
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that the goal of church is just to get a decision, get a hand
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raised, sign a card. And if that is the goal, you do
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whatever works. Right Emotional music, dim
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lights, high pressure sales tactics, every eye closed,
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nobody looking around. We've all seen that.
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The expert in our text calls this fleshly pragmatism.
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It is trying to manipulate emotions to get a choice.
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But if the problem is a dead heart.
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Then no amount of mood lighting will fix it.
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You can guilt A corpse into signing a card, maybe, but you
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haven't raised the dead. Effectual calling points out
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that we cannot manufacture conversion.
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Only the spirit gives life. It feeds the chirp from having
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to be a marketing agency. That is actually really
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liberating. But I can hear the listeners
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right now. I can hear the gears turning and
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the objections rising up because this is hard stuff.
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It is. It goes against our natural
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intuition. We like to think we are the
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captains of our souls. So let's tackle the big
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objections. The sources list a few #1 free
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will. Doesn't this turn us into
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robots, right? If God changes my heart and
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makes me come, am I really free? This is the most common
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pushback, and the answer lies in defining freedom.
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We tend to define freedom as libertarian free will, which
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means the ability to choose A or B at any moment, regardless of
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who we are. The power of contrary choice.
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Right, But the Bible defines freedom differently.
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Biblical freedom is acting according to your nature.
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You are free to do what you want to do, OK?
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Break that down for us. A shark is free to eat tuna.
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It is not free to fly like an eagle.
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Why? Because it is a shark.
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It's nature dictates its desires.
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Makes sense. A dead Sinner is free to sin.
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He loves sin. He's doing exactly what he
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wants. He's not a robot.
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He is a willing slave. So when God saves us.
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He changes our nature. He turns the shark into an
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eagle, to use a clumsy analogy. Or he turns the stone into
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flesh. Once the nature's changed, the
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desires change you now freely. Choose God because you want God.
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You aren't a robot being forced to do something you hate.
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So true freedom isn't the ability to make a random choice,
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it is the freedom from the bondage of sin.
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Correct, Jesus said if the sun sets you free, you will be free
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indeed. Free to what?
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Free to love God, which we couldn't do before.
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Objection #2 Fairness, this one hits hard.
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Why doesn't God call everyone? Yeah, that's tough.
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If he has the strength to draw everyone like he drew Peters
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fish, why not just drag the whole world into the boat?
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Is he unfair? The ones he leaves?
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This is a heavy question, and the expert distinguishes between
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justice and mercy. We have to remember what we all
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deserve. We are all the same dead and sin
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hostile. Right.
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So what? Does a hostile rebel deserve
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Justice? Condemnation.
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If God sent every single human being to hell, he would be
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perfectly just. He wouldn't be unfair to anyone.
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We all broke the law. That is a hard pill to swallow,
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but logically, yes. So salvation is never a matter
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of justice, it is a matter of mercy.
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Mercy, by definition, is not owed, right?
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If I pay two people for working, that is justice.
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If I give a gift to one person and not the other, I haven't
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been unjust to the second person, I just haven't given
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them a gift they didn't earn anyway.
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So the marvel isn't that God passes over some.
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The marvel is that he saves any. Why would he save a single one,
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one of us? That is the mystery.
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It is not why not them, It is why me.
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It shifts the focus from entitlement to gratitude.
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Precisely. If we demand that God treat
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everyone the same with mercy, we are treating mercy like a wage.
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And once mercy becomes a wage, it is no longer grace.
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Objection #3 Evangelism. This is a practical one.
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If God has His list and He is going to call them irresistibly,
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why should I bother preaching? That's the logic trap people
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fall into. Why send missionaries?
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Why pray for my neighbor? They're either chosen or not.
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But the sources give a two-part answer to this.
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First, obedience. God told us to go into all the
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world, right? We don't preach because we need
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to help God figure out who the elect are.
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We preach because our King commanded it.
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There is enough reason right there, but there is a second
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part. The second part is means God
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ordains the end salvation, but he also ordains the means
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preaching Romans 10, 17. Faith comes from hearing and
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hearing through the Word of Christ.
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So preaching is the instrument. Think of it like this.
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God ordained that crops will grow.
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Does that mean the farmer stops planting seeds?
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No, because planting seeds is how God makes crops grow.
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God ordained that sinners will be saved.
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How? Through the foolishness of
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preaching. So the doctrine doesn't kill
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evangelism. It empowers it.
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If I thought salvation depended on my ability to persuade
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someone, I would be terrified. Same here.
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I'm not that smooth. I cannot talk a corpse into
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life. But if I know that God uses my
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feeble words as the wire to send His electricity, then I can
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preach with confidence. You speak to the dead, knowing
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God can raise them correct. We don't rely on sales tactics,
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we rely on the promise that God has a people and he will call
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them. It takes the pressure off us to
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close the deal and puts the focus on faithful proclamation.
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That brings us to the application.
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We call this head, heart and hands.
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How does this doctrine land in our actual lives?
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Let's start with the heart. Humility.
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This is the biggest. One we touched on this, it kills
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pride. It demolishes it.
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If irresistible grace is true, then I cannot look at an
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unbeliever with superiority. I cannot say, well, I was just
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more open minded than you. No, I was dead.
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You are dead. The only difference is God
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breathed on me. It makes you walk with a limp.
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It makes you grateful. It really levels the ground at
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the foot of the cross. What about assurance?
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That is a big one for people who struggle with doubt.
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Am I really saved? The weary St. as the source
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calls them. If my salvation depended on my
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free will, I should be terrified.
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Why is that? Because my will changes.
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I might choose Jesus today, but what if I get depressed
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tomorrow? What if I get angry?
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Could I unchoose him? If I hired myself, I can fire
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myself. Spot on, but as salvation
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depends on God's invincible call, if He is the one who
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grabbed me, then he is the one who holds me.
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The Shepherd will not let me go. It means my security is anchored
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in heaven, not in my fluctuating emotions.
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Right. I will raise him up on the last
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day. Not I will try, but I will.
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He's the anchor for the soul. Yeah.
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Now what about prayer? This is the hands part.
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How does this change how we pray for lost people?
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It changes everything. Think about it.
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If you believe in absolute free will, how do you pray for your
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lost uncle Lord? Try your best, but don't violate
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His will. Lord present a really convincing
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argument. It makes prayer weak, but if you
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believe in effectual calling, you pray like this.
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Lord, RIP out his heart of stone.
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Lord, he is blind, give him eyes.
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He's dead. Give him life, Overcome him.
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You ask God to do what only God can do.
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You ask for a miracle and you know He has the strength to do
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it. It makes parents pray for their
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wayward kids with hope. God, I cannot reach them.
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My words are bouncing off. But you you can call them from
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the grave. That is incredible.
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And finally, worship. This is the ultimate goal
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doxology. When we sing Amazing Grace, we
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mean it. That saved a Wretch like me, not
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that helped a decent guy like me make a good decision.
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I once was lost but now I'm found.
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Was blind, but now I see. Who found who?
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He found me. Who gave sight He did.
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The result of this doctrine isn't just a smarter head, it is
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a heart that explodes and prays. It drives us to say, with Jonah
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in the belly of the fish, salvation belongs to the Lord.
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It all comes back to God. Start to finish.
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OK, let's summarize where we have been today.
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It has been quite a conversation.
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We started with the Sunday morning mystery.
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Why does one believe the world says the difference is in man,
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his free will, his intellect? The Bible says the difference is
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in God's life giving spirit. We look at the diagnosis, dead,
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hostile, unable. We looked at the cure, the
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internal call that opens the heart and makes us willing.
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We saw the invincible net in John 6.
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God doesn't just woo, he draws effectively.
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We saw the heart transplant in Ezekiel, and we saw how this
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fits into the Reformed history of giving God all the glory.
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And we answered the objections. It isn't robot making, it is
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freedom giving. It isn't unfair, it is merciful,
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and it doesn't kill evangelism. It fuels it.
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We must abandoned reliance on fleshly pragmatism, lights,
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camera, action, and rest entirely in God's ability to
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speak through his Word. So as we close this deep dive, I
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want to leave you with a provocative thought, something
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to chew on. Consider the invincible net we
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talked about. When you think about your
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relationship with God, what is your mental image?
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Is it you holding onto a rope, trying not to let go with your
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knuckles turning white? Or is it God holding you in a
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net that cannot break? If it is you holding the rope,
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you have every reason to be anxious your grip will slip.
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But if it is his net, if it is his draw, then you are safe.
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The same God who calls also justifies and glorifies.
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He doesn't lose his fish. Are you resting in your hold on
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God or His hold on you? That is the question.
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And the answer makes all the difference in the world.
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Thanks for joining us for Reform Thinking.
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We will see you on the next deep dive.
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So le del Gloria.