DOCTRINES OF GRACE. CHAPTER 9: IRRESISTIBLE GRACE.
WE INTRODUCE THE SPIRIT.
To this point the Doctrines of Grace have dealt with the utter incapacity of man to do anything good which places man in the condition of utter despair and doom. This condition of sin, we are told, was passed down by the head of the race, Adam. We discussed at length how man by virtue of this inheritance of sin is totally depraved. Every faculty of man is defiled by sin, his mind, his will, his emotions. This is the doctrine of Total Depravity. The next three Doctrines of Grace, including the one now under consideration, highlight the work of the Triune God to completely reverse this condition of spiritual death. If total depravity means that man is spiritually dead and incapable of anything good in the eyes of God, then the work of restoring mankind to a place of favor must be all of God. The term that highlights God as the only the acting agent in the entire work of salvation is called monergism. Let us demonstrate this truth be doing a quick review.
In chapter four we introduced the doctrine of Unconditional Election. We argued that this is a work primarily of God the Father. In eternity past, the Father chose the elect, and gave them to the Son as a gift (see John 17:6). In order to secure the gift, the Son must pay the infinite ransom price for His people’s sin. In this aspect of God’s salvation the Son of God took upon Himself their entire spiritual debt. He voluntarily came to the earth, assumed a true human nature, being born of a poor Jewish virgin. Following that He traversed the region of Palestine for some thirty-three years perfectly fulfilling every jot and tittle of the Law of God. Then in an act of incomprehensible grace He offered His perfect life, without blemish or spot, to His Father, paying the full price of redemption for His people. This sacrifice was validated as acceptable in His resurrection, for death could not hold Him. This offering perfectly secured the salvation of those He came to save. Because His death was efficacious for His people it is often called Limited Atonement, or better rendered, Particular Redemption. Christ having accomplished this great work of atonement, the completion of this glorious plan was left in the hands of the One who would apply it every one of God’s elect. This person is, of course, the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And it is His work that becomes the focus of the doctrine we will now discuss, Irresistible Grace. This then is the fourth doctrine of a fivefold cohesive system we call the Doctrines of Grace, or Calvinism. [1]
The Trinitarian participation in salvation can be diagrammed as follows:
UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION —- WORK OF THE FATHER —- PLAN
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LIMITED ATONEMENT —- WORK OF THE SON —- PURCHASE
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IRRESISTIBLE GRACE—- WORK OF THE SPIRIT —- APPLY
THE MEANING OF THE WORDS.
As always we begin our discussion by looking at the words that describe the doctrine. What did the Reformed theologians mean by the word grace? This is a wide word with many nuances. Generally speaking, the word is a synonym for ‘the free bestowal of favor.’ The concept is most clearly seen in that quasi-redundant statement of Paul in Romans 3:24, “And are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” God’s people are justified by God’s free favor which is grounded in the redemptive work of Christ. We see here and in many other texts that grace has dispositional and practical aspects. It is God’s disposition, His inclination, to extend favor to others. He is a God who loves to showcase His grace to all creation. God’s disposition, however, always turns to action as the verse in Ephesians 2:7 clearly shows.
“So that in the ages to come He might show the boundless riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Notice here that God is gracious and that grace compels Him to be kind, which is the active fruit of grace. This active show of kindness to sinners is the substance of Irresistible Grace. In other words, this doctrine teaches that God’s drawing sinners to Himself is the visible sign of grace. It is not only grace, but grace that has feet: irresistible grace.
The word irresistible is trickier. When we say that something is irresistible it implies that it is a force that can’t be resisted even if someone wanted to. Imagine a captive being dragged behind the chariot of a Roman general. He is pulling at those chains with all his strength but the strength of the horses pulls the man forward against his will. That is an irresistible force. It is not how God operates. Others look at irresistible in terms of an impersonal force. A man is pushed off a 13 story building and the irresistible force of gravity takes him to his death. Both of these illustrations imply that word irresistible means that someone is being moved against his own desires. This, we say emphatically, is not the way the word is being used here. What the term means is that in salvation there is an irresistible draw of one towards something beautiful or winsome. It is the gentle wooing of an amusement park for a little child who can’t wait to get there. It is the desire of a young man who is traveling across country to visit his fiancée. It is the attraction of the sea upon a newly hatched sea turtle that yearns for the waters it calls home. We are irresistibly drawn to that for which we have a great attraction. When the Dutch Reformed Church spoke of irresistible grace she meant that God so works in the heart of a sinner that he or she is drawn to the loveliness of the Savior, a power that cannot be matched or overcome by any sinful resistance. The Westminster Confession says it with brilliant efficiency.
“All those whom God hath 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 sin and 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 unto them an 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.’ [2}
Two major points are made here by the divines. They note first the inward working in a man’s soul that precedes wooing sinners to Christ, a theme that will be dealt with in a later section. They also make the point that this process brings the sinner to salvation freely and willingly.
Freely and willingly does not mean that the one coming to Christ does so in the strength of his own desires alone. While the external man does exercise his will and freely move toward that which is beautiful, behind it all is that inward impulse of God that draws the man forward to the intended object. There is therefore an external and an internal component to this efficacious drawing of God. This phenomenon is summarized in Philippians 2:12-13.
“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
The external act of the will moving toward the desired object is energized by the inward work of God upon that will. The power of this grace is unmatched by any force known to man. To fight against gravity or a Roman chariot takes untold power, but to fight against the deeply etched inclinations of one’s nature is an infinitely greater fight. For any sinner to come to Christ is truly a divine miracle. Every conversion is an impossible work that only God could accomplish.
No doubt it is a Trinitarian effort to draw sinners to the Savior. In John 12:32 Christ says, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” Jesus seems to be referencing His own power to draw sinners. In addition Jesus says in John 6:44 that the Father draws sinners as well, “No man can come to me unless the Father draw Him and I will raise Him up at the last day.” The Son draws sinners, the Father draws sinners.
But it is left to the Spirit to be the primary person who draws sinners to Christ. The statement in John 12, for example, is an introduction to a very long section in John on the role of the Spirit in drawing men to the Son. [3] Christ often attributes to Himself what is the ‘hands on’ work of the Spirit. For example the Bible says that Christ sanctifies believers in Eph. 5:26 and Hebrews 2:11, while Romans 15:16 states explicitly that this work belongs to the Spirit. Again the verse in John 6:44 states that the Father draws sinners as well. But it is left to the Spirit to do the actual work of drawing sinners. And He accomplishes it by changing the desires of a sinner’s heart in what theologians call regeneration.
A NEW HEART.
The Bible teaches that natural men are never attracted to that which is good, to that which will save them. The reason is clear; they simply find spiritual things boring, repulsive and foolish. Paul writing to the Corinthians says,
“For the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14).
The reason men and women do not get saved is that spiritual things have no attraction for them. This is why Jesus said to the Pharisees, “You are not willing to come to me that you may have life.” [4] Indeed the carnal mind, even the carnal religious mind, has no appetite to come near to God. [5]
As we said, in order to change this repulsion to spiritual things God must first change the human inclination. Paul describes it as ‘old things passing away and all things becoming new’ (see 2 Cor 5:17). Only by transplanting a new heart into a dead sinner will the he ever move toward Christ. This inward change is the hallmark of the New Covenant. The prophet Ezekiel looking forward to that covenant says it this way:
“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.” [6]
Through Ezekiel, God wants to give a nation in captivity a hope for their future. They are in misery but the day will come when all the people of God will no longer labor under the external commandments of the Old Covenant which they can never keep, but will have the law inscribed upon their hearts. The language here is pregnant with new birth imagery which is seen even more clearly in Ezekiel’s contemporary, Jeremiah.
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, and they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest” (Jer. 31:33-34).
The law being stamped upon the hearts of God’s people, Jews and Gentiles, is clearly a reference to the New Birth. Regeneration by the indwelling Spirit is the chief mark of the New Covenant. The inspired writer to the Hebrews picks up on Jeremiah’s statement above and applies it the anticipated New Covenant. [7]
What exactly is regeneration? It comes from the Latin regenerationem which means "a being born again." It bears the idea of ‘being made over’ or ‘to generate again’ or ‘to make new’. It comes from the Latin word re meaning "again" and generare coming from the root genus (race or kind) and means to "bring forth, beget, produce." [8] Putting the words together, regeneration means to be born again, or anew. It is to take that which is not and make it something that is. Regeneration is a sovereign work of God whereby He enlivens the dead heart in the natural man. Note that in regeneration man contributes nothing. In regeneration God raises a dead spiritual corpse just as Jesus raised Lazarus. Regeneration cannot be aided, or manipulated or made more probable by human planning, assistance or scheming. Jesus likened regeneration to the capricious wind. “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.” [9] The New Birth happens because God and God alone decrees it to happen. Note also that regeneration is not a status change like justification. It actually affects how one lives. The dead corpse rises and begins to act like something alive.
The primary evidence of regeneration is an enlightened understanding of God’s revelation to man. The fact that Nicodemus couldn’t understand Jesus’ spiritual analogy of birth clearly shows that he was dead to the truth. No matter how often one invites the dead heart to come to the Savior it will never come because it does not understand what is being said. In order for anyone to come to Jesus the dead heart must be spiritually regenerated. So when we speak of irresistible grace we are speaking of that sovereign act whereby God draws a sinner to Himself by the implanting of a new nature. That gift of the new heart in regeneration is the great work of the Holy Spirit. This work is clearly spoken of in the Scripture. We look at Titus 3:5 which says, “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” The divine act that saves sinners in the New Covenant is described by two parallel terms, ‘the washing of regeneration’ and the ‘renewal of the Holy Spirit.’ Putting them together we see that salvation comes when the Holy Spirit regenerates (or renews) the human heart so that it has the ability and the desire to believe the gospel.
The same truth is told in the Nicodemus story. What does that teacher of Israel need? He needs a new heart which is defined by Jesus as being born of ‘the water and the Spirit’ (Jn 3:5). The reference to water does not refer to water baptism as some assert for Christian baptism had not even been instituted at this point. The reference is to the cleansing of the Nation of Israel spoken of in Ezekiel 36:25-27. There the prophet notes that Israel’s ultimate salvation will come by the sprinkling of clean water and the putting the Spirit into her heart. The language sounds suspiciously like Titus 3:5 causing us to assert that the New Birth and the cleansing of the heart by the Spirit are the same operation.
Regeneration is the sole work of the Spirit which puts on display the raw power of God. The Bible teaches in no uncertain terms that it takes as much divine energy to raise up a dead soul as it did to create the worlds. Paul compares the New Birth to the creation story when he says, “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness (creation) who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” [10] It is important to know here that the new birth is the ultimate revelation of the power of God. Saving a soul expends the same divine power that we find at the creation. In both cases God created something out of nothing. We call this ex nihilo. It is raw divine power.
The New Birth is also compared to the raising of Jesus from the dead. One of the gifts that God gives to believers is not only the New Birth itself but a self-awareness of this New Birth. That is, believers who are truly born again know a great work has been wrought in their souls, a work for which there is no human explanation, a work which could not have come about by any human effort. Paul prays that the Ephesians would come to know “the exceeding greatness of the power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:19-20). Every Christian is birthed by the same divine power that raised Jesus up from the dead and seated Him on the King’s throne. The New Birth is nothing less than what Christ experienced three days after His crucifixion. He is the firstfruits of God’s resurrection power, and believers are the full harvest.
The author of this new birth is the very One who has given life throughout the Bible, the Holy Spirit. So we find him at the very dawn of creation hovering over the waters to bring what was non-existent to life. [11] Throughout the Bible the Spirit is shown to be the author of all life, physical and spiritual. Consider these verses.
‘It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63).
“For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18).
“Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God’” (John 3:5).
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Romans 8:2).
Like any birth, the one being born has nothing to do with the entire process. As we shall see in the next chapter, the Arminian view clamors to have the sinner be responsible for some aspect of his birth. But this simply defies both logic and the biblical record. As John opens up his gospel he quickly dismisses any thought that the one who receives the gospel had something to do with the process.
“For as many who received Him to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe on His name, who were born, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
Yes, says John, men must receive the gospel to be saved, but this reception is only an evidence of something that has already taken place – a new birth. And that new birth has nothing to do with familial connections (blood), man’s exercise of his own will (will of flesh), or the influence of the will of another (the will of man). The birth is a total work of God whereby He shouts into the darkness of one’s soul and awakens it to new life.
THE INSTRUMENT OF DRAWING: THE GOSPEL.
Jesus called the fish into Peter’s net. No one else could have done that. It was a work of raw, divine power. But Peter still had to put out his net. This is exactly how Irresistible Grace works. God calls men to Himself but this does not exclude the means by which sinners are gathered into the fold. It is taught everywhere in the Bible that the means God uses to draw sinners to Himself is His word, specifically the gospel. Paul had never seen the church at Colossae nor did he help in its establishment. Yet Paul heard of their faith and their love, the evident signs of their conversion. And how did the church come out of paganism unto Christ? The reason the Colossians were Christians was “because of hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of truth of the gospel” (Col 1:5). The Colossians were drawn to Christ by the message of the gospel. In God’s infinite wisdom He has ordained the gospel message to be the instrument through which men are drawn to Jesus Christ. James 1:18 says it this way, “Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.” 1 Peter 1:23 says practically the same thing; “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.” The word of God is the conduit through which the drawing power of God moves. How powerful is God’s word? The Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, likens His word to the role water plays in sustaining life on earth.
“For as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven and do not return there but water the earth and make it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word not return to me void but it shall accomplish what I please and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (55:10-11).
Jesus Himself equated His own words with the very power of God. At the final judgment Jesus will speak and “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live, for as the Father has life in Himself so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself” (John 5:25-26). Sinners are saved by hearing the word of God and when they are spiritually enabled to hear they are drawn to the Son of God to salvation.
The doctrine of Irresistible Grace goes a step further than simply teaching that the Word of God is the instrument to draw sinners to salvation. It goes on to assert that when God dwells in that word, those who hear it can do nothing but obey it. Jesus says as much when talking about His sheep. “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow Me” (Jn. 10:27). As Paul sits down to write His magnum opus, the Book of Romans, he is careful to state why he defends the gospel so vigorously, “For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16). That is, God not only uses His word as the instrument through which salvation comes but it is also the vehicle which connects to the omnipotence of God and thereby itself does the drawing.
One other factor must be present in order to draw the heart to God. God not only dwells in the instrument but He changes the heart of the recipient at the same time so that those who receive the divinely powered gospel can receive it. When this happens those that receive it at once love the God they once hated and are attracted to the Savior they once dismissed.
This all begs the question as to why only some come to salvation? This is explained by what theologians call the two calls of God.
THE TWO CALLS.
In the tenth chapter of Romans is where Paul will deal with the issue of the two calls of God through the gospel. The first we will label the general call of the gospel that goes out to the entire world indiscriminately. The second is the inner or efficacious call of the gospel that pierces through the heart of the listener and draws him Christ. Dabney describes these calls as ‘the common and the effectual.’ [12] This is a good distinction. God invites all men to come to the feast of the gospel and the invitation is genuine. Paul will ask the question “Have they not heard?” And his answer is ‘yes, they have’ and he goes on to prove it by quoting Psalm 19:4.
“Their sound has gone out to all the earth and their words to the ends of the world.”
But as Christ’s parable teaches, the general call does nothing but bring men to the point of culpability and, for many, rejection. Because they have natural ears they find no beauty in the invitation and come up with a variety of excuses to avoid it. According to Jesus the gospel goes out to many but only a few are chosen. [13] This in no way demeans or detracts from the outward call. God means what He says in His invitation. Nevertheless, the call becomes an inward persuasion only to those upon whom the Holy Spirit works. The outward call because it is genuine and free makes all men responsible to receive it. But the outward call can in no way help men receive it. It is the inward call that overcomes this natural allergy to God and effectually saves those whom God chooses.
The Bible most frequently speaks of the inward call. It is the call of God that actually brings a sinner to the Savior. It is no surprise, therefore, that believers are often designated the ‘called ones.’ In addition we read that those for whom all things work together for good are the “‘called’ according to God’s purpose” (Rom 8:28). In several epistles Paul labels the believers as those who are “called to be saints” (1 Cor 1:2). They are the “called ones” (1 Cor 1:24). Jude addresses his book to “those who are called, sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ.” And in Revelation 17:14 those who are with the Lamb in his victory over evil are designated as “called, chosen and faithful.”
Although we glory in the inward call of God we should never, however, diminish the importance of the outward call. In order for there to be an inward call there must first be an exposure to truth, the outward call. In other words, men who are called by God to the gospel must first be generally invited to it. The inward call is not a secret program that reaches the elect by a secret, private revelation. That is Gnosticism. Rather, the inward call comes through the public proclamation to come to the living waters. As we have seen, not all obey the outward call. But if there will be an inward call there must first be an outward call. It is interesting that following hard after his treatment on divine election, Paul will, in Romans chapter 10, go to great lengths to show that salvation comes when one hears the gospel through a preacher. God elects but He does not bypass the instrument that draws the elect to the Son. Romans chapters nine and ten must be read together to get a full picture of God’s program. In sum, the inward or effectual call must be preceded by the outward call. This we must never forget.
One more important point needs to be made about this irresistible inward call. The call comes to sinners while they are yet ungodly and enemies of God (Romans 5:6,8,10). The call does not require any prior godly desires on the sinner’s part for if it did then we are preaching a gospel that demands good works before conversion. Rather, through the preaching of the gospel, God regenerates the heart and when the heart is regenerated a desire for the gospel fills the soul and the person comes to salvation. This is exactly what Paul meant when telling the saints “for God works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”
This means that regeneration through the gospel logically precedes conversion, conversion being that willing acceptance of the gospel. Just as a corpse cannot change its behavior while still dead, so neither can a dead sinner change his desires while still dead. First he must be made alive and then change in life can begin.
HOW THE SPIRIT CREATES A NEW HEART.
Like everything in the Bible the way God works can be explained by human analogy though any analogy about the things of God always falls short. God’s effectual call is an event that intrudes into the life of every Christian. But how is it that a dead sinner suddenly listens to the voice of God and comes freely to the Savior?
We have already said that God’s irresistible grace so operates on the human soul as to make it willing and eager to come to the Savior (see Ps 110:3). We further saw that the instrument though which God calls is the word of God in the gospel which is “quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb. 4:12). We also saw that the word always accomplishes what God intends for it. Though the call is genuine and equally valid for all men, many receive that general call but reject it while others hear the call and come to Jesus as their Savior. For them the call is not only offered but effectual. It is a call that is energized by the work of the Spirit. For the first group, therefore, the call increases their guilt because they have rejected what is genuinely offered. For them it is “an aroma of death unto death.” For those who hear the call in their inner ear and respond to it, it is “an aroma of life unto life” (2 Cor 2:16). Whenever the gospel is preached one of these two responses will result.
But why does one person come to the Lord and another does not? If we believe that salvation comes via grace alone then we cannot say that there was something different in one person as compared to the other. The answer is simple; God must first do something to the heart of one person to enable it to see the reasonableness and beauty of the thing being offered. In order to understand exactly what God does to bring a soul to that place, we must return our focus to the doctrine of Total Depravity. The human heart without Christ is dead to anything spiritual. Its deadness is caused by the fact it is ruled by sin. The unregenerate heart esteems sin as worthy and beautiful. As we saw in our study of Total Depravity, sin’s rule occurs in the mind and in the affections. With respect to the mind sin does a constant work of blinding. It does not cause a man to be blind to all truth. Many atheists are intelligent and possess worldly understanding. Unbelievers can be great chemists, poets and cattle ranchers. But sin blinds men to spiritual truth, to a true knowledge of God or His salvation. A spiritually blind mind looks straight at the person and work of Jesus and it makes no sense to him. As 1 Cor 2:14 say, “It is foolishness to him.” Such a person sees the cross but it cannot rationally appreciate its importance. True, the blind mind may naturally understand concepts like substitution and redemption but those truths are not savingly relevant to him. They have no more impact on him than the skillful counterpoint in a Bach fugue would have on a man who understands the concept of musical counterpoint but sees no beauty in the music itself. Thus the Bible describes this kind of mind as one that is darkened, completely unable to understand the inner meaning of God’s glorious gospel (as Ephesians 4:18 teaches.) God does not prevent people from understanding the truth. No, no. The blockage comes from sin and sin alone. And just as sin has darkened the mind so that it cannot understand truth so it has also warped the affections so that the unconverted person loves what God hates and hates what God loves. Such a heart is beyond loving anything good, as Ephesians 4:19 teaches. Paul goes on to show that those who have no appetite for God resort to loving things in the lower realm of the flesh, things like lewdness, uncleanness and greed. In other words, sin hardens men to spiritual delight and causes them to be attracted to the things of the world. The natural man neither understands the gospel nor has any affection for it. This leaves the will of the sinner with no other choice but to run in the direction of sin. As we learned in the doctrine of Total Depravity, the will always follows what a man esteems good in the mind and satisfying to the affections.
In regeneration the Holy Spirit reverses the damage done by sin. God implants the seed of a new nature into those stubborn strongholds of the natural mind and affections. Once regeneration takes place, the sinner now possesses the divine seed which is now able to grow and slowly and surely change thoughts and attitudes. We call this the new birth. Two major things take place in this process of renewal. First, the Spirit’s work of illumination eclipses the darkness of the natural mind. The gospel now makes sense, the word of God comes alive and Jesus is now seen as the only remedy for human degradation. Second, the hard, calloused heart begins to feel drawn to Christ, to His gospel and to His word. The sinner who once hated spiritual truths is now drawn to them by that mystical pull of the Spirit for the seed of God abides in him (1 Jn 3:9). And when this happens what will be the result? The regenerated sinner will hear the gospel and will choose what he now understands and loves. This is the grand reversal of Total Depravity. The will now follows the renewed mind and heart and begins to choose things pleasing to God. We call this visible result of regeneration conversion.
But is this what the Bible teaches? Let us take time to look into the Book. First, what is regeneration’s work on the mind? In regeneration God implants in the heart of the sinner a mind that now understands spiritual truth. In the New Covenant passage of Jeremiah, the mark of the redeemed is that “they shall all know Me from the least of them to the greatest of them” (Jer. 31:34). This understanding of things spiritual is the one trait that distinguishes all seeds planted in good soil (see Mt 13:23). A great picture of this is when the blind man in John chapter 9 is made to see for the first time. The evidence of that seeing is that he no longer stumbles around in the darkness and begins to understand who Jesus really is. Being now enlightened in His mind, the blind man cries out “I believe” (John 9:37-38). Buchanan speaks of this work of giving spiritual sight to be nothing less than the work of the Holy Spirit. He says,
“This great change is ascribed to the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit on the soul. It is ascribed, indeed, to the Father, as ‘the fountain of lights, from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift’; and to the Son also, as the anointed Prophet of the Church, ‘the light of the world’; but it is the Holy Spirit, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, by whose immediate personal agency this illumination of the mind is wrought.”[14]
A more extensive treatment of the contrast between the renewed and natural mind is found in Paul’s discussion of wisdom found in the early chapters of First Corinthians. He explains that all of the Corinthian’s Greek wisdom profited them nothing when it came to spiritual truth. Plato could never guide one to Jesus. Only the wisdom implanted in them by God’s Spirit could enable them to ascend to the heights of understanding Christ and His gospel. This spiritual wisdom, Paul says, is not some abstract set of spiritual principles but Christ Himself. He says, “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God – and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30). In other words the Corinthians were converted because the Spirit birthed Christ, the true wisdom of God, in their souls. Paul contrasts this wisdom with the ‘wisdom’ of the world, wisdom in which they once boasted (2:6). This worldly wisdom not only did not know Christ but actually moved them away from Him for “the world through wisdom did not know God” (2:21). The ultimate proof of the failure of human wisdom was that it crucified the Lord of glory (2:8). Then the day came when God revealed to them the beauty of Christ by the Spirit (2:10). And at once the Christians at Corinth suddenly understood “the things freely given’ to them by God” (2:12). Having now the “mind of Christ” (2:16), the Christians in Corinth were to abandon all earthly wisdom and live in light of those spiritual truths that were theirs through regeneration. But, alas, that old wisdom yet remained in their hearts and they often acted contrary to the mind of Christ. This is proved by all the bad thinking that Paul must correct throughout the epistle. Nevertheless, they had the seed of truth implanted in them which John calls the ‘anointing.’ As they heard the apostle’s gentle admonitions, they needed no one to teach them about this Christ for they already had the seed abiding in them (1 John 2:27). All of this speaks to the fact that the renewing of the mind is a great work of the Spirit that happens in regeneration. The fact that the work of regeneration can be resisted in some way will be dealt with in the next chapter.
Not only is the seed of spiritual understand implanted in the mind at regeneration, but a new heart that loves the things of God is likewise birthed in the soul. Before regeneration, the heart had the capacity to feel, to love, to commiserate and to hate, that is, the emotional aspect of human nature. But the natural heart being born alienated from God can only love things opposed to God or apathetic toward God. In regeneration that new heart causes the affections to be changed. The things the sinner once cared little about or was repelled by suddenly become his delight. Ezekiel calls this “the heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26). We see it in the heart of the psalmist who cries, “Oh how I love your law, it is my meditation all the day” (Ps 119:97). In another psalm this heart delights “in the law of the Lord and in His law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:2). The Shulamite woman who pictures the redeemed bride of Christ speaks of her Beloved in this way,
“Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down in his shade with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste” (Song 2:3).
The new heart given by God will always be a heart that loves God. “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ.” It will also manifest itself in love for God’s people. Jesus noted that the New Commandment is summarized by “loving one another” (John 13:34). This of course can only be accomplished when one’s affections have been radically changed. The new heart enables the saints to truly (but not perfectly) love both the Lord and one’s neighbor. The old heart can love in a very human way, but is incapable to love God. Also, nothing more proves the existence of the new heart than one’s hatred for sin. In Ephesians Paul will contrast the hearts of believers with those who remain in the flesh. What separates them is their relationship to sin. He says,
“They (the world) have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you (believers) learned Christ! — assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:19-24).
The apostle is clear. The world is calloused to the things of God which manifests itself in its love for sin. The great change happens when one ‘learns Christ,’ which is another way of saying when one receives the Spirit of Christ. However, this renewal of the affections is not a onetime completed reality. It is the beginning of a long, painstaking process of fighting against the old man who loves sin. Thus the implanting of the Spirit of Christ into the believer is a new nature that engages in a lifelong war against the remaining corruptions left behind by the old regime. We call this the Old Nature or Old Man. A picture of this struggle is found in God’s command to the Jews to conquer and destroy the hostile nations in the Promised Land. [15] By God’s decree and by the warfare of the Israelites, the heathen nations are defeated. But in practical terms they learn to hide in the nooks and crannies of the land causing the Jews decades of vexation. This is exactly the picture of what happens in the Christian’s soul.
All this is to say, the power of renewed affections cannot be underestimated. It causes the saints to accomplish the impossible and to continue walking with God in the face of great discouragement and defeat. Though the power of sin is strong, the power of God’s nature is stronger still. The Christian finds that within him is a principle that is greater than any he knew before. He now possesses a love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13:7). It is a love that ‘compels’ him along. Without a heart whose affections have been renewed by the Spirit, nothing impactful will ever be accomplished for the kingdom. But when God changes the heart all things are now possible.
Irresistible Grace is the doctrine that explains this process. From the outside the process appears natural and seamless, almost invisible. The plant of Irresistible Grace grows when no one is watching, while the farmer is asleep (Mark 4:26-29). In fact, it is quite easy for one to miss the day of his regeneration. From the outside it appears that men are changed because they believed upon Jesus when, in fact, they believed because they were quietly regenerated by the Spirit. It happens without fanfare; it shouts not in the marketplace and works like leaven in a lump of dough. This doctrine of Irresistible Grace transforms the immutable counsels in the mind of God to the dirty and mundane realities of everyday life.
CONCLUSION
Irresistible Grace is the experiential high point of a long and complex divine love story. The Bible teaches that God has set His heart on His people from eternity past. In time, that eternal love was manifested when God drew those whom He elected to Himself by Irresistible Grace. This He does by planting in them a new nature and wooing them by the sweet overtures of the gospel. Those who were formerly rebels now come to God willingly, eagerly, lovingly. Not only that, but God adopts these former rebels into His family and treats them as intimate sons and daughters. The story ends when one day God will invite His children to His home in heaven and there share with them an eternal intimacy. All of this makes the Bible the greatest love story ever told. And God is the great Lover. His greatness comes because those He loves are not worthy to be loved. In fact, they have willingly earned His wrath and judgment. He is great because He does not ask them to clean up themselves in order to come into His presence, but rather invites them into His palace in rags and there He cleans them up. And all He asks is that they turn toward Him in faith. Irresistible Grace plays a crucial role in the story of God’s redemption. It is God’s initiative in drawing prodigals back home by giving them hearts that yearn to be with Him. And once home, the banquet begins.
[1] The fifth doctrine the Perseverance of the Saints is a cooperative work of the Triune God as we shall see.
[2] Westminster Confession of Faith. X; 1.
[3] Note John 16:8, “And when He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”
[4] John 5:40
[5] Romans 8:9
[6] Ezekiel 11:18-19
[7] Hebrews 8:7-12; 10:16-17
[8] See Etymonline website; https://www.etymonline.com/word/regeneration
[9] John 3:8
[10] 2 Cor 4:6
[11] See Genesis 1:2; 2:7; Job 27:3; Psalm 33:6;
[12] Dabney, R.L., Lectures in Systematic Theology, Zondervan, 1980, pg 554.
[13] See the parable of the Wedding Feast Mt 22:1-14
[14] Buchanan, James, The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit. Ebook accessed by Monergism.com. See https://www.monergism.com/holy-spirit-enlightening-mind-0
[15] Though commanded to expel the hostile nations that remained in the promise land the Jews failed in this mission and it cost them dearly See Nu 34:51-53. Cp. Joshua 23:13