Irresistible Grace - God's Effectual Call and the New Birth

God’s saving grace is truly amazing!  Apart from God working powerfully in the hearts and minds of men and women who are truly dead in trespasses and sins, no one would repent of sin and trust in Christ and his finished work for salvation.  We are just that incredibly lost.   It is the irresistible grace of God that brings the dead to spiritual life and enables us to respond to the Gospel offer.   The Bible’s teaching on the nature of God’s irresistible grace that overcomes the enslaving, deadening, blinding power of sin includes God’s effectual call of sinners to Christ and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.  

God the Father calls (draws, speaks to and teaches – see John 6:44-45) those he has given to his Son (the elect – see John 6:37, 39; 17:2).  This call is effectual in that no one can or will resist it and those who are captured by the gracious call of God will not want to resist.   The call of God to spiritually dead sinners results in their coming to life and being joined to Christ (Romans 1:6-7 and 1 Corinthians 1:9).  This effectual call is the first movement of God’s grace on behalf of those whom he has chosen and like election is not based on any virtue or quality within those called (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).  God’s call gives life to the dead and thus is so powerful that is brings into existence that which does not exist.  This includes our prior non-existent believing response to the Gospel (Romans 4:17).  As such this calling is a heavenly calling that moves us on the trajectory of the upward call of God making Jesus Christ the apostle and high priest of our confession (Philippians 3:14; Hebrews 3:1).

This call of the Father is answered by those who are dead in trespasses and sins because with this call the Holy Spirit uses the Word (the Bible and the Gospel) to bring new life into dead hearts.   This is the Bible’s teaching of regeneration, new birth or birth from above.  (Ezekiel 36:25-26; John 3:3-5)  The call of God is issued to us through the Gospel and the Holy Spirit uses that word like seed to plant eternal/resurrection life in spiritually dead hearts and minds.  This is the new birth – regeneration.   God the Father works through the Holy Spirit as His agent to grant this new birth to those he effectually calls and it is this new birth that enables dead sinners to come to life so as to hear the Gospel and respond in faith (John 3:8; 1:13; 1 Peter 1:3; Titus 3:4-6).   The Holy Spirit uses the word – the teaching of Scripture and the Gospel – like a seed to plant new life within dead hearts and this seed produces life (1 Peter 2:22-25 and James 1:18).

The results are that those who are born again respond in faith to the Gospel, are given spiritual perception so they can see the kingdom and are also given the capacity by faith to actually enter the kingdom because with the new birth there is a new creation.  Those who are born again are actually raised to new life by being joined to the risen, living and exalted Christ (1 Corinthians 2:14; 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Ephesians 2:4-5).  

We cannot hear God’s call in an audible sense or see this new birth happen.  These are secret and mysterious works of God’s grace.  Nevertheless, their realities do not remain a secret.  For example the new birth issues in new life.  It is important for us not to be fooled into thinking that we are born again when we are not.  The two most important doctrines of the Christian life are the new birth and justification.  It is so vital that we understand them both and realize that they are the pillars that support the Christian life.  They both are works of God’s grace and they both produce evidence in believers lives of their reality.  

John’s first letter gives several important evidences for the new birth in one’s life.  First, being born again results in saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Regeneration is the cause of saving faith and not the result of it.  The new birth precedes a faith response.  The reason anyone responds to the Gospel in faith is because they have been born from above by the Holy Spirit using the Word of the Gospel (1 John 5:1).   This is further collaborated by the Bible’s teaching that faith and repentance (the flip side of faith) are gifts from God (Acts 5:31; 11:18; 18:27; Ephesians 2:8-9).  It is our faith and repentance.  God is not believing and repenting for us.  As such faith and repentance are what conversion entails.  Without them we will not take hold of Christ and know salvation.  Yet they are created within our hearts by this new birth.

The new birth breaks the power of sin over our lives, so that while we are still sinners and thus still sin, we resist sin’s influence so that we no longer practice sin but we actually seek to live lives that conform to God’s righteousness (1 John 3:9; 2:29; 5:18).
 

This new life of refraining from heart and life patterns of sin and the cultivation of heart and life patterns of righteousness also includes overcoming the influence of worldliness Those who are born again overcome the world by their faith.  (1 John 5:4 and 2:15-17).
 

Those who are born of God live a life of love.  This love must be understood in light of how the New Testament describes love.  It is motivated by faith in Christ.  It seeks the good of others by setting aside one’s own interests and to serve others for Christ’s sake.  This love aims at the glory of God in its acts and deeds.  Those who are born again love God the Father, love others who are born again and love the lost by praying for them, doing good deeds for them and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with them (1 John 4:7 and 5:1).

O, how marvelous is this grace of God!  All of us who trust in Christ and his finished work have come to that place because, and only because, of God’s grace.  We were incredible lost and dead in our sin and addiction to our own autonomy.  Yet God’s grace reached us.  This must be our prayer for the lost who God brings our way.  We need to pray for the empowering of the Holy Spirit on the very word of the Gospel we share with them.  It is this power alone that makes the Gospel bear fruit.  Let us praise God for this irresistible grace and seek his mercy to pour it out on many others.   John Murray encouraged his readers to wholeheartedly affirm such grace with these words:

“Why should there be any reluctance to accept the truth of irresistible grace? It is God’s interposition to do for us what we cannot do of ourselves. It is God’s amazing grace to meet our hopeless impotence. Here is the gospel of sovereign mercy. In evangelism it is the only hope of its success unto the salvation of lost souls. The Holy Spirit accompanies the gospel proclamation with his sovereign demonstration and power. The lost are born of the Spirit and the fruit is unto holiness and the end everlasting life.

“When a sinner comes to Christ in the commitment of faith, when the rebellious will is renewed and tears of penitence begin to flow, it is because a mysterious transaction has been taking place between the persons of the Godhead. The Father has been making a presentation, a donation to his own Son. So perish the thought that coming to Christ finds its explanation in the autonomous determinations of the human will. It finds its cause in the sovereign will of God the Father. He has placed upon this person the constraint by which he has been captivated by the glory of the Redeemer and invests in him all his interests. Christ is made wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Here is grace surpassing; and it is grace insurmountable.”