Irresistible Grace

Introduction: Ryan

Introduction: Ryan

Greeting: Welcome to Made New, I am [Name, Title, Church], I am [Name, Title, Church] and I am [Name, Title, Church]. We are three local pastors striving to teach you theology and help you apply it to your life.

[Name, Title, Church] and I am [Name, Title, Church]. We are three local pastors striving to teach you theology and help you apply it to your life.

local pastors striving to teach you theology and help you apply it to your life.

life.

State Subject: Today we will be discussing Irresistible Grace.

Is Grace Resistible? We will attempt to answer this question in this episode.

A Brief History and Definition

When God calls his elect into salvation, they cannot resist. God offers to all people the gospel message. This is called the external call. But to the elect, God extends an internal call and it cannot be resisted. This call is by the Holy Spirit who works in the hearts and minds of the elect to bring them to repentance and regeneration whereby they willingly and freely come to God.

Herman Bavinck wrote some helpful notes on the background of this term: “The term “irresistible grace” is not really of Reformed origin but was used by Jesuits and Remonstrants to characterize the doctrine of the efficacy of grace as it was advocated by Augustine and those who believed as he did. The Reformed in fact had some objections to the term because it was absolutely not their intent to deny that grace is often and indeed always resisted by the unregenerate person and therefore could be resisted. They therefore preferred to speak of the efficacy or of the insuperability of grace, or interpreted the term “irresistible” in the sense that grace is ultimately irresistible.

The point of the disagreement, accordingly, was not whether humans continually resisted and could resist God’s grace, but whether they could ultimately — at the specific moment in which God wanted to regenerate them and work with his efficacious grace in their heart — still reject that grace. The answer to this question, as is clearly evident from the five articles of the Remonstrants, is most intimately tied in with the doctrine of the corruption of human nature; with election (based or not based on foreseen faith); the universality and particularity of Christ’s atonement; the identification of, or the distinction between, the sufficient call (external) and the efficacious call (internal); and the correctness of the distinction between the will of God’s good pleasure and the revealed will in the divine being.”

Spurgeon affirmed, “God’s sovereign call is far more powerful than any man’s resistance: “A man is not saved against his will, but he is made willing by the operation of the Holy Ghost. A mighty grace which he does not wish to resist enters into the man, disarms him, makes a new creature of him, and he is saved.” This means no one is beyond the saving power of God: “Difficulty is not a word to be found in the dictionary of heaven. Nothing can be impossible with God. The swearing reprobate, whose mouth is blackened with profanity, whose heart is a very hell, and his life like the reeking flames of the bottomless pit—such a man, if the Lord but looks on him and makes bare His arm of irresistible grace, shall yet praise God and bless His name and live to His honor.” In short, no human heart is so obstinate that the Spirit cannot conquer and convert it.

Each discuss how Irresistible Grace affects ministry and evangelism.

When we come back from the break we will be discussing some verses that support Irresistible Grace.

Coffee and Commercial Break, promoting the Website/Blog

Some of the verses used in support of this teaching are:

where it says that "it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy";

“12 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, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” where God is said to be the one working salvation in the individual;

, 28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” where faith is declared to be the work of God;

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where God appoints people to believe;

where being born again is not by man’s will, but by God’s. “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out," ().

Like the other doctrines people have a problem with giving up control of their salvation. While most will say they did not do anything to earn it the want the choice to accept it or not. John Piper puts it this way, “If my believing were to depend entirely on me or decisively on me, I would not believe and neither would you.”

Conclusion: Little Jimmy

The reason this doctrine is called “irresistible” grace is that it always results in the intended outcome, the salvation of the person it is given to. It is important to realize that the act of being regenerated or “born again” cannot be separated from the act of believing the gospel.

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