If no one can come to Christ, how can anyone be saved?
CHAPTER 10: Of Effectual Calling
(Parts One & Two)
Since all men are born dead in sin (our sin, not God’s, so charge cannot be laid on Him!); and since spiritual deadness renders all people disinterested and unwilling to look to Christ for salvation, if left to ourselves, no one would be saved. No one.
In His mercy, God has therefore, appointed some to be saved. This salvation takes place because the Holy Spirit regenerates (brings to life) the spiritually dead, who He has appointed to eternal life (Acts 13:48). When this happens, the spiritually regenerated person “hears” the gospel message, not only with his ears (as he may have repeatedly in the past, yet with no effect), but effectually (meaning it accomplishes God’s desired effect) with his heart. Regeneration causes the gospel to make sense and become compelling. It becomes all-important to the extent that the previously disinterested person wants to surrender to Christ and longs to follow Him.
This effectual calling does not save anyone against his will. Rather, God graciously changes the person’s will so that he comes freely, willingly, and eagerly. This effectual calling is by God’s grace alone, not being based on anything foreseen in those God is pleased to effectually call to salvation. All glory for salvation, therefore, belongs to God alone.
(Part Two)
The effectual calling of God, whereby individuals are saved, depends on nothing whatsoever in the individual. It is a sovereign work of God. The individual is not even a partner with God in salvation. As Jonah 2:9 succinctly says: “Salvation is of the Lord.”
Not only do saved individuals do nothing to cause their faith, they do not even contribute to their faith. Spiritually dead people have no faith to contribute. So, even one’s saving faith is God’s sovereign and gracious gift. It is for this reason that regeneration must precede faith—though most Christians get that order wrong, insisting that one is born again because one believes. Apart from the effectual call of God, no matter how religious a person may be, he cannot be saved. As Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father draws Him” (John 6:44 emphasis added). And drawing is not wooing until a person decides to come to Christ. It is a unilateral action taken by God like a man drawing a sword out of his sheath (John 18:10), or like dragging a person to court (Acts 16:19, James 2:6).
God’s effectual call is so effectual, that saved infants and the redeemed that are incapable of understanding the outward call of the gospel (preaching) do, nevertheless, receive the effectual call and are saved.
Remember this: no one who is lost is lost because God kept him from believing. Personal sin keeps people from believing. But by the effectual call of God, He graciously overcomes that inability.
Why are any saved?
CHAPTER 10: OF EFFECTUAL CALLING
(Parts Three and Four)
So what about those who do not receive the effectual call, or are, using other terms, not elected to salvation?
First, if the concept of God electing some to salvation and allowing others to continue on their natural path of sin offends you as “unfair,” let me ask you to consider the following: “Fair” means every person is lost because “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). And because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), all are lost for eternity. No one who understands the holiness of God, and therefore, the sinfulness of man, wants justice for all! But if in His providence God chooses to save some, is He therefore obligated to save all to be fair? I hope you can see that the answer is no.
Second, God “commands all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:3). Those who do not, do not because they are free to do as they please. Those who repent and trust in Jesus do so because God has elected them to salvation (based on nothing whatsoever in them). Those who repent and trust in Jesus do so because God has graciously extended an effectual call, coupled with the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, resulting in a new heart, faith, repentance, and subsequently conversion.
(Part Four)
There are many who hear the outward, or general, call of the Gospel, but reject it outright. There are many others who, hearing only the outward call, respond with religious activity, but because they have not received the effectual call of God’s Spirit, they are not truly converted.
These people’s spiritual state is confirmed by 1 John 2:19 which says, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”
But even if they persevere in their spiritually dead religion, they shall not be saved but will be like those of whom Jesus spoke in Matthew 7:21-23, not denying their good works, but saying “Depart from Me you workers of iniquity, I never knew you.”
Those who hear the effectual call not only respond; but they persevere in the faith, even in the midst of the most difficult of life’s trials. Nothing or no one can remove them from the love of God (Romans 8:35-39).
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