CHAPTER 10: OF EFFECTUAL CALLING
(Parts Three & 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).