A Deeper Look: Irresistible Grace

"After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strength and establish you." --1st Peter 5:10

Can you choose your salvation? If you believe in the doctrines of Calvinism, the answer is no. No, you cannot choose to be saved. And if you are of the Elect, you cannot choose not to be saved. Irresistible Grace is really a simple doctrine if you accept the other tenets of Calvinism. When you accept that Man is wholly and entirely dead in sin, you accept that he can have no control over his perfect salvation, either to accept or deny it.

Consider an analogy. You are a doctor, and your cousin is of your patients, a meth addict. The drug ravages his brain and body, and he is in terrible pain. There is an operation that can save him, and eventually recover him fully, but because the drug has taken hold of him, he is not in his right mind and refuses the operation. Now you are faced with a decision: Do you abide by his choice, which you know he made under the influence of a horrible, poisonous drug, or do you operate to save him without his knowledge or consent?

To a compassionate person, the choice is clear. Your cousin is not in his right mind. He is not fit to make such a decision, because the very drug that ravages him is influencing him. God is the doctor, and we are all the patients. Sin is the terrible drug that we chose, and which ravages us. It is not even an addiction anymore; it is our very nature. And no one seeks after the cure for himself. "The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one." (Psalm 14:2-3) It is infinitely contagious and there is only one cure: the sacrificial love of Christ, premeditated by the Lord.

Sin has the terrible power of making everything seem alright. Even in the midst of depravity, we can always convince ourselves that we don't need God, just as addicts convince themselves not to seek treatment. Our minds are fully controlled by sin; and just like with alcoholism the first step is to admit that you have a problem. Forgive me, Lord, a sinner. If God influences us to ask forgiveness sincerely, then the cure is available to us.

The Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics has an excellent, if short, summary of the scriptural references underpinning Irresistible Grace:

The result of God's Irresistible Grace is the certain response by the elect to the inward call of the Holy Spirit, when the outward call is given by the evangelist or minister of the Word of God. Christ, himself, teaches that all whom God has elected will come to a knowledge of him (John 6:37). Men come to Christ in salvation when the Father calls them (John 6:44), and the very Spirit of God leads God's beloved to repentance (Romans 8:14). What a comfort it is to know that the gospel of Christ will penetrate our hard, sinful hearts and wondrously save us through the gracious inward call of the Holy Spirit (I Peter 5:10)!

If Irresistible Grace was a logical argument, it would look something like this:

1. God created us perfect beings, but with a choice to make. To follow God's commands, refrain from eating of the Trees in the Eden, or to eat of them and fall into sin.

2. We chose the latter option, and sin became our nature.

3. God predestined some to receive salvation, through the sacrifice of Christ.

Therefore: We are now unable to choose good over evil; and we are thus unable to make any choice concerning our salvation.

Q.E.D.

There is a distinction to make: We have no power over whether we are saved or not. But that does not stop us from denying our salvation. How many of us have sinned, and justified it to ourselves by saying, "Well, I'm probably not going to be saved anyway" or something similar? I certainly have, in the past. We are, in effect, raging against the bars of a cage. God is on the other side of the cage, smiling benevolently, and holding the key. Our sinful nature does not want to be dissolved back into Satan where it came from. It fights God. But it has no power over God as it has over us, the fight is futile. Eventually, God comes to the prison door with the key. He turns the key in the lock, while Jesus dies on the cross, and we are free.

That is Irresistible Grace.

"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day." --John 6:44

Thanks,

Sola Gratia