Word of Salvation – Vol.23 No.51 – September 1977

 

Irresistible Grace

 

Sermon by Rev. G. I. Williamson, B.D. on John 1:11-13

Psalter Hymnal: 227; 86; 95; 177

 

We have been considering these articles of Dordt which we commonly call the ‘five points of Calvinism’.  And now we come to the doctrine of irresistible grace.  To begin our thoughts on this subject, then, I want to direct your attention to the first part of our text.  “He came to his own,” says the Apostle, “and his own received him not.  But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.”  Now there you have the problem with which we are dealing.  And it certainly is a deeply mysterious thing.  (1)  Along comes a faithful messenger of the Lord to preach the true gospel to all sorts of men.  In the case mentioned in our text it was the Lord Jesus Christ himself who did this.  “He came to his own.”  He went forth like the sower in his own parable, to sow the good seed of the word.  (2)  But what happened as a result?  What always seems to happen when the true gospel is preached?  Well, there are always some who reject it, and at least a few who accept it.  For while “his own received him not,” says the Apostle ― and by this he seems to mean the vast majority of the Jewish nation ― yet “as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.”  So there were some who accepted what many others rejected.  And that, of course, is the mystery!  Why does one man reject it while another man accepts it?  They both hear the same Bible!  They both listen to the same sermon!  They both receive the same invitation and warning!  But only one believes, while the other does not!  Now why is this so?  What is the explanation?

Well that is what the Synod of Dordt was all about.  But there are only two possible answers to this question.  On the one hand there is the answer that the Arminians gave.  And they said that there must be something in man himself which makes one man believe, while another man does not believe.  You have to trace the difference to something originating in them.  And on the other hand there is the answer defined by the Synod of Dordt.  And they said that it can only be something given by God.  One man believes, while another man does not believe, not because of something originating in him, but because of something originating from God something that God himself does within the heart of that man to make him able to believe.

I.  ARMINIANISM

The thing I want you to notice in the first place, then, is the way in which the Apostle shows that there is nothing in man ― nothing originating in man ― which can explain why one man believes while another does not.  For those who received him, says the Apostle, those who believed on his name, “were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”  And here we have the basic variations the basic types of all the attempted explanations of this mystery that would find the explanation originating in man

(1)  Take, for example, the idea of blood relationship.  This has always been a popular explanation of the mystery.  You see this quite clearly in the Jews in Jesus’ day.  When Jesus came to preach the gospel to these people they did not accept his warnings and admonitions.  And why didn’t they accept his warnings and admonitions?  Well the answer is quite plain.  They said, “we are Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, ‘Ye shall be free?’”  They didn’t think of themselves as unbelievers who needed to be set free.  They thought of themselves as believers who already were free!  And why did they think of themselves as believers!  Why of course, it was because of their blood relationship with Abraham.  ‘If a man is born in a covenant family ― If he is the blood relative of a believing father and mother, in other words ― then we have the assurance that he will be able to believe.’ That is the conception that these Jews had in Jesus’ day, and that is the conception that many people today have of the covenant.

But there is nothing so easy as ‘to show how utterly wrong this conception is.  We only have to open the Bible and start reading the book of Genesis ― the first book of the Bible ― to see this beyond all doubt.  For here we have the story of Ishmael and Isaac, the two sons of Abraham.  And one believed and the other did not.  And then we go on to read the story of Jacob and Esau, the twin sons of Isaac.  And still, one believed and one did not.  And don’t we see it over and over again in our own experience.  Do we not all have blood relatives who do not believe the gospel?  “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth,” said Jesus, “I came not to send peace, but a sword.  For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law, and a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.”

No!  Blood relationship is not the explanation for this mystery.

(2)  Another explanation that has been given is what John calls “the will of the flesh.” And this simply means the will of the unregenerate man: the will of man as he is dead in trespasses and sins ― when the gospel first comes unto him.  This, by the way, was the view of the Arminians.  They said that God’s power was always present whenever the gospel was preached, and that that power was available to every man who heard it.  The saving power of God, in other words, is like the light of the sun.  If a man is willing to open his eyes, then he can see that light in all its glory.  But if he is not willing to open his eyes, then he continues to sit in darkness.

Or, to change the figure, it is like the sound of a great orchestra.  If a man is willing to open his ears, then he can hear that music, but if he isn’t willing to open his ears he remains enshrouded in silence.  But the important thing to notice is that the really decisive thing, according to the Arminians, is always the will of flesh.  It is the sinner himself who decides ― it is the sinner who determines the issue one way or the other.

We have a perfect example of this in the teaching of Dr. Billy Graham, for in spite of the many excellent things that we find in his writing and teaching, the fact remains that he holds to the teaching of Arminius.  Let me quote from his book, entitled, “Peace with God.”  In the chapter entitled ‘How and Where to Begin’ ― and that is very significant ― he says this, “You must open your heart and let Him come in.  At that precise moment the Holy Spirit performs the miracle of the new birth”  “The moment we repent of sin and turn by faith to Jesus Christ,” he says, “we are born again.”  Perhaps you have seen the well-known painting of Holman Hunt showing Jesus standing at the door of the heart.  Now pictures of Jesus are bad enough in themselves.  But there is something else in this picture that is utterly false and misleading.  For the artist has painted the door without any handle on the outside.  And there you have the Arminian conception in a nut-shell.  Christ can come and knock on the door.  But it is only the sinner himself who can decide whether or not to open the door.  And that is what John means when he speaks of the “will of the flesh”.

Now if there is one thing that is absolutely clear in the Bible it is just precisely the fact that sinful man ―  by the will of the flesh can never open the door and let the Saviour in.  For the Bible says that man is blind to the light.  And a blind man cannot just open his eyes and see.  That is why the Bible says that man is deaf to the music.  And a deaf man cannot open his ears to hear.  That is why we read in the Bible that the Lord opened Lydia’s heart so that she “attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.”  The Lord opened her heart, not Lydia herself, for the simple reason that it is impossible for the sinner to do this himself.

(3)  A third explanation is what John calls “the will of man.”  And here the Apostle is speaking of the power of one man over another.

In the early Christian Church and again in the post-Reformation era you had some people who were willing to admit that a sinner cannot experience the new birth as a result of blood relationship, or even as a result of his own sinful will!  But they still were not willing to attribute this change to God and God alone.  And they hit upon the idea of congruence.  If the gospel is presented, they said, in just the right way to a particular man, then he will be persuaded to accept the Lord Jesus Christ.  In other words, if I want a certain person to be saved strongly enough, and if I get to know that person well enough to see the exact way in which he can be convinced and persuaded, then I can present the gospel to him in such a way that he will accept it.  Congruence means that a thing is done in such a way that it fits in perfectly with the needs and attitudes of the person we are seeking.

But if there is one thing that is clear from the ministry of Paul the Apostle it is certainly the fact that this will never bring one sinner into the Kingdom of God.  “For Christ sent me…. to preach the gospel,” says the Apostle, “not with wisdom of words…. not with excellency of speech or of wisdom.”  “My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words….. but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”  The truth of the matter is that a person can do his utmost to make the gospel acceptable to certain people, and still they will not accept it.  And yet a person can also preach the gospel in all plainness and simplicity, and in spite of all the limitations some men will accept it.  For the saving results of the gospel are never humanly determined.  Even the most faithful, and most powerful, and most able ministers of Christ, have nothing to say about who is going to believe.  “I have planted,” says Paul, “and Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.  So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither is he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.”  For the man who is born into the kingdom is not born because of the will of man.

And let me say at this point that this is why I strongly disagree with the method of conversion that calls for a visible decision at a humanly determined moment.  As far as I can determine from the Bible, none of the Apostles of Jesus Christ ever said to the people to whom they were preaching, ‘this is the moment in which God is dealing with you, and now I want you to get up, and come forward, and receive the saviour.’ Now it may well be that this is not what is intended.  But the fact of the matter is that this always suggests or implies that men are born into the kingdom by the will of man, or that men are able to determine the time and the place!

Well these are the basic types of answers that people try to give to the question: why does this man believe, while that man does not believe?  And it all boils down to one simple thing: it is not because of anything originating in human nature.  It is only because of the irresistible grace of God.

II.  CALVINISM

This is what the Apostle means when he says that those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God!  They were born of God because it is God himself who sovereignly regenerates their nature.

When some people hear this phrase ‘irresistible grace’ they immediately conjure up a vision of a God who forces people to do something that they do not want to do.  They hear the word ‘irresistible’ and right away they begin to think of things like these: a mighty tornado, or a great flood, or a great invincible army invading their country.  When these things come along, there is nothing that we can do.  We might want to resist, but we are powerless to do so.  And so it is imagined that this is what Calvinism teaches.  God comes down to sinful men, and somehow or other forces them to be saved whether they like it or not.  He drags them, as it were, struggling and kicking with all their might.  Now of course this is a picture of something irresistible.  But it is not irresistible grace.  It is only irresistible force.  And there is all the difference in the world between irresistible grace and irresistible force.

Let me try to illustrate what I mean!  Suppose that one of you children had taken nothing to eat for two or three days.  You have been very, very sick and you just haven’t had any appetite for food.  But now you are feeling completely different because of one of these wonder drugs.  Well, suppose that I now set before you a dish of delicious ice cream covered with nuts and chocolate.  Do you think you would want to eat it?  Why of course you would.  In fact, there is nothing you would like better.  Yes, we could even go so far as to say that that ice cream would be irresistible.  But why is it irresistible?  It wasn’t that way a day or two ago.  If I had set that dish of ice-cream before you then you would have pushed it away from you because it made you feel terrible to even look at it.  But now you would probably cry if someone took it away.  Isn’t it because of one simple thing – namely, a change within you?

Well, this is only an illustration.  But it does suggest what I am trying to say.  When a person is dead in trespasses and sins, he simply has no appetite no desire at all for the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The Bible says the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit, and neither can he know them, because they are foolishness to him.  Take men as they are by nature, says the prophet Isaiah, and show them the Lord Jesus Christ and what will they say?  They will say that he has “no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.  He is despised and rejected of men.”  But then one day the Holy Spirit comes and does the work of regeneration – he works a miracle within their very heart and nature and they are suddenly changed.  And what happens when this takes place?  Well, this man begins to discover that sin is a very loathsome thing.  He begins to be revolted by the things that once he loved.  And he also has an appetite for holy and spiritual things.  Suddenly he discovers that Christ is the fairest among ten thousand and altogether lovely.  Because his inward nature is changed, in other words, by the wonder of regeneration, he finds the Lord Jesus Christ just as irresistible as ice cream is to a hungry child!

Now that is the doctrine of irresistible grace.  It does not mean that God forces people to be saved even when they do not want to be saved.  What it means is that God suddenly works a miracle ― when, and where, and how, he will ― and the result of this miracle is that man has a new heart, and a new nature, and a new will.  And there is nothing in all the world that this man will want so much, after this miracle has been wrought in his heart, as to repent of his sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us consider just a sample of the many places that we see this truth in the Bible.  (1)  And one of the things that we have already considered is worth mentioning again.  For the Bible says that man is dead in trespasses and sins.  Now the one reason for describing man’s spiritual condition in these words is to make it absolutely clear that nothing less than a miracle can make a sinner willing to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.  You can shine a powerful searchlight into the eyes of a blind man, but it will not make him see.  You can fire a mighty canon in the ear of deaf man but it won’t make him hear.  And neither will any external power ― or preaching ― or miracle make a sinner believe.  You see this quite clearly in Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus.  ‘They have Moses and the prophets,’ said Jesus, ‘and if they will not listen to them, neither will they believe even if someone should rise from the dead’.  And that’s exactly the way it is.  Someone did rise from the dead, and still people won’t believe.  For it is only when God works in us, says the Apostle, that we can will and do of his good pleasure.

(2)  And that brings me to mention a few of the ways in which the Bible speaks of this miracle.  (a)  One of the ways in which the Bible describes this mighty work of God is by calling it a second birth.  And in order to see the significance of this I simply ask you to think of your own birth according to nature.  Now I ask you: what did you have to say about your own natural birth?  Did anyone ask you if you wanted to be born or when you wanted to be born or where?  Well, of course there is only one possible answer.  For you didn’t have any will or want until this was already decided for you.  And it is just exactly the same when it comes to the regeneration of the Spirit.  “So then it is not of him that willeth,” says the Apostle, “but of God that sheweth mercy.”  (b)  Another way in which this miracle is described in the scripture is this: “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God hath before prepared that we should walk in them.”  Now here the Apostle borrows a figure of speech from the workman in his shop or factory.  He is talking about a beautiful desk made by the hand of a craftsman.  But I ask you: did you ever hear of a desk doing any carpenter’s work?  No, it is the carpenter alone who does the work.  The desk may serve a very useful purpose after the work is done.  But it doesn’t have anything to do with making itself a desk.  (c)  But perhaps the most helpful description is that which likens regeneration to resurrection from the dead.  You have a wonderful picture of this in the vision of Ezekiel the prophet God sent him out ― in that vision ― to a valley of dry bones.  He then commanded the prophet to preach to that assembly of the dead!  We get the impression that Ezekiel felt a little foolish as he stood there in that vision ― preaching to a valley of bones.  But then, says the Bible, something wonderful happened.  While the prophet was preaching, there came a working of the Spirit.  Suddenly the bones came rattling together ― and then they became clothed with flesh ― and finally they stood on their feet, restored as living men.  And then ― but only then ― did they heed the prophet’s words.  And that, says Paul the Apostle, is really a picture of what happens when a sinner is born again.  For “the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe,” says the Apostle, is “according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead.”  Or, in other words, it requires the same supernatural power ― and it is a miracle of no less glory when a sinner is regenerated, than it required when Jesus Christ was raised again from the dead!

I could go right on showing you these various ways in which the Bible speaks of this irresistible grace.  But there is also another point that I would like to bring in.  For one of the things that you will notice, if you are very observant, is the fact that even the Arminians are forced to admit it in the end!  When they hear these ‘five points of Calvinism’ ― and especially this doctrine of irresistible grace ― they raise all kinds of objections.  They say that it makes God an arbitrary God, and that man is only a helpless victim of fate.  And they feel quite confident that they will have more success if they will go back to the old notions of blood, or the will of the flesh, or the will of man.  So they preach, and preach, and preach, expecting that there will be a great revival of the Christian faith, and that many will turn to the Lord.  But alas it never seems to happen.  Blood doesn’t seem to produce faith, and neither does the will of the flesh, or the will of man.  And then, at last, a strange thing happens that is wonderful to behold.  The Arminian preacher bows his head and pours out his heart to the Lord.  “O God,” he cries, “open their eyes that they may see.  Take away their hearts of stone and give them hearts of flesh.  Give them a new heart that they may repent of their sins, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.”  And that is simply the doctrine of irresistible grace.  And this, let me say in conclusion, is the preacher’s only consolation.  For without the irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit of God you could, every one of you, listen to the most beautiful sermon, the most correct sermon, even the most fiery sermon, and still go away exactly the same as you came.  But thanks be to God ― his word shall not return unto him void ― it shall not, because there is a wonder-working God who will have his way in the hearts of his elect.  For “this is the covenant… saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people… for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.’

Amen