Irresistible Grace
12th August 2022
Why aren't there more Christians? This is one of those questions that have more than one answer, and here are a few:
1. The Church hasn't communicated the Gospel well enough
Romans 10v14-15
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can
they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear
without someone preaching to them?
And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?
Both individually and together, we could do more than we do to communicate the Good News that Jesus died to take away the sins of the world (1 John 2v2). You and I could be more faithful in telling our neighbours and friends about Jesus. Our churches could be more generous in supporting missionaries and evangelists. We could live better, more faithful, holier lives to remove the risk that the way we live undermines our message. If we don't live the Bible out why should anybody take our words seriously?
2. Some people will not accept the Gospel
The next verse in Paul's letter to the Romans is:
Romans 10v16
But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, "Lord,
who has believed our message?"
Some people can hear the truth about Jesus explained patiently and clearly, and still refuse to respond to it. Some find it too costly, some too challenging, and some think it's too good to be true. Some find it bewildering.
3. Satan prevents people believing
2 Corinthians 4v4
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they
cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who
is the image of God.
Surely Satan's deepest desire is to stop people becoming followers of Jesus, forgiven and reconciled to God. He will feed lies into people's hearts, giving them all sorts of reasons not to believe the truth.
So we can blame the church, the non-Christians and the Devil, but I think we're missing the most fundamental reason why there aren't more Christians:
4. God has chosen who will be saved
Jesus said:
John 6v44a
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him."
I ask you to consider these words carefully. I used to think that the word "draw" here might mean "call", "invite", "beckon" or even "woo". But it's not a gentle invitation, "God would like you to follow him, if convenient, if you don't mind. R.S.V.P." It's a forceful, powerful word. It means "drags" or "hauls". It also occurs in these passages:
John 21v6
He said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find
some." When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the
large number of fish.
John 21v11
So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore.
It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn.
Acts 16v19
When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they
seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the
authorities.
Acts 21v30
The whole city was aroused, and the people came running from all
directions. Seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple, and
immediately the gates were shut.
James 2v6
… Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who
are dragging you into court?
Jesus is saying that no-one can come to Him unless God the Father drags him. We cannot be saved unless God the Father hauls us into His kingdom. Jesus is saying that it is impossible for anybody to come to Christ by his own choice or his own effort. We're helpless without God's grace.
Jesus told us in Matthew 22v14 that "many are invited, but few are chosen." Anybody is welcome to come to Christ. The Gospel goes out to all people. But no-one can come to Jesus unless God grabs him by the scruff of the neck and compels him to come. God's grace to us doesn't end at the cross. Jesus died for us, and the Holy Spirit comes to convince us both that we need His forgiveness, and that we can receive His forgiveness, through the cross.
In the Parable of the Great Banquet, Jesus said:
Luke 14v23
"Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes
and compel them to [or "make them"] come in, so that my house will be full."
Some Christians would say that God had to drag them kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God. I know this from personal experience. When I was a teenager I had no interest whatever in God, or religion, or church. Within 6 months, I first became desperate for God, then I met some people who told me they were Christians, then I asked them to explain the Gospel, then I was born again as a child of God and filled with joy and peace. It was surely God who changed what I wanted, then what I understood, then who I was. God got hold of me and dragged me into His kingdom, His family, His church. It wasn't me, it was Him.
That great Christian author C. S. Lewis wrote this in his book "Surprised by Joy":
"You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words "compelle intrare," compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation."
To look at this another way, a drowning man, on the point of losing consciousness, cannot escape from the sea unless somebody drags him out of the water. He has no ability to save himself. And although he has the right to refuse, he has no ability to do so.
Fish caught in a net have no ability to resist. People have no choice but to comply when they're dragged out of the temple, or before the authorities. God can drag anybody He wants out of darkness and into His kingdom.
I find it hard to imagine anybody who truly understands the Gospel choosing to ignore it. I understand that some people prefer their life of sin to a life of submission to God. But who could truly see that he's doomed to die eternally in hell because of his own wrongdoing, and that Jesus died to pay the penalty so he could be forgiven and live for ever in heaven, and turn such an offer down? Those who refuse to respond to the Gospel surely only do so because they either can't or won't really understand it.
Our understanding is enlightened because God enlightens it (2 Corinthians 4v6). Our grasp of reality changes because God changes it. We believe because God gives us faith. We have none of our own. Saving faith is a gift from God:
Ephesians 2v8
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not
from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
We're able to repent because God grants us the ability to repent:
Acts 11v18b
"So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to
life."
2 Timothy 2v25
Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them
repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth.
Philippians 2v13
for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his
good purpose.
Most non-Christians reading this would think it absolute rubbish. That's because God hasn't enlightened them yet. He hasn't given them saving faith yet. Unless God hauls them into His kingdom, they will never find it. If God chooses a person to come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, then that person will come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. This is the doctrine known to Reformed Christians as "Irresistible Grace".
This does not detract from our free will. God can show us so much truth that we will accept His Gospel, of our own free will. He knows what will change our minds.
And God's sovereignty doesn't in any way remove the church's responsibility to fulfil the great commission:
Matthew 28v18-20
Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth
has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I
am with you always, to the very end of the age."
We must preach the gospel to as many people as possible, by all means possible. Those whom God has chosen will believe and be saved. Those whom God has not chosen will not. We preach, we love our neighbours, we pray for the lost, but only God saves, and God saves whom He chooses to save.
Romans 9v14-16
What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!
For he says to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on
whom I have compassion."
It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God's
mercy.