Irresistible Grace
A grace that cannot be resisted and
always works in the manner in which God desires.
Since grace is undeserved
by any person, Irresistible Grace teaches that when the Spirit of God is
sent to change a person's heart, that person cannot resist the change.
This is when the Spirit of God applies the work of Christ to the soul.
This does not mean that the person is unwilling to be changed because
the Spirit of God is "fighting against them", rather the
Spirit changes the heart of stone to beat as a heart of flesh. The
change opens the eyes of the spiritually blind to the work of Christ.
It is that which the Spirit of God does on his own, previous to any act
of man. The Spirit of God will accomplish what He is sent out to
do and will not be frustrated in His work of changing the sinner's
heart. There are two types of calling upon people, external
and internal. The external calling is the preaching of the Word to
men's physical ears. The internal is the Spirit of God changing
the heart to respond inwardly to the Gospel message. This is
the means by which the blood of Christ is applied to the heart and
conversion takes place. Here is where the Spirit of God alone
draws men to Christ. The Spirit of God then causes the heart
of the sinner to be willing to repent of his sins, believe on the Lord
Jesus and come to Christ.
John 6:37, "All that
the Father giveth me shall come to me;"
John 5:21, "For as
the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the
Son quickeneth whom he will."
John 10:16, "And
other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring,
and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one
shepherd."
Romans 8:29-30, "For
whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to
the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many
brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called:
and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them
he also glorified."
John 3:3, "Jesus
answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a
man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (See tract on
Regeneration.)
Acts 13:48, "And
when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of
the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed."
Ephesians 1:19-20,
"And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward
who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which
he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at
his own right hand in the heavenly places,"
1 Corinthians 4:7,
"For who maketh thee to differ from another?".
Puritan Quotations on
Irresistible Grace:
"So that, you see,
the Spirit of God, where it works in men, though they live in different
places, yet they shall all believe the same truth and all receive the
same faith." Christopher Love
"The internal call
is when the Spirit of God accompanies the outward administration of the
Word to call a man from ignorance to knowledge, and a state of nature to
a state of grace." Christopher Love
"Calling is the
gathering of men together in Christ so they may be united with
Him." William Ames
"The passive
receiving of Christ is the process by which a spiritual principle of
grace is generated in the will of man." William Ames
"The inward offer is
a kind of spiritual enlightenment, whereby the promises are presented to
the hearts of men, as it were, by an inward word." William Ames
"That there is such
a thing as a spiritual and divine light immediately imparted to the soul by God, of a different nature from any that is obtained by
natural means." Jonathan Edwards
"As the prejudices
that are in the heart, against the truth of divine things,
are hereby removed; so that the mind becomes susceptive of the due force
of rational arguments for their truth. The mind of man is naturally full
of prejudices against the truth of divine things: it is full of enmity
against the doctrines of the gospel; which is a disadvantage to those arguments that
prove their truth, and causes them to lose their force upon the mind.
But when a person has discovered to him the divine excellency of Christian
doctrines, this destroys the enmity, removes those prejudices, and
sanctifies the reason, and causes it to lie open to the force of arguments for
their truth." Jonathan Edwards
"This calling is an
act of the grace of God in Christ by which he calls men dead in sin and
lost in Adam through the preaching of the Gospel and the power of the
Holy Spirit, to union with Christ and to salvation obtained in
him." Francis Turretin
"Adoption gives us
the privilege of sons, regeneration the nature of sons." Stephen
Charnock
"In the first
creation, God made man after His own Image. So in the second
creation or regeneration, God doth create men after His own image, in
knowledge, righteousness, true holiness, and love."
Vavasor Powell
"Repentance is a
change of the mind, and regeneration is a change of the man."
Thomas Adams
"There may be
several things which may help to make the life fair in the eyes of men;
but nothing will make it amiable in the eyes of God, unless the heart be
changed and renewed. All the medicines which can be applied,
without the sanctifying work of the Spirit, though they may cover, they
can never cure the corruption and diseases of the soul."
George Swinnock |