Common Questions About God’s Effectual Call
Pastor Ostella
2-15-98
Introduction
Let me begin with some broad prefatory remarks on my message for today. In a very real sense this is the latter half of the last sermon I preached on "God’s effectual call." I did not finish that sermon so the whole picture was not sketched. We need to fill out the landscape a little more so you can see the beauty of the gospel that flowers here to the praise and glory of God.
There is a remarkable sweetness in knowing that the Lord knew us with a special intimacy even when we were His enemies, that it was from this fountainhead of love that He called us to Himself. He called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9). Now we are to declare the praises of Him who called us. Focussing our calling heightens our praise. So, let’s look again at this topic.
1A. Let’s begin with a review of definitions and passages
After this overview we can focus our attention today on "Common questions about God’s Effectual Call."
What is meant by the term call in this combination with the word effectual? Not all the uses in Scripture of "call" have the same strength. What I am trying to show is that there is a general call from God to sinners that goes out to them in the creation and through the preaching of the gospel. All are invited to God. And there is also a special, direct, and personal call from God to sinners that is effectual. The general call invites and is rejected right and left; the effectual call renews and brings sinners home to the Savior’s embrace.
Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q31, gives this definition of effectual calling: "Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel."
I like to define effectual calling like this:
God’s effectual call is His immediate and direct action overcoming our resistance and bringing us to faith and thus to the salvation that is received by faith.
This means that God gives a call that is always obeyed. It means that the one who is thus called will hear the word of Christ and follow Him; he will see the glory of Christ and entrust himself to Him. Though he is at enmity with God and refuses to come, upon the action of God’s effectual call, he is "made willing by his grace," (WCF: chap. X, sec. 1). cf. Hymn 143 (vs. 2, 3).
How is this supported from Scripture?
Here are some of the lines of biblical support in brief summary.
1) We begin with the basic truth of Romans 8:30 that all who are called will be justified and glorified. In this context, emphasis is placed on the acts of God beginning with the well spring of His loving knowledge, and flowing forth in His predestinating will, then His calling, justifying and glorifying. It goes against the flow of this passage to look for some decisive factor in man that determines whether or not God’s call will be effectual. No, all who are called with this call will be justified and glorified.
2) Also, in context, note that God has the purpose of establishing fellowship with people who do not notice Him, who view Him with enmity and who wander in darkness and unbelief (so the backdrop of Rom. 1:18-21; 3:10-18; 8:7-8). This call is rooted in God’s purpose (Rom. 8:29, all is worked for good to those called according to His purpose, and 2 Timothy 1:9, we are saved and called because of his purpose and grace given us before time).
God has a purpose, intention, goal that He sets out to accomplish; He does so through His almighty word, voice and call. His plans never fail; His plans cannot be thwarted. His call is how He accomplishes His purpose.
Thus He sets out to save sinners through His word which will accomplish the purpose whereunto God sent it (Isaiah 55:10-13). God has a purpose in redemption that is tied to the giving of the gospel to the nations. It will be accomplished. It is God’s purpose that will be realized. It is a desire He will satisfy.
Thus, when God’s calling is stated to be according to His purpose, it must be an effectual call. Then those who do not know God will run to Jesus Christ and cast themselves willingly at His feet. His call causes the barren heart to "bud and flourish" (Isa. 55:10).
His call, His voice, His word saves. All to whom it is given will hear His word and will obey it. "Jesus never fails. Heaven and earth may pass away, but Jesus never fails."
3) In John 10, Jesus looked ahead at the church He was about to establish from both Israel and the nations. Both are in darkness and refuse to come to the light. But Jesus has sheep from both. He will give His voice and His sheep will hear and follow. How so? Because His call is His way of bringing them (Jn. 10:16). He will call them to Himself.
There is a divine must at work here. They must be brought to make up His church. You know that the word "church" is related to this topic of calling. The church is His called out assembly. Both these sheep (of Israel) and the other sheep (of the Gentiles) must be brought; they will hear and follow. Both must be called and both will listen (16b). This is a call that will be obeyed.
Like a shepherd calls his sheep by name and his sheep know his voice and follow, so the Great Shepherd calls His sheep by name and they will come. He did not say "may come" or "some will and some won’t" but "they will come."
What a marvelous truth. Jesus will build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Our own evil and hellish hearts will not prevail against it. They will come from the UAE, Russia, Hungary, Mexico, Luxembourg, Detroit Metro-plex, and Southfield by the power of grace.
In 1 Corinthians 1:9, Paul says that God "called you into fellowship with His son Jesus Christ our Lord." Peter says God "called you out of darkness into his wonderful light" (1 Pet. 2:9). Calling is a mighty word from God that transitions us from darkness to light, from alienation to fellowship.
2 Corinthians 4:1-6 shows us that God’s call is a remarkable blessing, a saving grace. In our fallen state we are in darkness and doubly blind (v. 4; cf. Jn. 3:3, 19; 9:39; and thus unable to believe, 6:44). But God’s saving call, His almighty saving word, goes forth like the command on creation morning (v. 6). He said, "Let there be light" and there was light. He commands the light of the gospel to shine in our hearts that we may know the glory of God in the face of Christ.
This is what made believers out of the pagans of Corinth. This is what makes believers out of us. It is to have our eyes opened to see the glory of God in the face of Christ. Truly it was "amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now I am found, was blind but now I see.
As unbelievers we cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ (v. 4). But God’s command, by parallel His call, enlightens us so we know Him and to know Him is to have eternal life. Seeing His glory we willingly embrace Him, we choose Him above all others, we run to Him, we cling to Him, we believe in Him, we entrust ourselves to Him (cf. Isa. 55:5 and "long my imprisoned spirit...").
There is our summary in brief of this wonderful truth of God’s effectual call. Our need is colossal and grace is powerful. This is a wonder and a joy. This is honey in the honeycomb. Taste and see that the Lord is good!
2A. Some Common Questions
1) Why preach if this doctrine is true? We preach because God commands preaching. We preach because God uses the general call of the gospel preached as the context in which He calls effectually to the heart.
Consider 2 Thessalonians 2:13. God’s love is focussed in His choosing and calling. God called you by our gospel. The saving of sinners is a supernatural work! God extends this special call in the context of gospel proclamation.
2) Is it fair or just to give this special call to some and not others? Answer: would God be just and fair if He gave this special call to no one and we were to all perish? Of course He would. Then we cannot complain if He gives His special call to some and passes over others. We are all rebels in our fallen state. Through the light of creation we are all invited to Christ. We all have opportunity and we all reject. We reject the God we know through His clear creation and this renders us without excuse (Jn. 1:4, 9, 5; Rom. 1:20). By grace God calls some to Himself. We must stand in wonder as to why God calls any to Himself.
Do any of us deserve more light? Do we deserve any benefit, offer, invitation, patience or any longsuffering from God? The key word here is deserve. You see, it is not a matter of justice or fairness, or getting what we deserve. That is asking the wrong question. It is not "why does He only call some?" but given our sinfulness, "why does He call any?"
Asking the question this way accents our sinfulness and rebellion and the fact that we deserve nothing from God, no good favor of any kind. We do not deserve the refreshing rain or the warming sun. We do not deserve to be born in a country that has freedom of religion where gospel proclamation abounds. We do not deserve to have these opportunities to hear the gospel; we do not deserve to hear the invitation to come to Christ.
Fairness and justice would have all of us condemned. No one has a right to God’s effectual call; no one deserves to be called. A special, effectual call is not a matter of justice but of grace and mercy. If we plead for exact justice we must all perish. Remember the parable Jesus gave of the workers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:8-16). Some worked all day, some worked half a day and some worked one hour. Pay time came in the evening. The ones who worked one hour were paid first and those who worked all day were paid last. They all received the same wages. So "the all day workers" grumbled of unfairness. And the landowner explained that there is no unfairness in the giving to one group what they earn and in giving to another group what I want to give: "don’t I have a right to do what I want?"
When we are talking about God’s gifts of grace there is no ground for the complaint of unfairness. This is what the reformers meant by free and sovereign grace. We do not merit any kindness from God, not one tiny bit. We all merit God’s just wrath. When He shows grace to one sinner and not another, one gets what He deserves and the other gets mercy that depends not on anything we do: mercy does not depend on him who runs or wills but on God (Rom. 9:16-18) who "has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy" (v. 18; cf. 2 Tim. 1:9).
3) But doesn’t God desire all to come to repentance? Yes. Peter says so in 2 Peter 3:9 and Ezekiel says God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 33:11). Thus He gives this general call to all inviting them to Himself and desiring that they repent. This desire underlies the genuineness of the general call.
Then doesn’t this desire in God eliminate the idea of an effectual call? No. Scripture teaches it (Rom. 8:30, all the called are justified; 1 Pet. 2:9, we are called out of darkness into His marvelous light). We must accept all that Scripture says. We must not use parts of Scripture that are clear to eliminate other clear parts because we favor one over the other. Logic bows to the text. We must submit ourselves to God’s authoritative word, to every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, to the whole counsel of God.
God tells us that He gives a general invitation to all men everywhere in which He invites sinners to come to Him and live in the warm radiance of His love. He says this, then it must be so. He says He desires that sinners repent. He says He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Then these things must be so. He says that none seek Him and that men will not come to Him in their darkness. This too must be so.
He also says that He calls sinners into fellowship, out of darkness and unbelief and into light and faith. He says the called are justified and their salvation is sure. He says He certainly accomplishes His saving purpose through His call. He says He creates seeing eyes by His commanding call. Then these things must also be so. And thank God they are so.
4) Is saving faith the gift of God’s effectual call?
A yes is based on passages like 2 Corinthians 4:6. An additional passage that is commonly cited in this context is John 6:44-45 which like the 2 Corinthians passage shows that it is God’s special enlightenment to us in our darkness and unbelief that results in our believing (come means believe: Jn. 6:36 puts believing as parallel with coming in 6:37; cf. also 6:64 with 6:65).
Why take it to mean that the drawn are actually brought to faith in Christ? Because:
Faith is the gift of God that no man may boast (Eph. 2:8-9). If we boast it must be only in the Lord. It is His praises that we are to proclaim, the praises of the one who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9).
Applications
1) Grace is the power of God that goes to work in calling us from darkness to light. And it is underserved. We can make no complaints about fairness in God’s giving of grace to some and not to others.
2) In context of our need as sinners, effectual calling signals the fact that in our natural state in the fall we are willful, stubborn, stiff-necked and filled with resistance to the claims of God in Christ. Our need is colossal! And it signals abundant mercy. It announces Christ as the builder of His church. This He does in grace and mercy conquering our rebelling and resisting hearts.
3) This doctrine gives us hope. It grounds our neighborly witness near and far. We are encouraged even in the midst of the greatest resistance that God has a specific saving purpose. He will carry it out. We are co-laborers with Him. We plant, sow, and water. He gives the increase. He causes the heart to bud and flourish.
Triumph in this battle? Yes, we will triumph because He will not fail. His call is effectual.
4) This truth humbles us.
Faith is God’s gift lest any one should boast (Eph. 2:9). Our calling is revealed to us so no one can boast. Let him who boasts, boast only in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:26-31).
Let me ask some questions of you here today that are believers. Think about your conversion. You trusted in Christ; you cried out to Him for mercy. These were things you did. Am I correct? But what caused you to embrace the Lord Jesus? Why did you suddenly wake up and run to Christ? Is it not because He sweetly drew you to His bosom?
Twas the same love that spread the feast that sweetly drew us in, else we had still refused to taste and perished in our sin.
Some neighbor next door heard the gospel when you heard it but you trusted in Christ and he did not. Do you attribute your coming to something better in you than exists in your neighbor? Do you attribute your believing to something you did? Do you want to affirm that God has done all in His power equally to save you and your unbelieving neighbor and that the reason you believe and your neighbor does not believe depends in the final analysis on something in you? Do you want to say that the crucial factor in your own personal salvation is not what God did but what you did and it is that that causes you to differ from your neighbor? Surely not! Surely, from the depths of your mind and soul, you want to say that it all depends on God who shows mercy on whom He will.
5) This is a most comforting truth. Our faith is often frail. We have much to learn. We often get discouraged and feel we cannot take another step. I may say "My faith is slipping away." You and I both have these low ebbs. However, here is comfort and encouragement: the same gracious God that powerfully called you into fellowship will with the same power of His calling confirm you to the end (1 Cor. 1:8-9). The author of your faith is also its finisher (Heb. 12:2)!
May Jesus Christ be praised.
May we fall down before the majesty of our God in utter thankfulness giving praise and glory to Him forever and ever, amen.