← Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung
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Hello and welcome to Doctrine Matters, a weekly podcast exploring the rich theology of the Christian faith. Each week we want to take hold of one aspect of our faith and try to understand theological concepts that sometimes have been debated, controversial, or maybe just hard to understand. And hopefully we can look at them in a way that is clear, concise and accessible. The goal is that believers would be encouraged and edified, and that God would be glorified so we can love him more, know him more, enjoy him forever. I'm Kevin DeYoung, your host and teacher, and this is Doctrine Matters. This week on Doctrine Matters, we are continuing to move through soteriology, the doctrine of salvation. Looking at the Ordo Salutis, the order of salvation, this is a logical sequence. How we think, think about. It's not that every one of these elements happens temporally five minutes or five years after the next one, but there is a logical coherence to how we understand God's work of salvation. And we see this in Romans 8, most famously, that those whom he foreknew, he predestined. Those predestined he called. Those he called, he justified. Those he justified, he glorifies the there. There is a sequence. And so coming this week. And we can't hit on every step in the Ordo Salutis, but let's talk about effectual calling, which will then dovetail nicely into irresistible grace. So general calling is that bonafide genuine announcement that the preacher makes and that we can share individually with others the promises of God. In the GOSP Gospel, there is a genuine call, Come to Christ, he will not turn you away. What we're praying for, and must be a sovereign work of the Spirit, then, is the effectual call. This is the initial act of salvific application, whereby we are joined to Christ and made sharers in all his benefits. In contrast to the general call, this calling does not just make our embrace of Christ possible, it makes it certain. This is paraphrasing from Westminster Confession of faith, chapter 10. The New Testament describes this calling of the Gospel in several ways. It's called a holy calling, a heavenly calling, a high calling. It's a calling from darkness, from sin, from condemnation, from the world. That's what it's from. And it is a calling to light, holiness, eternal life. The Shorter Catechism says it is the work of God's Spirit, whereby, convicting us of our sins 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. So one way to think of this is to consider how God works in and on all our faculties. This is biblical language. The eyes of the heart are enlightened. The stony heart is replaced with a heart of flesh. The mind is given the spirit to understand the things of the Spirit. The will is moved and renewed by God. The calling is effectual. Now, there's a related term, regeneration, and sometimes they are used interchangeably. For example, the Westminster Confession does not have a separate chapter for regeneration, but describes the quickening and renewing work of the Spirit under effectual calling. Now, later in the Confession under Sanctification, it speaks of those who are once effectually called and regenerated. So there the two terms are. If not synonyms, they're inextricably linked. If there is a distinction between effectual calling and regeneration, we might think of it as effectual calling is God's known work upon the consciousness of man, while regeneration is God's secret work on the subconscious life of man. Effectual calling usually comes before regeneration in the Ordo Salutis. But in a way, you could think of regeneration coming first, because the call cannot be effectual unless there is new life in the heart, which is regeneration. On the other hand, you could argue that effectual calling comes first because regeneration is the result of that. So both orders can be true theologically. The point we want to make is that in this call, by the word of God, he effectually renews and causes us to be born again, enlightening our minds, changing our hearts, that we might embrace Christ. Which all leads to this other topic, irresistible grace. How do we account for the fact that only some people respond to the Gospel call? This general gospel call goes out to millions of people. It may be heard in thousands of ways on hundreds of occasions by people in the same family, in the same circumstances. And yet one child may believe, and sadly, another may not. How do we account for this fact? Now, the Synod of Dorm dealt with these matters. The Tulip, as I've mentioned before, that acronym is maybe only a hundred or so years old, and it's in English. And the Canons of Dort were not written originally in English, but total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints. We are talking about this irresistible grace. And this was one of the debates at the synod of Dort 1618, 1619. Because the Arminians there taught that sinners need the Spirit's work in their lives. That's true. They certainly said, we need the work of the Spirit to exercise faith and repentance. But the difference was in how both sides understood that work of the Spirit. The Arminians said that all people have been given sufficient grace. Now, here's where you have to be so careful and define your terms and press in for more detail, because almost everyone's going to talk about grace. The Arminians at the Synod of Dort said, yes, of course we need grace to be saved. That's obviously in the Bible, faith was a gift offered to all, but it was unilaterally infused in none. That's what the Arminians said. So, yes, you need grace. But there was a prevenient grace. There was a sufficient grace that everyone had whereby they had the ability to believe, to receive Christ. The Calvinists at Dort, by contrast, concluded that we are in need of more than an enlightening or enabling grace. We need more than a gentle persuasion. We need God to penetrate into the inmost being. Dort says, open the closed heart, soften the hard heart, circumcise the heart that is uncircumcised. So God is not just providing an opportunity for conversion. Here's what Dort says. God infuses new qualities into the will, making the dead will alive, the evil one good, the unwilling one willing, and the stubborn heart compliant. So he pours grace into the human heart, not only so that we can believe, but that we will believe. That's what we mean here by irresistible grace. It is God giving this grace to us, giving us the gift of faith so penetrating our hearts that we can and we will believe. We are not converting ourselves and we cannot reject the converting grace of God. Now, yes, you may say, well, don't people reject the gospel? Of course they reject the gospel all the time. They reject the offer of Christ. What we're talking about is the secret effectual working of the Spirit. Or to ask the question another way, is it ever the case that God says, I want that person to be saved and they don't get saved? Not in terms of God's ultimate sovereign will. When God sends the Spirit to work sovereignly, that grace, praise God, is irresistible. It is not a cooperating grace. God makes us alive. Ephesians 2:5. He grants repentance. Acts 11. He works in us to will and to act, just as the uncreated cosmos could not resist God's power. When God said, let there be light, and there was light, it isn't as if the darkness said, nah, no thanks, I don't want to Be light. Now, God in the same way, irresistibly shines in the hearts of. Of his people to give us the light and the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So faith itself is a gift worked by God's grace. This effectual grace, this irresistible grace, is given to us monergistically. So here's another term, monergism. Before it was one of the early websites with Reformed materials, it was a theological term and still is. The work of God in effectual calling or regeneration, or this irresistible grace is monergistic. That means by the one working, ergo word for working, and mono, the word for one. So monergistic as opposed to synergistic. That prefix syn means together with. And we even have that word synergy. It's a faddish buzzword. But everybody in the office is working together and we have such synergy or sympathy. That's the same Greek prefix there to feel with, to have compassion, to have pathos with. So the. With. So either mono alone one or soon together with the. The question is whether in regeneration and ineffectual calling, the work of the Spirit is synergistic, that we come alongside and cooperate, or whether it is monergistic. Now, we're not yet talking about faith and repentance. The canons and Dora very clear. God does not eradicate our will, but he must sovereignly give us a new will to renew it. We do not have the ability in ourselves to cooperate with God's grace. So the Reformed confessions all reject the synergism that you find, for example, in the Catholic Counter Reformation, in the Council of Trent, where the will, here's what Trent says, is to be excited and assisted by divine grace. This isn't like Miracle Max from the Princess Bride, you know, who says, well, he's only mostly dead. No, we're not mostly dead. We are all the way dead. And if we contribute or cooperate in any way to this regeneration, then we have some small, little tiny bit to boast of. Given the monergistic nature of the new birth, we have to conclude that regeneration precedes faith. This is one of the important hallmarks of Reformed theology. We don't believe unto new life. We are given new life that we may believe. We do need to exercise faith, an act of the human will, faith and repentance. So we're not robots, we're not puppets. But God must work in our hearts. Here's what Dort says, so that we are certainly unfailingly and effectively reborn in the miracle of regeneration. We bring nothing and we do nothing. That's why Paul likens regeneration to a new creation or to a resurrection. It is an inexpressible work, Dort says, not less than or inferior in power to that of creation or raising the dead. This is an amazing fact. Every Sunday when you go to church you see walking miracles, people who have been brought from darkness to light. Every bit as powerfully as God calling light into existence. Every bit as powerfully as God calling the dead Jesus Christ back to life. So he has done it in your local church with five people, 50 people, 5,000 people. Miracles there by the monergistic but the one working of God's grace that we did not cooperate. We are not co agents in that work. It is unilateral, irresistible, sovereign, such that as born again. Then we can exercise faith in repentance, regeneration, or effectual calling. Using those terms very closely is what God supernaturally accomplishes by the internal and effectual power of the Spirit. God does not force it upon us by an external compulsion or coercion. So that's we're not. We're not puppets, we're not robots. He's not pulling our arm and we don't have a will. We do have a will, but it must be sovereignly regenerated by by God giving us a new inclination, a new disposition, a new direction, a new movement. And then, and only then, can we exercise faith and repentance. Thanks for listening to Doctrine Matters with me. Kevin DeYoung. Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our therapists theological tradition as Christians, please consider subscribing to Doctrine Matters through Spotify, Apple Music or however you listen to your podcast. And if you'd like to learn more about this week's doctrine, you can ask your pastor for good resources or check out my year long mini systematic theology book Daily Doctrine, which is available in print or audio@crossway.org until next week. Thanks for being with us.