GOD’S GRACE IS NOT “IRRESISTIBLE” (JUNE 23)

"Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain" (2 Corinthians 6:1).

IN THE SCRIPTURES, ONE OF THE MOST TOUCHING CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD IS THE FERVENCY WITH WHICH HE APPEALS TO HUMAN BEINGS. In many dire circumstances, God is shown pleading with people to let Him save them. But there was always a choice to be made by those needing God’s help: would they receive God’s grace or not? The basic situation of mankind is summed up well in Paul’s heartfelt exhortation to his brethren in Corinth in which he said, “We appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.”

Sadly, there are those (many of whom I admire for their sincerity) who teach that God’s grace cannot be rejected. Believing that we are born with the “original sin” of Adam’s transgression and are so depraved in our nature that we couldn’t even respond to an offer of salvation if we tried, these teachers insist that God must decide who will be saved — and those whom He decides to save, He infuses with the “enabling power” of the Holy Spirit. This grace is “irresistible” by the recipients, or so says the doctrine. God having decided who will be saved, the chosen ones do not have the power to reject the saving influence which God sends upon them. But surely, many have refused God’s efforts to win their hearts. When, for example, Jesus lamented Jerusalem’s rejection of Him (Matthew 23:37), it is woefully inadequate to say that, since they refused, it must not have really been salvation that He was offering them.

As with all the concepts that are central to Calvinism, the doctrine of irresistible grace rests on a mistaken notion of God’s sovereignty. The Calvinist argues that if anyone can say no to God, that means God is not sovereign. In other words, if we can, by the exercise of our will, keep God from saving us, that means God is not all-powerful. But actually, that argument is the one which limits God. It says that God could not have decided to make creatures endowed with a free will. But that is exactly what God did when He created us. And the result is that those who accept Him, whether many or few, do so freely and lovingly — rather than under the compulsion of their “irresistible” programming.

"It is a denial of the sovereignty of God to say that He could not create persons capable of freely rejecting him" (Curtis Byers).