Irresistible Grace:
This is one of the more misunderstood tenets of Calvinism. It implies that God grabs an unbeliever by the scruff of the neck and drags him kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God. In other words, God saves a person whether he likes it or not. The Calvinist who understands his doctrine will deny this implication, though, in practicality, it exists, albeit without the kicking and screaming.
According to the Calvinist, God infuses His grace into a person, regenerating him so that he wants to come to Christ. He is not an unwilling participant; he is made to be willing. As R.C. Sproul writes:
Natural man does not want Christ. He will only want Christ if God plants a desire for Christ in his heart. Once that desire is planted, those who come to Christ do not come kicking and screaming against their wills. They come because they want to come. They now desire Jesus. They rush to the Savior. The whole point of irresistible grace is that rebirth quickens someone to spiritual life in such a way that Jesus is now seen in his irresistible sweetness. Jesus is irresistible to those who have been made alive to the things of God. Every soul whose heart beats with the life of God within it longs for the living Christ. All whom the Father gives to Christ come to Christ (John 6:37).[1]
The Calvinist still can’t escape the charge, however, that God forces a person into the kingdom against his will. Before this infused grace, the man was unwilling to come. Then God, by an act of His omnipotent power, makes a man willing. What God did was against the man’s previous will, and man did not want this grace infused. With God acting as an irresistible influencer, man is, in a sense, dragged into the kingdom. He is made to want it, making God’s grace sound like some sort of mind-altering drug that forces man into liking what he sees, though he previously did not like it. Is this repentance of sin? Is this a true act of faith, when God does the altering? I think not.
Dr. Sproul brought up John 6:37 at the end of his quote, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” This verse is almost universally used in concert with verse 44 in the same chapter to prove this doctrine of irresistible grace. “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” Let’s look at these verses in their context to determine what Jesus was trying to say.
26 Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled. 27 “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give to you, for on Him the Father, even God, has set His seal.” 28 They said therefore to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” 30 They said therefore to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? 31 “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’” 32 Jesus therefore said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. 33 “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” 34 They said therefore to Him, “Lord, evermore give us this bread.” 35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36 “But I said to you, that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. 37 “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. 38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. 40 “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”
41 The Jews therefore were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” 42 And they were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. 45 “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. 46 “Not that any man has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. 47 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. 48 “I am the bread of life. 49 “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 “This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread also which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh.”
52 The Jews therefore began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” 53 Jesus therefore said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56 “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me. 58 “This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate, and died, he who eats this bread shall live forever.”
59 These things He said in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum.
60 Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? 62 ”What then if you should behold the Son of Man ascending where He was before? 63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. 64 “But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. 65 And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father.” (John 6:26-65)
Again, the verses most often used by the Calvinist to promote irresistible grace are these two:
John 6:37, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”
John 6:44, “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”
The Calvinist says that only those God chooses for salvation will come to Christ, i.e. those whom He draws by His irresistible grace, because He has elected them from the foundation of the world. The problem with this understanding is that God’s decision to draw someone is interpreted as being based on a predetermined election made before the foundation of the world. Where does it say that in this passage? Jesus said that the Father must draw someone before that person can come to Him. It doesn’t say why the Father draws a person or what conditions must be met for God to draw a person.
Let’s see what the context says. Look at verse 45, which comes immediately after Jesus’ statement about those who are drawn. “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.”
Jesus gives us two facts. 1) Everyone is taught of God. 2) Those who hear and learn come to Christ. Jesus is trying to tell us that God initiates the process of coming to Christ by teaching all people. Those who heed that call come to Christ. It doesn’t say that God’s decision is based on a predetermined choice; it clearly says that His decision is based on the person’s response.
Not everyone who is taught will come to Christ. God draws those who, by faith, respond to the teaching. This passage says nothing about predestined election to salvation, so any attempt to read it into the verse is done by the addition of words that simply aren’t there.
Back to verse 37, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”
Whom does the Father give to Jesus? Is it those predestined to salvation? If so, where does the passage say that?
Verses 29, 36, 40, and 64 give us the answer:
29: But I said to you, that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.
36: For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.
40: Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.
64-65 “But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father.”
These last two verses drive our conclusion home. Jesus directly gives us the reason He made the statement in the first place, that some of them don’t believe. He didn’t say it because some of them were not of the elect. Jesus was saying that only those who believe are granted access to Christ by the Father, only those who respond to the enlightening call by faith.
It is the faith of a person that determines whether or not God draws him to Christ. The context provides no other reason. When God teaches all people, this is the universal grace of God, the enlightenment that is brought by the Holy Spirit. Those who respond are those who come to Christ. This is really a simple concept, but those who have a predetermined understanding of Calvinistic election have a hard time getting past their presuppositions, which we shall see.
Sproul argues against the concept of universal grace (or prevenient grace) by asking why, if everyone gets the same amount of enabling grace, do some people come to Christ and others do not. Doesn’t that give the believers something to boast about?
Why is it that you have chosen Christ and they have not? Why did you say yes to prevenient grace while they said no? Was it because you were more righteous than they were? If so, then indeed you have something in which to boast. Was that greater righteousness something you achieved on your own or was it the gift of God? If it was something you achieved, then at the bottom line your salvation depends on your own righteousness. If the righteousness was a gift, then why didn’t God give the same gift to everybody?[2]
Sproul goes on to castigate prevenient grace as follows:
But I must press the question. Why did you recognize your desperate need for Christ while your neighbor didn’t? Was it because you were more righteous than your neighbor, or more intelligent?
The $64 question for advocates of prevenient grace is why some people cooperate with it and others don’t. How we answer that will reveal how gracious we believer our salvation really is.
The $64,000 question is, “Does the Bible teach such a doctrine of prevenient grace? If so, where?[3]
Our answer to the $64 question is, “Some people cooperate because they want to do so. Those who do not cooperate don’t want to cooperate.” The Calvinists have a premise in their thinking that they simply can’t put out of their minds, the concept that man doesn’t really have free will. Something has to cause a thought or decision. They can’t accept the fact that a person can be a first-cause agent or that two different people can make different choices even with identical influences.
In refuting our position, Calvinists make the assumption that either the believer must be more righteous than someone who doesn’t believe or else God gave the believer more grace. They can’t accept individual choice as a viable alternative, thus creating an either/or fallacy. In other words, Calvinists provide only two possibilities, vanquish the opposing position with logic, and claim victory. The problem is that they use a Calvinistic premise in their logic, that man cannot have true free will, in order to prove that the concept of prevenient grace isn’t possible.
But we deny the premise. We claim that man can choose to have faith once he is enlightened by God’s Holy Spirit. We believe that God is a rewarder of faith, and that boasting comes as a result of works. No person who truly surrenders in complete repentance has room for boasting. They are completely aware of their inability to obey God without His grace. The charge of boasting assumes that they will keep their unregenerate mindset, so the charge is spurious.
If a person could actually work for his salvation, i.e. gives to charity, participate in missions, tend to the sick, etc, in a sense, he would be able to earn his salvation, and in this he could boast. Basically, he would deserve it. Faith, however, is not a work. It is surrender. Who is able to boast about surrendering? Who is able to boast about freely receiving an undeserved gift? Such a concept is absurd. The Calvinists try to equate choosing faith with works, and they claim that choosing faith enables boasting. This attempt is a great error, and we completely reject it as a misunderstanding of what real faith is all about.
Prevenient grace is simply the call of God to all people everywhere, a call that reveals their sin and gives them an opportunity to repent. God’s call is a light in their darkness that allows them to see reality, the spiritual truth that they are in need of a savior. This is truly an act of grace, for it is a good gift, and it is undeserved.
Such a call gives people the opportunity to exercise their free will. Before this call of grace, they had insufficient knowledge or spiritual insight to see the darkness in themselves, for darkness is all they knew and someone who knows only darkness cannot recognize its separation from light.
As the Bible says,
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:4-5)
And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God (John 3:19-21)
The blazing light of the gospel sheds light and reveals both the goodness of God and the sin in ourselves before we believed. Only then can a person trapped in the chains of sin respond. This call is truly a call of grace.
As Charles Wesley wrote so eloquently in his hymn, “And Can It Be?”
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
The answer to Dr. Sproul’s $64,000 question is in the passage we studied. “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me” (John 6:45). And we could site many more.
John 12:32 “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”
John 16:7-11 “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer behold Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.”
Acts 17:30-31 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
Romans 5:18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
Galatians 3:21-24 Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. But the Scripture has shut up all men under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith.
Although we listed several places the Scriptures teach prevenient, universal grace, and we could easily come up with many more, I doubt that Dr. Sproul will soon be sending us a check for $64,000.
As a side note, some Calvinists try to get mileage out of their understanding of the word “draws” in verse 44, “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” They say that “when it refers to man it has the meaning of to compel, of irresistible superiority, as in James 2:6 where the rich drag the poor before the judge, and as Paul and Silas are dragged into the market place in Acts 16:19.”[4]
It’s a fallacy to assume that a word has the same nuance wherever it appears. A man runs for political office in a very different way than he runs in a road race. A woman cries in a very different way for a lost child than she cries for her son to hit a home run. Yes, “draw” can be used to mean “drag” or “coerce,” but the Calvinist remains silent when he sees, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself,” for he cannot abide God dragging all men to salvation.
What does the Calvinist system of doctrine do to their efforts to evangelize? If God irresistibly draws the elect to salvation without fail, why would they bother to go through all the world to preach the gospel, bringing danger and huge burdens upon themselves?
They give a reasonable answer; they evangelize out of obedience. They realize that God may use them to bring the gospel to the lost, and in obedience they are willing to do whatever it takes to obey God by bringing the message of salvation.
The problem with this answer is that it doesn’t address the logic of the Calvinist system and how it might affect the minds of its followers. If a person can’t have faith until God regenerates him, then speaking the gospel message to Him will have no effect. They have to admit that sinners will always refuse to listen unless God infuses faith in their hearts. What does this do to the motivation of the evangelist? Why should a missionary be passionate for reaching the lost when they can do nothing to inspire faith?
Also, a Calvinist missionary “knows” that any person who is saved in his ministry would have been saved whether he made his sacrificial journey or not. And every single person to whom he speaks is already ordained to his eternal destiny, a decision by God that his years of laborious duty cannot possibly change. He is risking the health, comfort, and life of himself and his family in order to do what? Absolutely nothing. It’s impossible to maintain that such a doctrine has no effect on the passion of the laborers in the harvest.
We know, however, that God has a completely opposite viewpoint.
“Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:13-15)
The Apostle Paul knew that people would not hear the good news without the message bearers going out and spreading it throughout the world. He knows that millions who deserve condemnation because of their sin need to hear the gospel, and their destiny is not unalterably chiseled in a predestined stone.
There is hope for every lost soul. Not a single one is destined to eternal fires simply because God has not chosen him from the foundation of the world. This fact gives us true zeal to reach the lost. We have a message that can really make a difference, an eternal difference. Our inspiration is not the lukewarm response of those who preach out of duty, believing that God will only save those already chosen. Our inspiration is love, the urgency of a man searching the seas for floundering souls, a lifesaving rope in his hands and a beacon that guides the way to the firm foundation of Jesus Christ.
And it is this knowledge that feeds our zeal, that as laborers in the harvest, God can use us to change the world. “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).
[1] Chosen By God, P. 122-123.
[2] Ibid, P. 124.
[3] Ibid. P. 125.
[4] Berkouwer, G. C., Divine Election, pp. 47f
This is one of the more misunderstood tenets of Calvinism. It implies that God grabs an unbeliever by the scruff of the neck and drags him kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God. In other words, God saves a person whether he likes it or not. The Calvinist who understands his doctrine will deny this implication, though, in practicality, it exists, albeit without the kicking and screaming.
According to the Calvinist, God infuses His grace into a person, regenerating him so that he wants to come to Christ. He is not an unwilling participant; he is made to be willing. As R.C. Sproul writes:
Natural man does not want Christ. He will only want Christ if God plants a desire for Christ in his heart. Once that desire is planted, those who come to Christ do not come kicking and screaming against their wills. They come because they want to come. They now desire Jesus. They rush to the Savior. The whole point of irresistible grace is that rebirth quickens someone to spiritual life in such a way that Jesus is now seen in his irresistible sweetness. Jesus is irresistible to those who have been made alive to the things of God. Every soul whose heart beats with the life of God within it longs for the living Christ. All whom the Father gives to Christ come to Christ (John 6:37).[1]
The Calvinist still can’t escape the charge, however, that God forces a person into the kingdom against his will. Before this infused grace, the man was unwilling to come. Then God, by an act of His omnipotent power, makes a man willing. What God did was against the man’s previous will, and man did not want this grace infused. With God acting as an irresistible influencer, man is, in a sense, dragged into the kingdom. He is made to want it, making God’s grace sound like some sort of mind-altering drug that forces man into liking what he sees, though he previously did not like it. Is this repentance of sin? Is this a true act of faith, when God does the altering? I think not.
Dr. Sproul brought up John 6:37 at the end of his quote, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” This verse is almost universally used in concert with verse 44 in the same chapter to prove this doctrine of irresistible grace. “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” Let’s look at these verses in their context to determine what Jesus was trying to say.
26 Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled. 27 “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give to you, for on Him the Father, even God, has set His seal.” 28 They said therefore to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” 30 They said therefore to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? 31 “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’” 32 Jesus therefore said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. 33 “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” 34 They said therefore to Him, “Lord, evermore give us this bread.” 35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36 “But I said to you, that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. 37 “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. 38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. 40 “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”
41 The Jews therefore were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” 42 And they were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. 45 “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. 46 “Not that any man has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. 47 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. 48 “I am the bread of life. 49 “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 “This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread also which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh.”
52 The Jews therefore began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” 53 Jesus therefore said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56 “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me. 58 “This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate, and died, he who eats this bread shall live forever.”
59 These things He said in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum.
60 Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? 62 ”What then if you should behold the Son of Man ascending where He was before? 63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. 64 “But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. 65 And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father.” (John 6:26-65)
Again, the verses most often used by the Calvinist to promote irresistible grace are these two:
John 6:37, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”
John 6:44, “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”
The Calvinist says that only those God chooses for salvation will come to Christ, i.e. those whom He draws by His irresistible grace, because He has elected them from the foundation of the world. The problem with this understanding is that God’s decision to draw someone is interpreted as being based on a predetermined election made before the foundation of the world. Where does it say that in this passage? Jesus said that the Father must draw someone before that person can come to Him. It doesn’t say why the Father draws a person or what conditions must be met for God to draw a person.
Let’s see what the context says. Look at verse 45, which comes immediately after Jesus’ statement about those who are drawn. “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.”
Jesus gives us two facts. 1) Everyone is taught of God. 2) Those who hear and learn come to Christ. Jesus is trying to tell us that God initiates the process of coming to Christ by teaching all people. Those who heed that call come to Christ. It doesn’t say that God’s decision is based on a predetermined choice; it clearly says that His decision is based on the person’s response.
Not everyone who is taught will come to Christ. God draws those who, by faith, respond to the teaching. This passage says nothing about predestined election to salvation, so any attempt to read it into the verse is done by the addition of words that simply aren’t there.
Back to verse 37, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”
Whom does the Father give to Jesus? Is it those predestined to salvation? If so, where does the passage say that?
Verses 29, 36, 40, and 64 give us the answer:
29: But I said to you, that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.
36: For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.
40: Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.
64-65 “But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father.”
These last two verses drive our conclusion home. Jesus directly gives us the reason He made the statement in the first place, that some of them don’t believe. He didn’t say it because some of them were not of the elect. Jesus was saying that only those who believe are granted access to Christ by the Father, only those who respond to the enlightening call by faith.
It is the faith of a person that determines whether or not God draws him to Christ. The context provides no other reason. When God teaches all people, this is the universal grace of God, the enlightenment that is brought by the Holy Spirit. Those who respond are those who come to Christ. This is really a simple concept, but those who have a predetermined understanding of Calvinistic election have a hard time getting past their presuppositions, which we shall see.
Sproul argues against the concept of universal grace (or prevenient grace) by asking why, if everyone gets the same amount of enabling grace, do some people come to Christ and others do not. Doesn’t that give the believers something to boast about?
Why is it that you have chosen Christ and they have not? Why did you say yes to prevenient grace while they said no? Was it because you were more righteous than they were? If so, then indeed you have something in which to boast. Was that greater righteousness something you achieved on your own or was it the gift of God? If it was something you achieved, then at the bottom line your salvation depends on your own righteousness. If the righteousness was a gift, then why didn’t God give the same gift to everybody?[2]
Sproul goes on to castigate prevenient grace as follows:
But I must press the question. Why did you recognize your desperate need for Christ while your neighbor didn’t? Was it because you were more righteous than your neighbor, or more intelligent?
The $64 question for advocates of prevenient grace is why some people cooperate with it and others don’t. How we answer that will reveal how gracious we believer our salvation really is.
The $64,000 question is, “Does the Bible teach such a doctrine of prevenient grace? If so, where?[3]
Our answer to the $64 question is, “Some people cooperate because they want to do so. Those who do not cooperate don’t want to cooperate.” The Calvinists have a premise in their thinking that they simply can’t put out of their minds, the concept that man doesn’t really have free will. Something has to cause a thought or decision. They can’t accept the fact that a person can be a first-cause agent or that two different people can make different choices even with identical influences.
In refuting our position, Calvinists make the assumption that either the believer must be more righteous than someone who doesn’t believe or else God gave the believer more grace. They can’t accept individual choice as a viable alternative, thus creating an either/or fallacy. In other words, Calvinists provide only two possibilities, vanquish the opposing position with logic, and claim victory. The problem is that they use a Calvinistic premise in their logic, that man cannot have true free will, in order to prove that the concept of prevenient grace isn’t possible.
But we deny the premise. We claim that man can choose to have faith once he is enlightened by God’s Holy Spirit. We believe that God is a rewarder of faith, and that boasting comes as a result of works. No person who truly surrenders in complete repentance has room for boasting. They are completely aware of their inability to obey God without His grace. The charge of boasting assumes that they will keep their unregenerate mindset, so the charge is spurious.
If a person could actually work for his salvation, i.e. gives to charity, participate in missions, tend to the sick, etc, in a sense, he would be able to earn his salvation, and in this he could boast. Basically, he would deserve it. Faith, however, is not a work. It is surrender. Who is able to boast about surrendering? Who is able to boast about freely receiving an undeserved gift? Such a concept is absurd. The Calvinists try to equate choosing faith with works, and they claim that choosing faith enables boasting. This attempt is a great error, and we completely reject it as a misunderstanding of what real faith is all about.
Prevenient grace is simply the call of God to all people everywhere, a call that reveals their sin and gives them an opportunity to repent. God’s call is a light in their darkness that allows them to see reality, the spiritual truth that they are in need of a savior. This is truly an act of grace, for it is a good gift, and it is undeserved.
Such a call gives people the opportunity to exercise their free will. Before this call of grace, they had insufficient knowledge or spiritual insight to see the darkness in themselves, for darkness is all they knew and someone who knows only darkness cannot recognize its separation from light.
As the Bible says,
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:4-5)
And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God (John 3:19-21)
The blazing light of the gospel sheds light and reveals both the goodness of God and the sin in ourselves before we believed. Only then can a person trapped in the chains of sin respond. This call is truly a call of grace.
As Charles Wesley wrote so eloquently in his hymn, “And Can It Be?”
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
The answer to Dr. Sproul’s $64,000 question is in the passage we studied. “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me” (John 6:45). And we could site many more.
John 12:32 “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”
John 16:7-11 “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer behold Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.”
Acts 17:30-31 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
Romans 5:18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
Galatians 3:21-24 Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. But the Scripture has shut up all men under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith.
Although we listed several places the Scriptures teach prevenient, universal grace, and we could easily come up with many more, I doubt that Dr. Sproul will soon be sending us a check for $64,000.
As a side note, some Calvinists try to get mileage out of their understanding of the word “draws” in verse 44, “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” They say that “when it refers to man it has the meaning of to compel, of irresistible superiority, as in James 2:6 where the rich drag the poor before the judge, and as Paul and Silas are dragged into the market place in Acts 16:19.”[4]
It’s a fallacy to assume that a word has the same nuance wherever it appears. A man runs for political office in a very different way than he runs in a road race. A woman cries in a very different way for a lost child than she cries for her son to hit a home run. Yes, “draw” can be used to mean “drag” or “coerce,” but the Calvinist remains silent when he sees, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself,” for he cannot abide God dragging all men to salvation.
What does the Calvinist system of doctrine do to their efforts to evangelize? If God irresistibly draws the elect to salvation without fail, why would they bother to go through all the world to preach the gospel, bringing danger and huge burdens upon themselves?
They give a reasonable answer; they evangelize out of obedience. They realize that God may use them to bring the gospel to the lost, and in obedience they are willing to do whatever it takes to obey God by bringing the message of salvation.
The problem with this answer is that it doesn’t address the logic of the Calvinist system and how it might affect the minds of its followers. If a person can’t have faith until God regenerates him, then speaking the gospel message to Him will have no effect. They have to admit that sinners will always refuse to listen unless God infuses faith in their hearts. What does this do to the motivation of the evangelist? Why should a missionary be passionate for reaching the lost when they can do nothing to inspire faith?
Also, a Calvinist missionary “knows” that any person who is saved in his ministry would have been saved whether he made his sacrificial journey or not. And every single person to whom he speaks is already ordained to his eternal destiny, a decision by God that his years of laborious duty cannot possibly change. He is risking the health, comfort, and life of himself and his family in order to do what? Absolutely nothing. It’s impossible to maintain that such a doctrine has no effect on the passion of the laborers in the harvest.
We know, however, that God has a completely opposite viewpoint.
“Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:13-15)
The Apostle Paul knew that people would not hear the good news without the message bearers going out and spreading it throughout the world. He knows that millions who deserve condemnation because of their sin need to hear the gospel, and their destiny is not unalterably chiseled in a predestined stone.
There is hope for every lost soul. Not a single one is destined to eternal fires simply because God has not chosen him from the foundation of the world. This fact gives us true zeal to reach the lost. We have a message that can really make a difference, an eternal difference. Our inspiration is not the lukewarm response of those who preach out of duty, believing that God will only save those already chosen. Our inspiration is love, the urgency of a man searching the seas for floundering souls, a lifesaving rope in his hands and a beacon that guides the way to the firm foundation of Jesus Christ.
And it is this knowledge that feeds our zeal, that as laborers in the harvest, God can use us to change the world. “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).
[1] Chosen By God, P. 122-123.
[2] Ibid, P. 124.
[3] Ibid. P. 125.
[4] Berkouwer, G. C., Divine Election, pp. 47f
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