Successful Grace

I. What is successful grace?

A. Sometimes it is called irresistible grace or effective grace. It simply means that whenever He wants to be, the Holy Spirit is always successful in brining a person to faith. If God purposes to bring a person to Christ, God absolutely cannot fail in accomplishing His purpose. Corollaries of this truth are the fact that God could save anybody He wants. That is, no hearts are to hard for God. So if a person dies without Christ, it is not because God did His best and just couldn't get the person to believe. Instead, God could have brought the person to faith and saved Him, but God chose not to do this.


II. The need for successful grace.

A. We are dead in sins (Ephesians 2:1-3). Therefore we will never believe on our own. So the only way that a person will ever believe is if God raises him from the dead gives faith to him. That is, God must cause us to believe.

B. How does God cause us to believe? By making us spiritual alive (in other words, by regenerating us). We are by nature dead in sins--we have no desire for God and hate him. So God takes away our hatred of Him and replaces it with a desire for Himself. This is His act of changing our hearts so that we want to come to Christ. In successful grace, God does not force anybody to come to Christ, but makes them want to come. God is always successful because humans always choose according to their greatest desire. So when God makes Christ our greatest desire, we always come to Him.


III. Many verses teach that there is a call of God that is always successful in bringing a person to believe in Christ.

A. Romans 8:30

  1. Does everybody who gets called get justified?
  2. Since the only people who get justified are those who believe in Christ, how can this be?

B. 1 Corinthians 1:22-24.

  1. To whom is Christ the power and wisdom of God?
  2. Do all of these people see Christ as the power and wisdom of God?
  3. Who doesn't see Christ as the power and wisdom of God?

C. 1 Corinthians 1:26-29.

  1. Why were so many Christians in Corinth weak, foolish, and poor according to the world's standards?

D. 1 Corinthians 1:30-31

  1. By whose doing are we in Christ Jesus (v. 30)? Why (v. 31).

E. John 6:37

  1. Of the people God the Father has given to God the Son, how many come to Him?

F. John 6:39

  1. How many of those given to Christ will be saved?

G. John 6:44-45

  1. Who are the only people that can come to Christ?
  2. Who is it that gets raised up on the last day?
  3. Do you think that the phrase “everyone who has heard and learned from the Father” refers to the same thing as the “drawing of the Father”? If so, what does this show us?

H. John 6:61-65

  1. Why did Jesus say, in verse 65, that no one can come to Him unless the Father draws him?

I. The general (or outward) calling is simply the preaching of the gospel. So everybody who hears the gospel is called outwardly. This call can be resisted. In fact, nobody will ever respond to the outward call unless God accompanies it with the inward call. The inward call is regeneration, or in other words, successful grace. Since this is the act of God that calls faith into being, everybody who gets this call comes to Christ.


IV. The Bible teaches that regeneration precedes faith. This hammers home the point that we are dead and sins and therefore could never choose to be made alive anymore than Lazarus could have chosen to be resurrected. You are not born again because you believe. Rather, you were born again so that you would believe. This is successful grace.

A. John 1:12-13

B. John 3:3

C. John 6:63

D. John 3:19-20

  1. Why don't people come to the light?
  2. What must be true of a person before they will come to the light?
  3. Since we are all born hating the light, who causes this change?

F. 1 John 5:1; cf. 2:29; 3:9; 4:2-3, 7

  1. The correct translation of 5:1 is “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.”

G. The new birth described in the Old Testament

  1. Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 24:7; Ezekiel 11:19-20; 36:26-27


V. God regenerates us by means of His word.

A. James 1:18

B. 1 Peter 1:23

C. Romans 10:17


VI. Many verses show successful grace by teaching that faith is a gift of God. Notice very carefully what this means. It doesn't mean that God makes it possible for you to believe--that would not be a gift, but an opportunity. Rather, it means that God makes it certain that you will believe. “Faith is the gift of God” means “faith is caused by God.”

A. How would it steal glory from God if faith was not His gift, but instead was ultimately the product of your own self-determination?

B. Philippians 1:29

C. 2 Timothy 2:25

D. Acts 3:26; 5:31


VII. Questions.

A. Why isn't God forcing the elect to believe?

B. How do you respond to someone who says that this turns us into robots?

C. Does this affect your evangelism at all?


VIII. Conclusion: since God is the one who gives faith, He is the one who ultimately determines who will be saved.

MP

Go back to Contend for the Faith.


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