The following is a transcript of a short speech written and delivered by one of our church's homeschool seniors--Morgan Lowery. I thought it was very courageous of her to tackle such a theological watershed issue as to God's irresistible grace in the life of a sinner He has and is calling to Himself. Great Job Morgan!
Can Man Resist God’s Love and Calling on His Life?
Can man resist God’s love and calling on his life? This important question was answered by such men as the great pastor Jonathan Edwards. As you look through the Bible, what God commanded to be done was done. And it was done promptly. This can be seen in Genesis 22:2-3, when God spoke to Abraham, saying, “‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.’ 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac.” God was telling him to sacrifice his son, but does the Bible say that he hesitated even a second? No, he obediently packed and prepared to sacrifice his son. So, I ask you again, can we resist God’s love and calling on our lives?
The answer to this question can be found in Romans 8:28-30 which says, “28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Calling can mean nothing else in this passage than what Christ does in a sinner's saving conversion. It seems evident that this calling is done at once and not gradually. Edwards, in his Treatise of Grace, said, “Christ, through His great power, does but speak the powerful word and it is done. He need only call and the heart of the sinner immediately comes.”
Christ’s call to us can be symbolized in the calling of His disciples and their obedience in immediately following Him. For example, Mark 1:19-20 says, “19 And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.” They didn’t say, “Sure, Jesus, we’ll follow you in a bit after we finish mending these nets.” No, they got up, left their father and the servants and followed Jesus.
Only God knows whether the disciples were then converted. But Edwards says, “Yet doubtless Christ in thus calling His first disciples to a visible following of Him, represents to us the manner in which He would call men to be truly His disciples and spiritually to follow Him in all ages. There is something immediately and instantaneously put into their hearts at that call that they had nothing of before, that effectually disposes them to follow.”
Almost all the miracles Christ performed on earth were types of His great work of converting sinners, and the manner of His working those miracles demonstrates the immediacy of conversion. Edwards says that, “After the same manner Christ cast out devils, which represents His dispossessing the devil of our souls in conversion; and so He settled the winds and waves, representing His subduing, in conversion, the heart of the wicked, which is like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest; and so He raised the dead, which represented His raising dead souls.”
Edwards’ comparison of conversion to resurrection is based on Scripture. There is no standard between being dead and alive; the person who is dead has no degree of life in him, and the person that has the least amount of life in him is alive. Natural men are said to be dead, and to be raised to life when they are converted by God's mighty power. Like resurrection, conversion occurs at the moment God speaks it into existence. John 5:25 says, “‘25 Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.’” Jesus is referring here to a work of conversion, as shown by the words which speak of the time of this raising of the dead, not only as to come in the future, but as to what had already come. This shows conversion to be an immediate, instantaneous work, like the miracle when Christ called Lazarus from the grave: Christ spoke the words, and Lazarus was immediately alive. Before the call, sinners are dead, completely destitute of life, and immediately after the call, they are alive. Edwards says, “The first moment they have any life is the moment when Christ calls, and as soon as they are called, which further appears by what was observed before, even that a being called and converted are spoken of in Scripture as the same thing.” And so I leave you with this conclusion: Conversion must be the immediate work of God’s calling, a product of His almighty power on the soul.
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