Irresistible Grace (Calvinism Series: Part Four)

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Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we continue our series through the five points of Calvinism by considering irresistible grace.

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After contending for effectual calling as a better term, we talk about what is not meant by irresistible grace.

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Then we turn to the Bible and to the Confessions to help illustrate how good and how assurance -producing this doctrine is.

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Then in the members' podcasts, we have a pretty lively discussion. We let it rip a little bit about the inconsistencies that exist in the

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Calvangelical world with respect to God's grace, especially God's grace in our lives and the work of the

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Spirit in us after conversion. Then we consider repentance and how it is so often turned into a work that we do and how it is often scrutinized at every turn.

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People, upon repenting of sin, are often put in a kind of probationary period where they must prove the genuineness and sincerity of repentance.

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We hope that these conversations are encouraging and helpful to you. Stay tuned. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the

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Christian life from a Reformed perspective. Our hosts today are John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, Jimmy Buehler, pastor of Christ Community Church in Willmar, Minnesota, and myself,

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Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina. Brethren, we have met to podcast, and we're excited to get behind the mics again today to continue our series on Calvinism.

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But before we do that, we want to give the people what they want because they have been without him for a few weeks' time, it seems.

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Jimmy Buehler, update the people. That's right. I would say probably the most irresistible of the three.

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Oh my goodness. You've got to save that material for a few minutes. I know. Yeast coming out of the gate is hot.

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Oh, I've got too many. I've got too many. I know you do. No, that's totally fine. It's good to be back behind the mic.

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I'm currently sitting in my classroom in the school in which I teach, and so my classroom has become my office away from home for church.

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It is the place that I educate future America, and it's also where I podcast with these fine gentlemen.

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So it is fun. It was neat today because I had my mic set up, and my students were just completely enamored with this technology called a microphone.

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So they were asking all sorts of questions, which was great because I was able to point them to TheoCast. So hopefully, we have a growing teenage listener base coming our way.

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Yeah. Speaking of old technology, a microphone is supposedly old technology. I hand my son a tape deck, and he starts trying to swipe it.

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What are you doing? That's not touch. That's old analog, brother. Man, that's something else.

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Kids don't even know what to do with tape decks. No, they don't. Such a shame. No idea. So can we—

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Do you guys have a landline in your home? No. That would be a fun survey on the

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Facebook group. For those of you that don't know, we have a Facebook group, and you can join that. It's great conversations about podcasts and all kinds of other stuff.

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Jimmy, is that the entire cultural update you have for us, man? Is that it? No. I can certainly continue.

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Because we wouldn't be disappointed if it was. Oh, boy. Okay. Maybe I'll just stop because you're so offensive.

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All right. Come on. Give us the update. No. So what's going on in our world here in Willmar, Minnesota is, one, it is freezing.

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Freezing cold. We have just bypassed fall. We have just bypassed fall and gone straight into winter.

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But it's also exciting in terms of our church plant. We have entered into kind of like a soft launch phase, you could call, where we are trying out a space that the

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Lord has provided for us. And so with that, we have to work out some of the logistical kinks and so on and so forth.

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But we have had some friends and some various people in and about the community join us, which has been good to kind of get back into a word and sacrament rhythm.

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So it's been enjoyable just to gather with the saints at Christ Community Church. And so we are actually going to try to get

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John Moffitt out here sooner rather than later, so we can talk about membership and those kind of fun things.

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So be sure to check us out, ChristCommunityMN .org. And yeah, it's just good to be back on the mic with you guys.

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Yeah, try a good way of saying it with the snow. Yeah. In educating the future generation of Americans, as you are, can

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I say like, gosh darn American on the podcast? Is that possible? Say that or is that against the rules? Sure.

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I think you can. I think you can. Okay. It makes me feel good, man, to know that you're involved.

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That's right. No, it's good. My students are great. Well, John, you've already thrown out in the way only you can, bro.

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The over public coverage already. Yeah, sorry about that. You did. You outkicked your coverage. It was a little premature.

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It's okay. But it was still a good one. It was still very good. It was so good, impossible to resist.

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I agree. Oh, there you go. There we go. The dad joke transitions remain.

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We are batting 100 right now. We are batting 100. Amen. Well, for those of you that are...

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If this is your first episode, we're just going to let you know it only gets worse.

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No, just kidding. If this is your first episode, you're going to want to go back to point one, the total depravity, and begin there.

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Because what we're talking about today is only building on the last previous three episodes that we have had so far.

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We are working through the historic understanding of what has been known or dubbed as Calvinism or the doctrines of grace.

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And in that, historically, was given the an acronym TULIP. We're not going to go through to explain that.

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It's already been explained in the first episode, so you can go back and listen to that. And so today we are covering the I in TULIP.

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And the I stands for irresistible grace. And what we're going to be doing for the remainder of the podcast is explaining three parts.

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One, some confusion around that particular term where we understand sometimes if we don't define our terms, then people come up with all kinds of explanations that I would say

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Reformers and Calvinists never intended to communicate. Then we're going to talk about the biblical perspective of where this actually comes from.

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This is not a philosophical debate. We do believe that it comes from scripture, and we're going to try and demonstrate that to you.

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And then we'll follow it up with kind of the historic understanding of some important councils and clarifying some heresies that are centered around it.

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So let's start with, gentlemen, the confusion. In your guys' transition,

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I would believe both of you came from a non -Calvinistic background where you did not hold to growing up to an irresistible grace understanding of the gospel.

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What would you say are some of the things that you heard during that time and even now that you probably hear as it relates to understanding the grace of God coming towards sinners?

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I'll jump on that, Jon. I think one of the largest misconceptions or misnomers about irresistible grace is we tend to think of it as coercion, that God somehow is manipulating us into a state of grace with him, and that's not at all what we are talking about.

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That's not at all what the Reformers were talking about. That's not at all what the Canons of Dort, where a lot of these doctrines were first established, were talking about.

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But when we are talking about irresistible grace, we really have to think of it in terms of effectual call, and that is, how does the conversion process happen?

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What are the means by which God calls from death into life the sinner?

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To pick up on that idea of coercion, Jimmy, we want to be really clear that what we do not mean by irresistible grace, or I agree, the better term, effectual call, what we do not mean by that is that God somehow drags people by force, kicking and screaming into heaven, in one sense.

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He doesn't drag people kicking and screaming to Jesus. People do what they want to do, and we'll get to this more later in terms of unpacking positively what effectual call, irresistible grace is.

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But God actually works and acts sovereignly to liberate our wills and open our eyes, metaphorically speaking, so that we can actually see

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Christ for who He is. Then, in that moment, He is irresistible to us, and we do what we want to do and then come to Christ.

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So, do not hear us talking about this and think, God is just conquering people against their wills and forcing them to do things they don't want to do, and it's some kind of harsh mechanical transaction.

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That is not what we mean at all. I would say the confusion here is we look at God as some kind of a tyrant.

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Now, Scripture actually does talk of Satan in these terms, where he entices people, he drags them in and enslaves them, he chains them.

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We hear of the word bondage to his will, and that is the description of Satan.

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When it comes to the nature of God, that is not what we hear. So, when we hear the word irresistible, often we think of a man grabbing a woman and throwing her into a car, or an adult overpowering a child.

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So, it's this dirty feeling. When the writers that were responding to this, they had in their mind a very kind, tender, loving, abundantly gracious, and merciful

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God who was presenting so much grace and it's so glorious that ones who look at it take a whiff and take a look and say,

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I must have that. That is so wonderful. It's so glorious. We are a few weeks away from Thanksgiving, and we all know you're sitting in there, you're watching football, and all of a sudden you get a whiff from the kitchen.

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There's almost this feel of, I have to have it. That food, I can't resist it.

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It's like all diets are off. It's irresistible. That's the feeling of the grace we're speaking of, where it's this enticement of joy.

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It's this longing for, not this dragging force of denial.

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Justin Perdue So, in our experience, the way this often goes is we are experiencing, hearing the preaching of Christ.

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We are all sitting, in that sense, underneath the general call of the gospel. We all agree on this show that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

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That's the means that God uses. So, in that moment, as people are hearing the gospel and the message of Christ crucified for sinners,

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His work in our place is heralded, God the Holy Spirit shows up in that moment and does a work that is gracious.

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When He shows up and does that work, John, just like you just described, the sinner in that point in time says something effectively like this,

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I don't know everything, and I don't have it all figured out, but the one thing that I know right now is that I need

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Christ, and He is absolutely irresistible to me. I see Him held out to me, and it's like,

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I don't know everything, but I know that I need and want Him, and I'm running to Christ in faith.

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That's what we're talking about, not some kind of horrible experience where God is just overcoming people and they're doing what they don't want to do, or the flip side of that coin, it's where there are all these people that want to be in heaven and actually want to come to faith in Christ but cannot.

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When we think of irresistible grace, it's so important that we do not root that truth in what we do or what our response is, but rather, we root that, we root irresistible grace, we root effectual call in the fruit of the

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Spirit's enlightening and illuminating work on our hearts. We have been going through 1

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Corinthians as just a young church for the past few weeks, and particularly, what

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I'm thinking of is 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, the natural person does not accept the things of the

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Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

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I think it's so important to make that note, that it's not like we are in this neutral place with God, that we stand before Him, or we listen before the preaching of the

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Word, and we are in this neutral place, but rather, we are dead. Without the effectual call of the

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Spirit opening our eyes to see the glories of Christ, and the mercies of Christ, and the graces of Christ in the gospel, we remain in our dead state.

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Irresistible grace is not what we do, it's not our response, but rather, it is so rooted in this

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God -centered view of conversion in total, that God has effectually called us through the preaching of the

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Word, by the Spirit, to draw us to our knees and our need for Christ.

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Yeah, this prodigal son would be a great example in this, is that when the son was far off, what is it that he thought of?

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He thought of his father's grace, and unfortunately, he thought, well, he'll be gracious to me, at least as a servant.

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What drew the son back was understanding his father would be gracious to him. This is also

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Romans chapter 2, verse 4, and Paul rebukes them and says, do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead to repentance?

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When God is leading sinners into his presence and bringing them so that they might come from death to life, it is that tender father who—one illustration

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I would give is that a child who goes out, parties, breaks the law, is arrested, and is now sitting in county jail and has to that phone call.

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When he makes that phone call, you've got two kinds of fathers, and some, unfortunately, think of,

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I can't call my dad because he'll kill me. I'm going to call someone else. What Scripture tells us is that no, the first phone call is

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God because he is the one who is the kind, loving father who will come and redeem you from your sin.

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That is the irresistible that we're talking about, is that when you actually understand your situation, which can only come, as Jimmy just said, by the means of the

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Spirit. When you actually understand your situation, the grace of God is so wonderful, it makes it the only logical conclusion that you're going to trust on Christ.

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Another way of saying that is it's irresistible to anything else. One passage that describes very well what we're talking about here is found in Acts chapter 16, verse 14, most pointedly.

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There we read about the conversion of a woman named Lydia. Paul and others are in Philippi.

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They're preaching the gospel, and Luke describes it this way. Verse 13 of Acts 16, and on the

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Sabbath day, we went outside to the gate, to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.

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One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods who was a worshiper of God.

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Then these words, the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

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The Lord opened her heart. God came in and did a gracious work in the life of this woman.

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Her heart was opened, the text says, to hear what Paul was saying about Jesus. That's what the

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Lord does for all of us who have come to faith in Christ. We could think of so many other texts where God promises that He is going to do things on behalf of His people for His own sake.

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Not because we deserve it, but because of His purposes of grace and mercy. We think of the New Covenant passages found in the

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Old Testament, like Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31, where God uses language of, I'm going to take out your heart of stone, and I'm going to give you a heart of flesh, and I'm going to put my spirit within you.

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He says that He will write His law in our hearts, and no one will need to teach his neighbor to know the

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Lord because you will know me, and I'm going to do all these things. As we describe this effectual calling, we're just trying to put words to the clear witness of Scripture in terms of how

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God works so that people respond. Jimmy, you said effectual call is not grounded in us or our response.

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The effectual call of God produces the response. Even the faith and the repentance and all those things are gifts from God as well.

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As God works in us by His Spirit, He does that sovereign, gracious work. We then respond in repentance and faith that are also given to us by God.

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All of that is effectual. It is, without doubt, God produces it graciously, and then we do act in response.

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Jon Moffitt So, to build on total depravity, we've already established that everyone is born into sin, and they are born spiritually not capable of choosing

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God for their salvation. They're capable of doing that. Ephesians 2 is an example.

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The idea of God making a change in someone so they go from death to life or they believe in grace starts actually at the very beginning of the story of the world.

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If you turn to Genesis 3 .15, this is where the fall happens. This is where you have the inauguration of depravity.

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In this situation, God looks at the woman and the man, and He looks at Satan, to whom they will now be enslaved to.

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Adam and Eve, all of their children from this moment on will be children of wrath, which is what

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Ephesians 2 says. This is the promise that God makes from the very beginning of the fall for the rest of the book and for the world.

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This is what He says in Genesis 3 .15. I will put enmity between you and the woman.

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What He means by that is that I'm going to be the one who separates this fallen nature away from you, the devil,

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Satan, the serpent, and between your offspring and her offspring. Then He prophesies of Jesus.

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How is this going to be accomplished? It's going to be the seed that's coming. The very first mention of this act of God, where He actually goes in and does something to us, is the beginning of the very first promise of the gospel in Genesis 3 .15.

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We are excited to announce that we have a new free e -book available at our website called

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Faith vs. Faithfulness, a Primer on Rest. We, the hosts, put this together to explain the difference between emphasizing one's faith in Christ versus emphasizing one's faithfulness to Christ and how one leads to rest and how the other often to a lack of assurance.

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You can get this at theocast .org slash primer. If you've been encouraged by what you've been hearing at Theocast, we'd ask you to help partner with us.

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You can do that by joining our Total Access membership. That's our monthly membership that gives you access to all of our material that we've produced over the last four years, or simply by donating to our ministry.

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You can do that by going to our website, theocast .org. We hope that you enjoy the rest of the conversation.

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The men around these microphones, our church is subscribed to the 1689

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London Baptist Confession, and chapter 10, paragraph 2 of that confession says this, "...this

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effectual call flows from God's free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in those called.

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Neither does the call arise from any power or action on their part. They are totally passive in it.

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They are dead in sins and trespasses until they are made alive and renewed by the Holy Spirit. By this, they are enabled to answer this call and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.

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This response is enabled by a power that is no less than that which raised Christ from the dead."

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Really, I don't want to jump the gun here, but rather than seeing this doctrine, rather than seeing this truth as this manipulative

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God that coerces people and manipulates people and tricks people into heaven, rather this is such a sweet place of rest and assurance that I can rest that any spiritual life within me is a total and free and gracious gift of God by the

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Holy Spirit. Again, pointing back to 1 Corinthians 1, 1 Corinthians 2, the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, 1

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Corinthians 1 .18, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God that by any stretch of the imagination that we look at Christ and we see him in any amount of loveliness, it is because the

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Spirit of God has given us the grace to do so. Justin Perdue I'm mindful of Peter's confession of Jesus as the

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Christ, as Matthew records it, when Jesus says, who do all these other people say that I am?

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The disciples answer, and then he says, but who do you say that I am? Peter speaks up and he says, you're the Christ. You're the

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Holy One of God, the Son of the Living God, and Jesus says, blessed are you, Peter, Barjona, son of John, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but who has?

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My Father who is in heaven. So any person who has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who has come to trust in Christ, that faith, that understanding is not of ourselves.

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It is something that God has done. It is this very thing we're talking about, this effectual call. I'm also mindful of the language of Romans 8 and 30, where we see that there is a kind of calling that is tethered inextricably to justification and sanctification and glorification.

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There is the general call of the gospel, absolutely, that goes out to everyone who hears the gospel, but then there is an effectual call that God gives to his elect, those whom he has predestined.

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So we read in Romans 8 and 29, for those whom he foreknew, he being God, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his

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Son. There's sanctification. Those whom he predestined, he also called. Those whom he called, he also justified.

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Those whom he justified, he also glorified. So we see this unbreakable chain, as it's often been called.

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I think William Perkins, the Puritan, was the first one to say it that way. But we see in that chain, the foreknowledge of God, the predestination, the purposes of God, and then that also plays itself out in this effectual call of God that then results in our justification and our glorification.

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Awesome. So gentlemen, I think I want to stop and throw in for those who are transitioning or curious.

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They may not agree. I think they are going to put in some argumentation here. So I a lot of what's being said, many who would not call themselves

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Calvinist and not be monergistic or sovereign understanding in this area would say,

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I too believe that God graciously draws everyone and that everyone has this drawing, but that some choose to not take him on this call.

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So there's an equal draw. And they too would say, I don't like irresistible,

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I like effectual. Can I jump in? You're absolutely. The idea that the call and the drawing in particular, to use your language,

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John, if somebody were to say, yeah, I agree that nobody can come to God unless God acts in grace and I believe that all people are drawn and then we need to make the decision.

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Which is actually probably the more popular evangelical perspective. Sure, it is.

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It doesn't square with the Bible. A number of places we could go. Immediately, my mind goes to John chapter six, though, where Jesus is saying all kinds of hard things about himself, how he's the bread of life and people need to eat his flesh and drink his blood and all these kinds of things.

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And people are grumbling. He makes comments too about all that the Father gives me will come to me.

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Whoever comes to me, I'll never cast out. I'm not going lose any that the Father gives to me, but I'm going to raise him up on the last day and all of this.

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And the Jews who are listening to him start to argue amongst themselves. And this is like verse 42, 41, 42, 43 of John six.

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Well, then Jesus looks at them and tells them not to grumble amongst themselves. Verse 43, because verse 44, no one can come to me unless the

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Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. So for Christ, the effectual drawing piece is what is to settle this kind of argument amongst the

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Jews, and they're wrestling with him and what he's saying. It would make no sense in that context for Jesus to say, hey, don't argue about me, guys, amongst yourselves.

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Nobody can come to me unless the Father draws him to me. Oh, but God draws everybody.

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It absolutely just does not work in the context. And he goes on to say other things that I can elaborate on, but I want to let you jump in on this.

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I think the closing point on that is that Jesus says everyone that the

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Father does draw, he loses none. So you either have to be a universalist or there's some other way of understanding that phrase.

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For me, that's probably what nailed it when I was researching this. I don't even know how many years ago.

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I don't even want to carry a count. But that was at that moment I went, oh, yeah, if he draws everyone and everyone he draws, he loses none.

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I have to believe that you can either lose your salvation or number two, he's not talking about everybody.

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Justin Perdue So, Jimmy, can I just finish with John 6 really quick? Where I would go next is later on in the chapter when he's talking to his disciples, and he asks them basically, everybody's leaving, do you want to also?

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And then Peter responds, you've got the words of eternal life and all these kinds of things. Jesus tells them that in the context of that conversation, that it's the

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Spirit who gives life, that the flesh is of no help at all. The words that I've spoken to you are spirit and life. Then he says this, but there are some of you who do not believe.

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For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him. And he said, this is why

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I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father. So Christ is reiterating,

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I know there are some of you who don't believe. I know who you are. This is why I told you that no one can come unless the

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Father draws him to me. To make it quite clear that there are two kinds of people, either people who are not drawn by the

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Father and people who are, and those who are drawn by the Father will come to Christ. That's how Jesus understands it.

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Jimmy, please. Jimmy Buehler quote, unquote, evangelism track, where he's telling

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Nicodemus, this is the process by which you become a Christian.

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Rather, what Jesus is doing is saying, this is how the Spirit moves. The Spirit blows where it wishes.

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You don't see it. You do not see it, but the Spirit rebirths people.

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I have a quote here from Michael Horton that I think is very helpful, where he says this, it is in relation to our sinful condition that our will is bound with our whole nature to unbelief and idolatry.

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Calvinism also denies that God is active in the condemnation of the non -elect as he is in the salvation of the elect.

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Not only can God's grace be resisted, it is always resisted by the fallen heart until the

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Spirit opens our eyes to behold the glory of God in the face of Again, this effectual call, we have to get ourselves out of the driver's seat.

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The driver's seat is the Spirit of God working through means, working through the faith -giving preaching of the word, the preaching of the gospel, the enunciation that Christ is for sinners, and that comes into the ears of actual people.

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The Spirit uses sinful preachers to awaken the hearts of sinful men to the glories of Christ.

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I just have one quick thing to add to that. I think this is why Ephesians 2 .8 and 9 are so helpful.

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I think Paul nails it down, the nail in the coffin when he says, so that no one may boast.

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If you can say, I logically chose to follow Jesus and that was of my own choosing, you actually do have reasons to boast because that was a wise choice.

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Justin Perdue It's true. The way that it's often presented in the common evangelical view that we're discussing is that God works graciously and draws everybody universally.

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A lot of times how that's framed is in this provenient grace idea, and that's kind of classical

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Arminian theology, which we may talk later about how a lot of what goes on in evangelicalism is not even that.

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It's semi -Pelagian, if not Pelagian theology that was condemned in the fifth century.

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The way people often think of it is that God has done enough by his grace that he has kind of reset everything and has leveled the playing field in one sense.

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Now we make the decision, good or bad, the wise choice or the unwise one. People are always wrestling with this reality.

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You've got two people sitting in a pew. They both hear the same gospel from the same preacher. One is absolutely wrecked and broken and is coming to Christ joyfully, and the other person is just like, no, thanks.

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Everybody has to wrestle with that reality as to why that is the case.

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Why did the person who came to Christ come to Christ, and then why is it that the other person did not?

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Our answer throughout this series has been, well, it has nothing to do with the human being.

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Our merit, our level of sin, how hardened we've been by sin, how smart we are.

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It has everything to do with the effective grace of God to regenerate one.

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Then with the other, Jimmy, to your point, he leaves many in our sin so that we continue to do what we want to do, and that is not to follow

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Christ. Jimmy Buehler Right. Frankly, I know I've said this before, and I know we've all said this before, but everybody prays like a

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Calvinist, or to say everybody prays for their non -saved friends and family members.

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That's right, like somebody who believes in the total sovereignty of God and the work of salvation and conversion.

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I've heard nobody in my life, and I know

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I'm pray for more provenient grace. What do we pray for?

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We pray for God's effectual, electrifying, life -saving grace that works through the hearts of men to save them.

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Justin Perdue I pray, save my kids, save my dad. What you're saying is we're just asking people to talk in public like they pray in private.

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Jimmy Buehler There you go. That's one way to put it. Justin Perdue I know you guys had some quotes, and I think it'd be helpful to understand that this debate is a very, very long debate.

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What I mean by long is it's old. It's been happening for over 1 ,500 years, 1 ,600 years, and this is not new.

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In some ways, what's funny is people love to say, well, if it hasn't been settled for 1 ,600 years, what makes you think we're going to settle it now?

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My answer to that is what makes you think it hasn't been settled? When this first started to come about in a more popular and,

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I would say, broader -based influence was by a man by the name of Pelagius. This is where you have a battle that's happening between Augustine, who is trying to help understand.

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By no means are we saying that this man's theology is perfect in all areas, but in some ways he did understand the depravity of man.

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When we say heresy, it is a heresy of Pelagian. He was teaching that humanity is actually born neutral.

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They're not born underneath Adam. They're not born underneath sin. They choose to sin.

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I know that you guys wanted to speak to that and even had some quotes back from the councils who were dealing with that.

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I just wanted to throw that out there. Guys, talk to us about how, if we don't get this right, Pelagianism – maybe one of you guys could even give a definition of semi -Pelagian – is how dangerous this is as it relates to our understanding of the gospel.

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Justin Perdue Pelagianism, you've already started to talk about it. He, Pelagius, was a monk in the fourth, fifth century who taught that, like you said, men are born free.

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We're born neutral. We are not born corrupt in Adam the way that we would understand it biblically and certainly from a reformed perspective.

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Man has it within himself to make the good decision and to not sin and to do what is required to stand before God.

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He was condemned as a heretic in the fifth century, and he was a contemporary of Augustine, Augustine.

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People say it both ways. I think there's a podcast to be had about which pronunciation is correct, perhaps.

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I typically say Augustine, though I am cool with people that say Augustine.

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I have no rise in blood pressure when somebody says it the other way. How about you,

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Jimmy? I say Augustine, but that's just me. That's fine. That's cool. I want to jump in and give a quote here from the

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Five Points of Calvinism by Edward Palmer. Speaking of Pelagianism, he says,

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As a matter of fact, some are even sinless. Thus, according to Pelagianism, there is no need for the

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Holy Spirit or His irresistible grace to help man do good.

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Such teaching is a theology of paganism, or it's a pagan theology.

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It's helpful to understand, and this is where, unfortunately, a lot of Christians are ignorant of church history and what the church has rejected.

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But just to understand, the idea that Pelagian is producing was rejected by the

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Christian church in the Synod of Carthage in 1418, and then again, it had to be rejected by the

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Council of Ephesus in 431, and then the Synod of Orange in 529. It kept popping up with different theologies and different angles, and they had to keep shooting it down, saying, no, this is actually anti -gospel.

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We cannot allow this to be taught. Then, you jump a thousand years later, and you're having the same issue again.

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I know, Justin, you had something you wanted to read to that as well. Justin Perdue Pelagianism is condemned twice in the 5th century, once in the 6th, and then these same issues arise again, like you said, a millennium later.

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There's nothing new under the sun. Heresies are so often not new. They are cyclical. They just come back again, and they need to be refuted again.

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So the men who met in 1618 -1619 and had the

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Synod of Dort, the meeting as it's known, that produced the Canons of Dort, in the third and fourth heads of doctrine,

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Article 11, it reads this way on the Holy Spirit's work in conversion, and this language is beautiful. But when

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God accomplishes his good pleasure in the elect or works in them true conversion, he not only causes the gospel to be externally preached to them and powerfully illuminates their mind by his

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Holy Spirit, that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God, but by the efficacy of the same regenerating

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Spirit, he pervades the inmost recesses of the man. He opens the closed and softens the hardened heart and circumcises that which was uncircumcised, infuses new qualities into the will, which though heretofore dead, he quickens.

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From being evil, disobedient, and refractory, he renders it good, obedient, and pliable.

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He actuates and strengthens it, that like a good tree, it may bring forth the fruits of good actions."

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That sounds just like Augustine and what he would say in making the unwilling will willing in the

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Spirit's work in illuminating the intellect and freeing people from blindness, that God the Holy Spirit produces faith, creates goodwill, creates love for good, creates the capacity to do good.

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Augustine also said of God's grace that it has its way, without exception, with the human will, and it is not rejected by any human heart, no matter how hard, because God by grace takes away the heart of stone and puts a heart of flesh in its place.

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Saints through history, in other words, have been saying these exact same things that we're saying on this podcast today. This is not some new idea that we have, and it's a debate that's been raging that's true for a long time, but there have always been those who have understood it this way, and the church has understood it this way historically, and that matters.

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We'll use this time to transition into our members' podcast. We've got a couple minutes left.

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To be clear, Justin and Jimmy, we are not saying that if you do not hold our position of irresistible grace, you are a heretic.

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We are not saying that. The church did not condemn a denial of irresistible grace.

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They condemned the counteraction of everyone is equally sinless at birth.

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That would be different. They condemned Pelagianism. We could have this conversation.

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They did not condemn historical Arminianism as a heresy.

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They rejected it, but they did not condemn it as heretical. That's the same as on our podcast, where if someone said,

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I believe that the healing that was seen by Paul in the New Testament and the New Testament church is still for the day, it's normative, everybody can heal, we would reject that conclusion, but we would not call it heretical.

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That would be an example on that. Sometimes, unfortunately,

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Calvinists have been quoted as saying, if you are not basically believing in the same understanding of election and predestination and irresistible grace as we do, then you actually don't believe the gospel, and you're a nonbeliever, or you're a heretic.

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I do not believe that is the historic Reformed position. Justin Perdue It's a good word,

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John, and it's important that we're clear on that. One last thought before we transition to the members.

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You guys jump in and add anything else you want. Old hymns are really useful for all kinds of reasons.

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They teach really good theology and really good doctrine. Look up hymns by Isaac Watts, Horatius Bonar, Augustus Toplady, John Newton, guys like that, and you'll be edified by them.

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Isaac Watts wrote a hymn called How Sweet and Awful is the Place, where he asks and answers this most troubling question.

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He asks it in one verse where he writes, Why was I made to hear thy voice and enter while there's room, when thousands make a wretched choice and rather starve than come?

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Why is it that I chose Christ and came to him when so many reject him? Then he answers it in the very next verse,

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Twas the same love that spread the feast that sweetly drew us in, else we had still refused to taste and perished in our sin.

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He writes so beautifully of the fact that if it were not for the grace of God that drew me to Christ, I would be just like those others who refuse to come and who perish in their sin.

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These are just very beautiful words that speak to this really deep, perplexing question that we all wrestle with.

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Tim Cynova Well, I would say as we get ready to transition into the members podcast, that what

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I would throw out there is for those of you that have been around Reformed Theology for a while or listened to Theocast, sometimes when someone says they actually embrace the five points of Calvinism, they end up denying it in their application.

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We'll explain what we mean by that when it comes to irresistible grace. Somehow it becomes resistible because we don't repent enough.

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Repentance and irresistible grace coming your way. So, friends, it seems that our friend

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John Moffitt is ready to roll over to the members area and maybe take the gloves off a little bit.

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It's late afternoon. This is not our normal recording slot, so who knows what's going to happen. This could be good entertainment once we get over to the members side of things.

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So if you'd like to join us over there, find your way to theocast .org and you can learn more information about our

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Total Access membership, where you will get access to all kinds of premium content, including the members podcast that would show up in your podcast feed once a week.

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You'll get to join in on conversations like the one we're about to have. Here we go over there.