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Do you remember how last week’s explanation of total depravity ended? Here’s a hint: It was bad news. Doubly bad, really. We left things at an impasse with no hope of a way forward, at least humanly speaking.
Since the fall, every one of us is both naturally unable to submit to God’s commands and unable to come to Christ for salvation. Out of a natural hostility to God, we persistently refuse to do what pleases him, and we don’t have the will or the power to change ourselves. It’s obvious that any solution to the problem, if there is one, has to come from God’s action and not our own. And this is where irresistible grace comes in.
This is another name, by the way, that I’d change if I could, because like the term total depravity, the term irresistible grace confuses people. The grace half is okay, reminding us that this act of God does not happen to us because we merit it. We don’t do something to call out this work from God. But irresistible suggests a force causing people to act against their wills, and that is, I suspect, where the famous “kicking and screaming into the kingdom” caricature of the doctrine of irresistible grace originates.
A better and more accurate name for this gracious solution to the problem of our natural inability is effective call. Effective because it gets the results, and call because that’s one of the words scripture uses for this work of God that overcomes our depravity.
For instance, call is what Paul calls it in 1 Corinthians 1:
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor. 1:22-24 ESV)
Paul’s message of the gospel, he says, is going out to Jews and Gentiles alike and there are two responses to it. Generally speaking, people reject it. The reasons for the rejection differ depending on the ethnic and religious background of the hearers, but the outcome is the same: They refuse to come to Christ for salvation. You probably recognize this as the second half of the double whammy of the inability of total depravity—the inability come to Christ for salvation.
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