Sermon Tone Analysis

*1. TEACHING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION*

THE Westminster Confession states the doctrine of Efficacious Grace thus: — “All those whom God has predestinated unto life, and those only, He is pleased, in His appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly, to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that which is good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace.

“This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from any thing at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed by it.”1

And the Shorter Catechism, in answer to the question ‘What is effectual calling?” says, “Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, He doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the Gospel.”2

*2.

NECESSITY FOR THE CHANGE*

The merits of Christ’s obedience and suffering are sufficient for, adapted to, and freely offered to all men.

The question then arises, Why is one saved, and another lost?

What causes some men to repent and believe, while others, with the same external privileges, reject the Gospel and continue in impenitence and unbelief?

The Calvinist says that it is God who makes this difference, that he efficaciously persuades some to come to Him; but the Arminian ascribes it to the men themselves.

As Calvinists we hold that the condition of men since the fall is such that if left to themselves they would continue in their state of rebellion and refuse all offers of salvation.

Christ would then have died in vain.

But since it was promised that He should see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied, the effects of that sacrifice have not been left suspended upon the whim of man’s changeable and sinful will.

Rather, the work of God in redemption has been rendered effective through the mission of the Holy Spirit who so operates on the chosen people that they are brought to repentance and faith, and thus made heirs of eternal life.

The teaching of the Scriptures is such that we must say that man in his natural state is radically corrupt, and that he can never become holy and happy through any power of his own.

He is spiritually dead, and must be saved by Christ if at all.

Common reason tells us that if a man is so fallen so to be at enmity with God, that enmity must be removed before he can have any desire to do God’s will.

If a sinner is to desire redemption through Christ, he must receive a new disposition.

He must be born again, and from above (John 3:8).

It is easy enough for us to see that the Devil and the demons would have to be thus sovereignly changed if they were ever to be saved; yet the innate sinful principles which actuate fallen man are of the same nature, although not yet so intense, as are those which actuate fallen angels.

If man is dead in sin, then nothing short of this supernatural life-giving power of the Holy Spirit will ever cause him to do that which is spiritually good.

If it were possible for him to enter heaven while still possessed of the  old nature, then, for him, heaven would be as bad as hell; for he would be out of harmony with his environment.

He would loathe its very atmosphere and would be in misery when in the presence of God.

Hence the necessity for the inward work of the Holy Spirit.

In the nature of the case the first movement toward salvation can no more come from man than his body if dead could originate its own life.

Regeneration is a sovereign gift of God, graciously bestowed on those whom He has chosen; and for this great recreative work God alone is competent.

It cannot be granted on the foresight of anything good in the subjects of this saving change, for in their unrenewed nature they are incapable of acts with right motives toward God; hence none could possibly be foreseen.

In his unregenerate state man never adequately realizes his utterly helpless condition.

He imagines that he is able to reform himself and turn to God if he chooses.

He even imagines that he is able to counteract the designs of infinite Wisdom, and to defeat the agency of Omnipotence itself.

As Dr. Warfield says, “Sinful man stands in need, not of inducements or assistance to save himself, but precisely of saving; and Jesus Christ has come not to advise, or urge, or woo, or help him to save himself, but to save him.”

*3.

AN INWARD CHANGE WROUGHT BY SUPERNATURAL POWER*

In the Scriptures this change is called a regeneration (Titus 3:5), a spiritual resurrection which is wrought by the same mighty power with which God wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead (Eph.

1:19,20), a calling out of darkness into God’s marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9), a passing out of death into life (John 5:24), a new birth (John 3:3), a making alive (Col.

2:13), a taking away of the heart of stone and giving of a heart of flesh (Ezek.

11:19), and the subject of the change /is /said to be a new creature (II Cor.

5:17).

Such descriptions completely refute the Arminian notion that regeneration is primarily man’s act, Induced by moral persuasion or the mere Influence of the truth as presented in a general way by the Holy Spirit.

And just because this change is produced by power from on high which is the living spring of a new and recreated life, it is irresistible and permanent.

The regeneration of the soul is something which is wrought in us, and not an act performed by us.

It is an instantaneous change from spiritual death to spiritual life.

It is not even a thing of which we are conscious at the moment it occurs, but rather something which lies lower than consciousness.

At the moment of its occurrence the soul is as passive as was Lazarus when he was called back to life by Jesus.

Concerning the soul in regeneration Charles Hodge says:

It is the subject, and not the agent of the change.

The soul cooperates, or, is active in what precedes and in what follows the change, but the change itself is something experienced, and not something done.

The blind and the lame, who came to Christ, may have undergone much labor in getting into His presence, and they joyfully exerted the new power imparted to them, but they were entirely passive in the moment of the healing.

They in no way co-operated in the production of that effect.

The same is true in regeneration.3

And again he says:

The same doctrine on this subject is taught in other words when regeneration is declared to be a new birth.

At birth the child enters upon a new state of existence.

Birth is not its own act.

It is born.

It comes from a state of darkness, in which the objects adapted to its nature cannot act on it or awaken its activities.

As soon as it comes into the world all its faculties are awakened; it sees, feels, and hears, and gradually unfolds all its faculties as a rational and moral, as well as a physical being.

The scriptures teach that it is thus in regeneration.

The soul enters upon a new state.

It is introduced into a new world.

A whole class of objects before unknown or unappreciated are revealed to it, and exercise upon it their appropriate influence.4

Regeneration involves an essential change of character.

It is a making the tree good in order that the fruit may be good.

As a result of this change, the person passes from a state of unbelief to one of saving faith, not by any process of research or argument, but of inward experience.

And as we had nothing to do with our physical birth, but received it as a sovereign gift of God, we likewise have nothing to do with our spiritual birth but receive it also as a sovereign gift.

Each occurred without any exercise of our own power, and even without our consent being asked.

We no more resist the latter than we resist the former.

And as we go ahead and live our own natural lives after being born, so we go ahead and work out our own salvation after being regenerated.

The Scriptures pointedly teach that the prerequisite for entrance into the Kingdom of God is a radical transformation wrought by the Spirit of God Himself.

And since this work on the soul is sovereign and supernatural it may be granted or withheld according to the good pleasure of God.

Consequently, salvation, to whomsoever it may be granted, is entirely of grace.

The born-again Christian comes to see that God is in reality “the author and perfecter” of his faith (Heb.

12:2), and that in this respect He has done a work for him which He has not done for his unconverted neighbor.

In answer to the question, “Who maketh thee to differ?

And what hast thou that thou didst not receive?”

(I Cor.

4:7), he replies that it is God who has put the difference between men, especially between the redeemed and the lost.

If any person believes, it is because God has quickened him; and if any person fails to believe, it is because God has withheld that grace which He was under no obligation to bestow.

Strictly speaking there is no such thing as a “self-made” man; the highest type of man is the one who can say with Paul, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”

When Jesus said, “Lazarus, come forth,” a mighty power went along with the command and gave effect to it.

Lazarus, of course, was not conscious of any other than his own power working in him; but when he later understood the situation he undoubtedly saw that he had been called into life wholly by divine power.

God’s power was primary, his was secondary, and would never have been exerted except in response to the divine.

It is in this manner that every redeemed soul is brought from spiritual death to spiritual life.

And just as the dead Lazarus was first called back into life and then breathed and ate, so the soul dead in sin is first transferred to spiritual life and then exercises faith and repentance and does good works.

Paul emphasized this very point when he said that although Paul might plant and Apollos might water, it was God who gave the increase.

Mere human efforts are unavailing.

If a crop of wheat is to be raised, man can do only the most external and mechanical things toward that end.

It is God who gives the increase through the sovereign control of forces which are entirely outside the sphere of man’s influence.

Likewise, in regard to the soul it matters not how eloquent the preacher may be, unless God opens the heart there will be no conversion.

Here especially man does only the most external and mechanical things and it is the Holy Spirit who imparts the new principle of spiritual life.

The Scripture doctrine of the fail represents man as morally ruined, unable by nature to do any good thing.

The truly converted Christian comes to see his inability and knows that he does not make himself eligible for heaven by his own good works and merits.

He realizes that he cannot move spiritually but as he is moved; that like the branches of a tree, he can make no shoot, nor put forth leaves, nor bear fruit, except as he receives sap from the root.

Or, as Calvin says, “No man makes himself a sheep, but is created such by divine grace.”

The elect hear the Gospel and believe — not always at the first hearing, but at the divinely appointed time — the non-elect hear but disbelieve, not because they lack sufficient evidence, but because their inward nature is opposed to holiness.

The reason for the two kinds of response is to be traced to an external source.

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh,” Ezek.

36:26.

The “heart” in Biblical language includes the whole inner man.

Under the terms of the eternal covenant which was made between the Father and the Son, Christ has been exalted to be the mediatorial Ruler over the whole earth in order that He may direct the developing kingdom.

This is one of the rewards of His obedience and suffering.

His directing power is exerted through the agency of the Holy Spirit, through whom His purchased redemption is applied to all for whom it was intended and under the precise conditions of time and circumstance predetermined in the covenant.

We are told that it is by no ordinary providence of God that a man believes but by the same mighty power that was exerted when Christ was raised from the dead (Eph.

1:19, 20).

As certainly as it was effective in the resurrection of Christ it will be effective when put forth in an individual, whether in a physical or a spiritual resurrection.