Theological Term of the Week

irresistible grace
The teaching that God’s saving grace is effectually applied to those whom he has chosen to save, causing their natural enmity toward him to disappear so that they willingly repent and believe in Jesus. See also effectual call.

• From scripture:
  

  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:44 ESV)
  

  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. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.  (Acts 16:14 ESV)

  And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:3-6 ESV)

• From The Canons of Dordt, Head III-IV, Article 11:

  [W]hen God … works true conversion in [his chosen ones], he not only sees to it that the gospel is proclaimed to them outwardly, and enlightens their minds powerfully by the Holy Spirit so that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God, but, by the effective operation of the same regenerating Spirit, he also penetrates into the inmost being of man, opens the closed heart, softens the hard heart, and circumcises the heart that is uncircumcised. He infuses new qualities into the will, making the dead will alive, the evil one good, the unwilling one willing, and the stubborn one compliant; he activates and strengthens the will so that, like a good tree, it may be enabled to produce the fruits of good deeds.
  

• From Living for God’s Glory by Joel Beeke:

  Unfortunately, the term irresistible can suggest capricious force or violence to a sinner’s will. To some, it conveys the picture of a mother sitting her child at the kitchen table with spinach and liver and saying, “Eat!” But that is not the meaning… Though the irresistible grace of God in calling sinners is forceful and compelling, it works in such a way that the sinner’s will is so renewed that he comes to Christ gladly and willingly. If you are a believer, you know that when grace took hold of you, it brought you willingly and lovingly to what God had predetermined for you. No one in history has ever done anything more willingly and more lovingly than those who receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Think of Lydia (Acts 16:14-15) and the Philippians jailor (Acts 16:30-34); they were not saved against their wills.
  
  On the other hand, God must work within the sinner to make him willing to come to Christ. John 6:44 says that unless the Father “draws” him, a sinner will not believe the gospel. The original word for draw implies a certain compelling force. Is is used in John 21:6-11 of fishermen dragging a net. Elsewhere, it is used of Paul and Silas’s being “dragged” by a mob. (Acts 16:19) and of the “dragging” of poor men into court by rich men (James 2:6). The idea is that a superiour force is so exerted upon an object or person the the one doing the dragging is successful.

Learn more:

1. GotQuestions.org: Irresistible Grace - is it Biblical?
2. John Piper: Irresistible Grace
3. John Murray: Irresistible Grace
4. Brian Schwertly: Irresistible Grace
5. Sinclair Ferguson: Irresistable Grace (audio)

Related terms:

• effectual call
• external call
• grace alone
• limited atonement
• monergism
• perseverance of the saints
• total depravity
• unconditional election

Filed under Reformed Theology.

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it.

I’m also interested in any suggestions you have for tweaking my definitions or for additional (or better) articles or sermons/lectures for linking. I’ll give you credit and a link back to your blog if I use your suggestion.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms organized in alphabetical order or by topic.

Theological Term of the Week

covenant
A relation between the Lord and a people whom he has sovereignly consecrated to himself;1 an unchangeable, divinely imposed legal agreement between God and man that stipulates the conditions of their relationship.2

• From scripture:
  

  Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” 4 And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. 6 And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. 7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” 8 And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
  (Exodus 24:3-8 ESV)
  

  But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
  
  8 For he finds fault with them when he says:
  

  “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,
  when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel
  and with the house of Judah,
  9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers
  on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
  For they did not continue in my covenant,
  and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
  10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
  after those days, declares the Lord:
  I will put my laws into their minds,
  and write them on their hearts,
  and I will be their God,
  and they shall be my people.
  11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
  and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
  for they shall all know me,
  from the least of them to the greatest.
  12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
  and I will remember their sins no more.”
  

  13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. (Hebrews 8:6-13 ESV)
  

• From The London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689, Chapter 9:

  1. The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience to him as their creator, yet they could never have attained the reward of life but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.

  2. Moreover, man having brought himself under the curse of the law by his fall, it pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace, wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved; and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life, his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe. 

  3. This covenant is revealed in the gospel; first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman, and afterwards by farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament; and it is founded in that eternal covenant transaction that was between the Father and the Son about the redemption of the elect; and it is alone by the grace of this covenant that all the posterity of fallen Adam that ever were saved did obtain life and blessed immortality, man being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those terms on which Adam stood in his state of innocency.

• From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof:

  The covenant idea developed in history before God made any formal use of the concept in the revelation of redemption. Covenants among men had been made long before God established His covenant with Noah and with Abraham, and this prepared men to understand the significance of a covenant in a world divided by sin, and helped them to understand the divine revelation, when it presented man’s relation to God as a covenant relation. This does not mean, however, that the covenant idea originated with man and was then borrowed by God as an appropriate form for the description of the mutual relationship between Himself and man. Quite the opposite is true; the archetype of all covenant life is found in the trinitarian being of God, and what is seen among men is but a faint copy (ectype) of this. God so ordered the life of man that the covenant idea should develop there as one of the pillars of social life, and after it had so developed, He formally introduced it as an expression of the existing relation between Himself and man. The covenant between God and man existed from the very beginning, and therefore the formal establishment of the covenant with Abraham.

• Jonathan Edwards on the new covenant:

  Christ has performed the condition of the new covenant. We can do nothing but only receive Christ and what he has done already. Salvation is not offered to us upon any condition, but freely and for nothing. We are to do nothing for it; we are only to take it. This taking and receiving is faith. It is not said, “If you will do so, you may have salvation; you may have the water of life;” but, “Come and take it; whosoever will, let him come.” It is very improper to say that a covenant is made with men, any otherwise than in Christ; for there is a vast difference between a free offer and a covenant. The covenant was made with Christ, and in him with his mystical body; and the condition of the covenant is Christ’s perfect obedience and sufferings. And that, that is made to men, is a free offer. That, which is commonly called the covenant of grace, is only Christ’s open and free offer of life, whereby he holds it out in his hand to sinners, and offers it without any condition.
  

Learn more:

1. Wayne Grudem: The Covenants Between God and Man
2. John Frame: Covenant and the Unity of Scripture
3. Meredith Kline: What Is a Covenant?
4. Grace Community: Definitions of Covenant (pdf)
   
5. Michael Lawrence: The Covenant of Works – Genesis 2:15-17 (mp3); The Covenant of Grace – Genesis 12:1-3 (mp3); The Covenant of Law – Deuteronomy 4 (mp3); The New Covenant – Jeremiah 31:27-34 (mp3)
6. Update: O. Palmer Robertson: Covenant of Creation (mp3); Covenant of Commencement (mp3); Covenant of Preservation - Noah (mp3); Covenant of Promise - Abraham (mp3); Covenant of Law - Moses (mp3); Covenant of the Kingdom - David (mp3).

Related terms:

• redemptive history

1John Frame, Salvation Belongs to the Lord
2Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology

This week’s term was suggested by Brandon Watson. Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it.

I’m also interested in any suggestions you have for tweaking my definitions or for additional (or better) articles or sermons/lectures for linking. I’ll give you credit and a link back to your blog if I use your suggestion.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms organized in alphabetical order or by topic.

Theological Term of the Week

inability
The teaching that fallen humans cannot “discern and choose God’s way because we have no natural inclination Godward; our hearts are in bondage to sin, and only the grace of regeneration can free us from that slavery”1; one aspect of total depravity.

• From scripture:
  

  For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:7-8 ESV)
  

  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 
  
  But there are some of you who do not believe.” (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 I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” (John 6:44, 64-65 ESV)
  

• From the London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689, Chapter 9:

  Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto. 
  

• From The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination by Loraine Boettner:

  Fallen man sees nothing desirable in “the One who is altogether lovely, the fairest among ten thousand.” He may admire Jesus as a man, but he wants nothing to do with Him as God, and he resists the outward holy influences of the Spirit with all his power. Sin, and not righteousness, has become his natural element so that he has no desire for salvation.

  Man’s fallen nature gives rise to a most obdurate blindness, stupidity, and opposition concerning the things of God. His will is under the control of a darkened understanding, which puts sweet for bitter, and bitter for sweet, good for evil, and evil for good. So far as his relations with God are concerned, he wills only that which is evil, although he wills it freely. Spontaneity and enslavement actually exist together.

  In other words, fallen man is so morally blind that he uniformly prefers and chooses evil instead of good, as do the fallen angels or demons. When the Christian is completely sanctified he reaches a state in which he uniformly prefers and chooses good, as do the holy angels. Both of these states are consistent with freedom and responsibility of moral agents. Yet while fallen man acts thus uniformly he is never compelled to sin, but does it freely and delights in it. His dispositions and desires are so inclined, and he acts knowingly and willingly from the spontaneous motion of the heart. This natural bias or appetite for that which is evil is characteristic of man’s fallen and corrupt nature, so that, as Job says, he “drinketh iniquity like water.” 

• From Human Inability by Charles Spurgeon:

  Permit me to show you wherein this inability of man really does lie. It lies deep in his nature. Through the fall, and through our own sin, the nature of man has become so debased, and depraved, and corrupt, that it is impossible for him to come to Christ without the assistance of God the Holy Spirit. Now, in trying to exhibit how the nature of man thus renders him unable to come to Christ, you must allow me just to take this figure. You see a sheep; how willingly it feeds upon the herbage! You never knew a sheep sigh after carrion; it could not live on lion’s food. Now bring me a wolf; and you ask me whether a wolf cannot eat grass, whether it cannot be just as docile and as domesticated as the sheep. I answer, no; because its nature is contrary thereunto. You say, “Well, it has ears and legs; can it not hear the shepherd’s voice, and follow him whithersoever he leadeth it?” I answer, certainly; there is no physical cause why it cannot do so, but its nature forbids, and therefore I say it cannot do so. Can it not be tamed? Cannot its ferocity be removed? Probably it may so far be subdued that it may become apparently tame; but there will always be a marked distinction between it and the sheep, because there is a distinction in nature. Now, the reason why man cannot come to Christ, is not because he cannot come, so far as his body or his mere power of mind is concerned, but because his nature is so corrupt that he has neither the will nor the power to come to Christ unless drawn by the Spirit.  
  

Learn more:

1. J. I. Packer: Inability
2. Kim Riddlebarger: The Canons of Dort, Third/Fourth Head of Doctrine, Article Three
3. Brian Schwertley: Total Depravity and Man’s Inability
4. Covenant of Grace Church: Man’s Moral Inability
5. Thomas Boston: Man’s Utter Inability to Rescue Himself
6. S. Lewis Johnson: Effects of the Fall, Part III (mp3 and transcript)

Related terms:

• fall (of man)
• free agency
• total depravity

1J. I. Packer, Concise Theology

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it.

I’m also interested in any suggestions you have for tweaking my definitions or for additional (or better) articles or sermons/lectures for linking. I’ll give you credit and a link back to your blog if I use your suggestion.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms organized in alphabetical order or by topic.