Order of Salvation - 3. Gospel Call

Tonight we're continuing our study of the order of salvation or the ordo salutis and previously we've studied the doctrine of election which I defined as God choosing some for salvation from before the foundation of the world. And then in the second week, we took some time to think about the question of free will. And that was both to clarify some questions arising from our discussion of election, as well as to sort of set up and prepare for conversation we're about to have tonight and then going into next time about the gospel call and regeneration. And so just very briefly to refresh what I talked about with regard to free will, I said there's really two key interrelating questions when we think about human will. First is, how does human choice work? And then second, how has the fall affected that? Okay, so the first question, how does human choice work? Well, there's these two basic philosophical views. There's a libertarianism, which understands choice to mean freedom to do otherwise. So that's when you have a choice, whereas compatibilism is the other view, which says choice means you're free to do what you want. You're free to choose according to your desires. And for a number of reasons, I argue that compatibilism is the view that's really more consistent with scripture. And compatibilism understands that the will is bound by the nature. So you're free to choose what you want, but you're also always gonna choose what you want, right? You're not gonna choose something contrary to your nature. And so that's one of the reasons why in the bigger picture, we call it compatibilism. The idea is that human choice is ultimately compatible with God's foreordination or his sort of sovereignty over all that comes to pass. Now, the second question, regarding free will is, OK, how has the fall affected our will? So we kind of thought, OK, so free will means we're free to do what we want. And that continues after the fall. The fall doesn't take away our capacity to choose. We still make real, willing choices for which we are accountable and responsible. But the difference is that, post-fall, our nature has been corrupted by sin. And therefore, scripture repeatedly emphasizes the way that our will is now in bondage. Because our nature is fallen, our will is bound. And we, instead of choosing the good that would be glorifying to God, that would be good for us, we choose sin. As Jesus says in John chapter 8, he who sins is a slave of sin. You know, but then he says, but if the son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. Or in John 6, 44, he says, no one can come to me unless the father draws him. So unless God does something to us and for us, we will never choose to come to Christ because our will is bound because we're fallen. Our nature is lost. Our problem is we're enslaved to sin because we love sin and we hate God. So that's what we talked about last time. And this sort of sets up and brings us to the question of, well, how then does God save us? So we thought about election, how God has chosen and purposed to save some from before the foundation of the world. And then we could have a long discussion about how Christ has come to actually accomplish salvation for his people, how he dies on the cross and he rises again, he lives a perfect life, all that Jesus has done to accomplish it. But how is salvation actually applied in our lives? And that's really what the rest of this ordo salutis is thinking about, the application of salvation. And all this begins with the next point in the Ordo Salutis, the gospel call. Now, today we'll touch a little bit on regeneration, because as we'll see, these are pretty intertwined. But today we're going to try to focus on the gospel call. And to get us thinking about this, I want to start with an illustration, or really two illustrations. that may be somewhat familiar to us as we think about the gospel being presented and the gospel being preached. I want you to think about, you know, which of these best pictures what salvation is like. Okay, so option A You know, imagine you're out at sea and a storm comes and sinks your boat, you're flailing about in the waves, you're about to drown, and then the Coast Guard shows up, you know, and the helicopter throws you a buoy and they call out to you. So the call goes forth, you know, grab the buoy and we'll lift you to safety. Okay, so there's one sort of way of thinking about it. Well, then there's option B, okay? So once again, you're out at sea and a storm comes and sinks your boat, right? But this time, instead of being on the verge of drowning, you actually drown, right? You're just, say you're floating there face down, dead in the water. So the helicopter arrives, they throw you a buoy and they call out again, grab the buoy and we'll lift you to safety. Now the question is, you know, what do you think? What sort of better depicts salvation? Robert? Okay. Okay. Okay. How can you choose Christ if something hasn't changed to show you that you Right, yeah. So hold that thought because I want to clarify chronological from logical order. So we'll come to that. But other thoughts on those illustrations? Nick? The other assumes, I mean, both kind of are, don't, like he said, fall short if the dead man does grab, right? But the reality is that, you know, I guess you can say maybe the first example might be minimal depravity. The second example might be moderate depravity. But I don't think either of them fully depict the reality of total depravity. Christ doesn't merely give us a boost. OK. You didn't say he actually grabbed you. You said they called. Yes. So I'm focusing more on the call. Oh, I'm just not. We'll come back to it. He's dead, but the call comes down. Yes. Keith? I was in the water. Yeah, the boat said. That's not really very relevant. Like, I maybe know where you're going with it, but I definitely, the second one doesn't depict salvation at all. He's just dead in the sun. Well, we don't know how he responds in the first one either. But you're right. Neither one is the full picture. Like, he, we, yeah. I see. Yeah. Well, I think, all right, let me break it down a little bit. You know, I think both are at least depicting we're in a dire situation in our sin. Secondly, both are acknowledging we can't save ourselves, right? We are in need of rescue from the outside. Now, I think that when we think about conversion and salvation, we do have a role to play. You know, and I think grabbing hold of a buoy is not a bad illustration for what it means to place your faith in Christ. Right? We cling to Christ by faith, and faith is necessary in salvation, not because, we'll talk about this, not because we are the ones who are to credit for our own faith, but in God's plan, justification is by faith. So the action of us doing something is not irrelevant. We just need to be careful that we don't describe that in a way that makes it seem like we get the credit for it. Right. God is, you know, it's very right. He's the one that really reaches out and grabs hold of us. But at the same time, I think, you know, when I preach the gospel, I often will, you know, try to explain the gospel to an unbeliever in terms of, you know, that first illustration there. I mean, think of Romans 10, whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. You know, do you realize that you're drowning in sin, that you need a Savior? Will you call on the name of Christ? I think there's some aspects of that that can be helpful. Option B does a better job capturing the spiritual reality that we're dead in sin. We are not just sort of flailing about in the water, but we have actually died. Ephesians 2.1, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Jesus says things like, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. You know, and as you really press into what he means by that, he's making a point. Spiritually speaking, there's a blindness, a deafness, a deadness, an unresponsiveness. You know, we are like the man that's face down dead in the water that is unable to respond. We don't just need help. We need a supernatural miracle. Can I just say that we start in scenario two and then God gives us new life and then we realize where we are in scenario one and we go to gravity. Yeah, there's kind of a both and of, you know, we do respond, but there's something powerful that God does to enable and cause our response, to bring us to life. So, but I think option A, you know, it's, you know, no illustration is perfect. We totally agree with that. I think option A helps us to see we do still have a culpability for rejecting the gospel. You know, if we just think in terms of physical deadness, I think we kind of misunderstand Scripture to think, well, it's nobody's fault if they don't believe they're dead. But Scripture actually says, no, you're dead, and it's your fault if you don't believe. And this is coming back to how we think about free will, that whatever kind of deadness we have, there's still culpability. There's still choices. The problem is not that we're sort of you know, something from the outside is keeping us. We have this just, it's not like God is saying fly and we don't have wings. It's God is saying believe and the reason we won't believe is because we have this animosity toward God in our heart and we have this love of sin, right? So it's a culpable issue. And I think that's where that option A is helpful to see, you know, there's a responsibility to respond and there's a importance for us to be calling on people to respond. So with those illustrations in mind, I hope we can kind of drill into this a little more and think about what theologically we call the gospel call. Now, if you look at the top of the sheet, you'll see I've ordered or separated out the order of salvation a little bit just to try to clarify some things. And I've added two things in parentheses. You'll see the general calling and effectual calling. So, when we think about gospel call, there's these two aspects of it, the general call and effectual calling. Now, by general calling, I've defined that as the free offer of salvation to anyone who will repent and believe in Christ. So, this is how we understand the application of the gospel to begin. People like you and me, presenting the gospel. God has called us to share that. We are to send out a general invitation or summons to receive salvation that goes out indiscriminately to all people. There have been some who have denied this, and they would be sort of loosely categorized in the camp of what we call hyper-Calvinists. So these are people who cling very tightly to Calvinistic ideas like election and predestination, but then they sort of reason from that in such a way that might deny something like the free offer of the gospel. So they would say, look, if God has elected only some, and Jesus came intending to save only those people, then what business do we have to just offer the gospel to other people? God only elected some, he must not have intended to save everybody. And so they reason that way. And then practically, sometimes you'll have people who, in their preaching, there's no direct appeal to believe. They don't understand that there's a necessity to tell an unbeliever, you need to repent and believe and to plead with them to come to faith in Christ. I think, well, if they're dead in sin, then it's just meaningless to do that or unfaithful to God. Or sometimes people will, in the hyper-Calvinistic view, they'll like look for some evidence that someone is elect before the offer of the gospel is extended. So maybe it's, okay, when I see someone who seems really convicted of sin and really repentant, Then, okay, the spirit is working, this person must be liked, therefore I offer them the gospel. Rather than just indiscriminately, freely presenting the gospel to anyone and everyone. So, what would you say in response? Robert? I think there's the our view and the mile high view. I think Acts 13, 48, the Gentiles were rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord and then the last part says as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. So I think we have to preach the gospel. We have to share Christ. But like Spurgeon said, I can't go through here and put a cross in the back of everyone in this auditorium and preach to everybody. Yeah, so I think one key point would be we have no way of knowing who will respond to the gospel, right? It is not the case that you can look and see who seems repentant and they must be the elect because one of the things God uses to bring us to repentance is his grace and his love and his kindness displayed in the gospel. I mean, I'm sure that's true of many of us. Our hearts were melted, and we started hating sin not before we heard the gospel, but because when we heard the gospel, we came to see the profoundness and glory of God's love for us. Great. Paul said not to judge outside of our faith, but to judge in our faith. Okay. So we can't determine who is a believer and who is worthy of hearing the gospel. We've got to show that love, not only say it, Just a few other examples. I think scripture clearly seems to tell us to preach the gospel indiscriminately to all. Act 1730 says that God now commands all men everywhere to repent. Colossians 1.23, Paul speaks of the gospel having been proclaimed in all creation under heaven. Or some translations say, to every creature under heaven. Scripture also gives examples of people being invited to believe who, it's clear, weren't actually believers. And I'll just mention one example in the parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22. You know, Jesus talks about how the invitation goes out. Some reject it. But then in the end, it sums up for many are called, but few are chosen, right? The calling is general. It goes out to many, but that doesn't mean all that received the invitation respond. And then just, there's more that can be said here, but clarifying that election, means God is actively choosing to save someone. That doesn't mean reprobation means God is sort of in the same way actively preventing people from being saved. Election and reprobation are not symmetrical that way. In fact, we can say that there is an important sense in which God expresses his desire for all to be saved. Think of Romans 10, 21. God says, all day long, I've held out my hands to a disobedient and rebellious people. Think of Jesus' words in Matthew 23, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing. Ezekiel 33, where God says, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, that the wicked would turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? God himself pleading with those who reject him. I think this all underscores the reason why the gospel is to be offered indiscriminately to all. There's a general call. We throw out the buoy and call, grab hold of Christ to everybody. But then secondly, we need to understand the effectual calling. An effectual calling I defined as when the Spirit causes someone to respond positively to the offer of the gospel. So the idea here is that while we are sent to preach to everyone, to call everyone to respond to the gospel, the spiritual reality is that the people we're speaking to are dead. And our words, no matter how we present them, they cannot in and of themselves produce a response. Rather, the Spirit of God Himself must use our words, or really His words through Scripture, to call forth that response. So effectual calling is now talking about when God chooses, maybe you've sat and you've heard the gospel for years under the general calling, but that time when God chooses to use his word powerfully to bring forth you to faith, to cause you to respond as he commands in his word. It's like when Jesus is calling forth Lazarus who's dead in the tomb. And he says, Lazarus, come forth. It's that same powerful, effectual word that produces the intended response. This is why we sometimes refer to God's grace as irresistible. Not in the sense that we don't resist it, but in the sense that His grace is powerful and effective to overcome whatever resistance we may offer against it. I think of Paul's own conversion in scripture. Jesus says, It is hard to kick against the goats. You've been resisting me, but now you will be mine." And then he just goes right into, he doesn't wait for Paul's response, he just goes right into, and, you know, you are my chosen vessel to go to the Gentiles, right? That is effectual calling. Now, what are some other places we see this in Scripture? Romans 8.30 says, and those whom God predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified. So this can't be talking about the general calling, because it's saying there's a specific group that God has called that's the same as those that he predestined, it's the same as those he justifies, it's those he effectually calls. 1 Peter 2.9 speaks about how God has called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Or in Acts 16.14, it speaks of Lydia, where Paul is preaching the gospel, And then it says that God opens Lydia's heart to heed and respond to what Paul is saying. So the calling is going forth and God makes it effective by the Spirit opening her heart. And we'll talk about how, you know, regeneration next time, how that's really what God is doing in Lydia's heart. He's opening her heart through regenerating her, but that's making the message of the gospel effectual for her. And then just one last example in John chapter five, and this one I think is particularly powerful. Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. 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. Right, so he's speaking about a present resurrection, dead coming to life. And this is a spiritual resurrection, but then he goes on and he says, and do not marvel at this. For an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out. Those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. So he says there's a coming, don't marvel this, because there's a coming time when my voice will go forth and bring people physically to life for the resurrection of life and judgment. But even now, there is a spiritual resurrection. There are those who are dead in sin who hear his voice and are brought to life by his effectual call. And so I wonder if some of you have even, as you reflect on your own life, you remember this. It was like you'd heard the gospel many times before, perhaps, and it was like there was this time when it just came to you with a new power. And it was, it was just like compelled you. You're like, I have to respond. I have to let go of sin and trust Christ. Like everything is so clear. Everything is so, you know, this is what I have to do. I think that, just in your experience, there's effectual calling. Others of you, maybe you don't have that moment that you can point to, and yet theologically you can look back and know, why did at some point I come to faith? It wasn't just because I chose, but there was an effectual calling of God where He used His word. to bring me to faith in Christ. Now we're running really low on time, but very briefly, any questions or key applications that stand out to you from this? Robert? It takes the burden off of sharing the gospel because you don't have to close the sale. Yeah. You share the gospel. Ask God before you go to put someone in your path that will hear the words. Yeah. Amen. Amen. David? I think the knowledge that our salvation is only relying on God and not on ourselves, that we are completely dead, should motivate us to make ourselves open to talk to people that the world provides, prostitutes, drug addicts, anyone. Amen. David? It also gives us peace. Yeah. And do you mean for us as evangelists or for just other people that don't know the gospel? Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's totally in God's hands. It's his grace. Amen. And then as evangelists, I think it gives us the peace that I can go to bed at night. You know, it's not like other people's salvation hangs in the balance as if I wasn't persuasive enough. And that's why they're lost. But on the other hand, I think it's important we balance that, but we have a responsibility. It's not like we can just sort of go to bed at night thinking it doesn't matter, because we are the means that God has called. So we need to be faithful, but the decisive factor is ultimately in the Lord's hands, yeah. All right, well, there's much more we can talk about on this, but we will come back to it and also pick up with regeneration next time. Let me close us in prayer. Lord, we do praise you and thank you for your grace in our lives, that you have called us out of darkness and into the marvelous light of your son. Lord, we thank you for the privilege we have to be ambassadors and evangelists. We pray that you would help us to do so faithfully. not relying ultimately on our strength, but relying utterly on you. I pray that we would be more passionate in our evangelism and more faithful in it. But Lord, that we would understand clearly how you work to bring about salvation. Lord, it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, as we close, We will be singing the gospel song, so please stand and listen.