Can God fail? Can God’s plans and desires fall short of their aim? Can the will of man stand in the way of God’s will? 

Knowing that God is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipresent (all-present), I would have to quote Paul and say, “May it never be!” God cannot fail; He doesn’t have a “Plan B,” and His will never takes a backseat to man’s. 

As we have seen with the article on unconditional election, God clearly selects those whom He will show mercy to, softening their hearts that they may seek Him. But the question still remains, can a person whom God elects, calls, and gives His mercy and grace, reject His offer? 

Is God’s grace resistible? 

The Most Unlikely of Converts

To best answer this question, it would be best to look at the most extremely anti-Christian individual in the Bible; someone who made it his life's goal to hunt and kill believers. He was a radical religious extremist, motivated by hatred of Jesus and His followers — Saul of Tarsus, otherwise known as the Apostle Paul. 

It was Paul’s desire from the very beginning to hunt and kill as many Christians as he could, believing that it was his God-ordained mission. There is a reason why Paul would later refer to himself as the “chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).” Paul was as rotten to the core and as anti-Christian as one could be.

Then came that dramatic Damascus road experience:

“Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he was traveling… suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.” - Acts 9: 1-6.

On the Damascus road, God sovereignly softened Paul’s heart. God presented Himself in such a manner that the “chief of sinners” willingly turned from his sinful lifestyle and followed Christ. All God had to do was simply presented Himself as the righteous King He is and Paul could not help but witness his own depravity.

As we see in Isaiah 6:5, once man is in the presence of the one Holy God, the only words one can say is, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!” God’s grace, when offered to His elect, is impossible to resist due to the dual realization of one's own brokenness and fallen condition, and God’s unmerited mercy in the offer of grace when we, in fact, deserve wrath. That is why it is called, “irresistible grace.” 

We should be careful to not underestimate the power of God’s grace and the magnitude of transformation it makes in the lives of His elect. R. C. Sproul once said regarding this topic, “God’s grace is so powerful that it has the capacity to overcome our natural resistance to it.”

Paul sheds even more light on this truth when he writes in his letter to the Galatians, “And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers...he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles” (Galatians 1:14-16). Paul is making it clear that despite his will and intentions, God’s will superseded his own. God changed Paul’s heart of stone and made it into a heart of flesh so that he could hear, respond, and accept the gospel message.

We should understand that God does not only ordain the ends, that is, the salvation of His elect, but He also ordains the very means by which they will be saved. He ordains the individuals and circumstances that will bring us to Him. God is truly sovereign in every sense of the word. With this truth in mind, we see that God is the perfect sales representative, selling the most desirable product—salvation. He cannot fail at convincing you to follow Him and doesn’t have to force you to follow Him in order to accomplish that goal.

I am convinced that every believer has had a Damascus road experience. It may not have been as dramatic as the Apostle Paul’s, but it was just as transformative to our lives as it was for Paul. Once we are fully exposed to Christ's righteousness we are transformed and have our stone heart replaced with a heart of flesh. We are then able to see our own unrighteousness and surrender our lives to Him.

This truth is not just proven by a logical exercise, but is bluntly and boldly proclaimed when Jesus says, “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) and “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand” (John 10:27-29).

Not one of the sheep the Father has given Jesus will be lost. Simply put: God does not fail. God does not set a goal that He will not accomplish. If God draws you to Him, you will “recognize His voice” and willingly come to Him. 

Leaving the 99 for You

The words “irresistible grace” can bring about colorful imaginative thoughts of God dragging sinners against their will, kicking and screaming into His embrace. This is both silly and nonsensical when one takes the time to study Scripture deeply. God pursues His elect and changes them on such a fundamental level that they willingly, gladly, and unreservedly run to Him. God softens His elects’ hearts so that we may accept His truth. 

The conversion of Lydia, one of the first documented convert to Christianity in Europe, is a prime example of irresistible grace. Acts 16:14 says, “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.” Here, we see that God must first open a person’s heart so that they may be able to pay attention and accept the gospel message presented by His followers.

Also, take for example the Parable of the Good Shepherd who left the 99 sheep to find the one lost sheep. Just as we, God’s elect, all experience our own personal Damascus road experience, every one of God’s own is at some point the one lost sheep. Jesus loves His sheep so much that He would leave the 99 (saved believers) to bring us into the fold. We go from lost to found but we are always, from the beginning of time, His sheep.

As Romans 8:29-30 says, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

A fascinating fact about sheep is that they know their shepherd’s voice. As stated earlier in John 10:27, we, His elect, know His voice even while we are lost. Once we encounter our Shepherd, we are drawn in such a manner that is irresistible. As Jesus Himself said in John 6:37, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”

If the term “irresistible” is uncomfortable, let's consider again the words of R.C. Sproul when he said, “I have a little bit of a problem using the term irresistible grace, not because I don’t believe this classical doctrine, but because it is misleading to many people. Therefore, I prefer the term effectual grace, because the irresistible grace of God effects what God intends it to effect.”

A Comfortable Truth

The doctrine of irresistible grace is truly a comforting fact. From the very beginning, before we are even born, God has a perfect plan to call His elect at the right time. This personal effectual calling is when the God of the universe, the King of Kings, summons His elect by name. Like Jesus calling Lazarus from the grave (John 11:1–44), when God calls a person, He is bringing life into something that was dead. Lazarus didn’t think about coming back to life. It was not His choice to have life. The reality of the matter is that if left to just himself, Lazarus would have remained in his grave. But Lazarus was not in control and that is a very good thing. The reassuring fact is that we cannot in any way mess up the plan God has for drawing us to Him, for we are not the ones in control either; He is.

Furthermore, the pressures and weight of evangelism is significantly lightened with this truth in mind. When we, in biblical obedience to Christ’s command, boldly proclaim the gospel message to the world, we must keep in mind that we are not selling ourselves or a product of our own making. Although we are presenting God’s message and truth, we are only His messengers. It is by the work of God on an individual’s heart that transforms a person so that they may be able to accept the truth we are preaching, teaching, and evangelizing.

God is the one doing the true heavy lifting; God is the one drawing a sinner in with His perfect plan which was established before the foundations of the earth were laid down. We can be comforted by the fact that God will never fail in His pursuits. When one of His own is drawn to Himself, we are assured that His grace will not be resisted. 

Therefore, once a sinner is drawn by God and is regenerated, can they ever turn back to their old selves? Once we are “in Christ” can we go back to being “in the world?”

CRIT-LARGE contributor Christopher Osterbrock will confront this question and more when he elaborates on the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints in the last article in this series, coming out next Saturday, October 19th.