Calvinists and Arminians agree that humans are saved by God’s grace alone. But how does grace work? Does God apply grace in advance to allow people the capacity to follow him? Or does God apply grace to those who are chosen, in order to actually bring about their salvation?
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Because human beings are fallen and sinful, they are not able to think, will, nor do anything good in and of themselves, including believe the gospel of Christ. Unaided by God’s grace, no one can choose to please God or to believe the promise of salvation held out in the gospel. But how does grace work?
Does God give grace to allow sinners the ability to choose whether or not to accept or reject the message of salvation? Or does God apply grace to actually accomplish salvation for those sinners whom he has already chosen?
Calvinists believe that because God’s grace is only applied to the elect, that grace cannot be resisted. They explain that there are two ways God calls people to repentance. The first is the outer call, which is extended to anyone who hears the gospel. This can be and often is rejected. By contrast, the internal call is extended only to the elect and can never be rejected. This internal call always results in conversion. They argue that people are spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1). Physically dead persons are incapable of responding to any external message or stimulus. Likewise, spiritually dead people must be given spiritual life before they can respond to God’s call. The Holy Spirit, in cooperation with the will of the Father, gives the gift of salvation to the elect. God then bestows to them the faith which Christ secured for them at the cross. Finally, the Spirit leads these spiritually regenerated sinners to cooperate with God and repent, which leads to their conversion. The Spirit graciously causes the elect sinner to cooperate, to believe, to repent, to come freely and willingly to Christ.
In this view, God’s grace never fails to result in the salvation of those to whom it is applied. As a result, God’s grace is never thwarted. Calvinists believe that if the Spirit’s regenerating work does not come before both faith and repentance, these responses become human works. But the Spirit, they say, is not limited in his work of salvation by human will, nor is he dependent on human cooperation. Thus salvation is entirely and only a work of God.
Followers of Calvinism focus on Bible texts that emphasize the impossibility of a human sinner’s response to God, the priority of God’s will over human will, and the effectiveness of God’s grace.
