Is Irresistible Grace God's Grace?

The Lord calls to all, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.... If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (Matt. 11.28; John 7.37).

Dave Breese writes, "If grace were irresistible, one fails to understand even the reason for preaching the gospel...." Certainly it would be absurd for God to plead with men to repent and believe, if they cannot, since they would have to be irresistibly caused to do so.

Irresistible Grace is essential in the unrepentant Calvinist theory of salvation. Sadly, though, this doctrine leads to the denial of God's love, mercy, and grace as revealed in Scripture. What love is it to impose this kind of grace not on everyone?

God of the Bible is quite different, whose "tender mercies are over all his works" (Ps. 145.9) and who "would have all men be saved" (1 Tim. 2.4).

Hodge declares, "According to the Augustinian scheme, the non-elect have all the advantages and opportunities of securing their salvation..." The mockery and contradiction is abhorrent! What advantages and opportunities for salvation do those have from whom God withholds the regeneration and irresistible grace without which Calvinists say no one can believe unto salvation, for whom Christ didn't die, and whom He predestined to eternal doom before they were born?

Furthermore, how can such persons be justly held accountable? Should a paraplegic be faulted for failing to become a world-class gymnast? Yet we are told by the Calvinist that God's perfect justice operates in this fashion. Dave Hunt writes, "Tragically, Calvinism's misrepresentation of God has caused many to turn away from God as from a monster."

In fact, those who are regenerated under Calvinism don't even realize it, so there was no prior repentance before regeneration. What kind of salvation is this? Should we consider this Christianity? or Insanity?

Where is th Compassion and Sympathy?

The Calvinist can't have the slightest sympathy for those whom God has, for His good pleasure, doomed eternally without any recourse. What delight is there in not providing so many people any opportunity for salvation?

• For the LORD your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his grace from you, if ye return unto him. (2 Chron. 3.9)
• Though art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness...for thou art a gracious and merciful God. (Neh. 9.17,31)
• But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. (Ps. 86.15)
• The LORD is gracious and full of compassion. (Ps. 111.4; 112.4; 145.8)
• And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful.... (Joel 2.13)
• For I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful,...of great kindness (Jonah 4.2)

Each of these verses are addressed to all of Israel, most of whom rejected God's grace. Never is there any hint that God's merciful compassion extends to less than all. "We love him because he first loved us" (1 John 4.19) declares that our love is in response to God's love. Nowhere does Scripture indicate that we are only to love God, as Piper exults, because we are among a select group whom He predestined to salvation and sovereignly regenerated.

What about those allegedly not chosen to salvation, whom God never intended to save, for whom Christ did not die, and for whom there is no hope? Is it not sadistic to command them to love God? The Ten Commandments is a command to all. How could the non-elect love God when God doesn't love them? Such teaching dishonors God and can only cause resentment toward Him and lead people away from God of the Bible by misrepresenting Him.

Sadly, in reading scores of books by Calvinists, one finds much that extols God's sovereignty but almost nothing of His love. Packer admits, "In Reformation days as since, treatments of God's love in election were often...preempted by wrangles of an abstract sort about God's sovereignty in reprobation." What else does Calvinism have to offer!? I dare say even its kind of sovereignty is evil as it misrepresents God's sovereignty.

"But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" (1 John 3.17). How odd that God's love dwelling in us would unfailingly meet through us the needs of others-yet God himself sees billions in direst of need and refuses to help them-indeed, damn those He could save. Surely this is not the God portrayed in the Bible!

Calvin's God is Not Longsuffering

Sovereignty in Calvinism is such that God is behind every emotion and act of every individual, causing each sin and causing each impulse of "love." Supposedly the heart of man is "made willing" in order to love God. But "made willing" is an oxymoron. One can be persuaded or convinced but not made willing, because the will must be willing in and of itself.

If Calvin's God can be said to love at all, it is with a love that allegedly can be imposed upon anyone and man's response is by that same imposition. But such is not the nature of love. Sadly, Calvinists do not know the love of God at all. Satan has impregnated Christendom with a false love made to appear as if being God's love to the Calvinist. Can we say then that the Calvinist fashions God after their own corrupted hearts, making God in their own image?

We know why Calvinists reject God's pleadings in the Bible because if Calvinism were true, pleadings are a sham. The elect don't need them, and the non-elect can't heed them. The totally depraved who are elected to salvation must be regenerated and infused with Irresistible Grace, while the rest of mankind are damned without remedy. Why pretend this love and concern for mankind or Israel when man has no choice in the matter and God can irresistibly make anyone do whatever He wants anyway?

Supposedly, to save only the select elect and to damn the rest was necessary to prove God's sovereignty and justice, and will eternally be to His greater glory. Obviously, however, God need not damn anyone in order to prove either His sovereignty or justice. If it is not a threat to God's sovereignty to save the elect, neither would it be for Him to save a million more, 100 million more-or more loving yet, to save all mankind.

Scores of Bible passages leave no doubt that God loves and desires to bless not just an elect who will be redeemed out of Israel, but all of Israel (and therefore all of mankind as well), including those who refuse His love and gracious offer of blessing. God's very character is reflected in the commandments He gave to His chosen people. They were to restore even to an enemy his ox or ass that had wondered off (Ex. 23.4). yet God himself won't give wandering mankind the kindness He commands that man give to beasts? Such teaching doesn't ring true to Scripture or to the conscience God has placed within each person (Rom. 2.14-15). A Calvinist, therefore, doesn't listen to his own conscience, but goes his own way, separated from God for all eternity.