Irresistible Grace and Its Relation to the other Four Points

 

Certainly the truth of irresistible grace establishes the truth of the sovereignty of God. If God is sovereign, and He is, the grace of God must be an irresistible grace. To deny the irresistible grace is really to deny the sovereignty of God. Then God and God’s will are dependent on man and man’s will. Then Christ is reduced to a beggar. The Holy Spirit is a weakling. God is put in the position of Darius who earnestly desired to save Daniel from lion’s den, but could not (Dan. 6). Because God is God, the almighty God, His grace is irresistible grace.
Irresistible grace is necessitated by man’s total depravity.
Exactly because man is a sinner, unworthy of salvation, his salvation must be by grace. And since man is such a sinner that there is no good in him, no ability for good, no desire even for good, the grace of salvation must be an irresistible grace.
Unconditional election establishes the basis for irresistible grace. As God’s salvation of men eternally did not rest on any worth or works in those men, and was completely unconditional, so His salvation of them in time does not rest on any of their worth or works. And that is exactly the teaching of irresistible grace.
Irresistible grace preserves the truth of limited atonement.
If free will and resistible grace are true, it would be possible that Christ died in vain. Then, although Christ died for a man and wants to save that man, He would be frustrated because of the unwillingness of the sinner to be saved.
Irresistible grace also guarantees the preservation of the saints. Since the grace of God that brings salvation to a man is sovereign, almighty grace, the grace of God that continues to abide in a man is a sovereign, almighty grace also. Just as it cannot be frustrated in its initial operations, neither can it be frustrated ultimately. Those who are brought to salvation by the irresistible grace of God are, by the power of that grace, preserved in the salvation unto the end.

Ronald Cammenga
Ronald Hanko
Saved By Grace, p. 144

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