James Domm
Chapter 10: Effectual Calling
Before studying this chapter, take a moment to notice where it is in the Confession, and how this matter of Effectual Calling fits into the overall structure of the Confession. Division 1 of the Confession is concerned with The Foundations of Christian Thought (Chapters 1-8). Division 2 begins with Chapter 9 and it is concerned with Experimental Religion—Salvation Applied. Chapter 9 is concerned with The Setting of Salvation Applied—Man’s Will. In Chapter 10, the Confession begins examination of The Blessings and Graces of Salvation Applied. This section of the Confession includes Chapters 10-18. In connection with the application of salvation (the realized experience of gospel salvation in our individual life histories), the Bible speaks of certain blessings that God bestows (Chapters 10-13 ), and of certain graces that man exercises (Chapters 14-18). Effectual Calling is one of the blessings that God bestows upon an elect person for whom Christ suffered and died, when He applies to that elect person, in his or her lifetime, the salvation that was purchased for him or her, by the Lord Jesus Christ through His sufferings and death.
Outline of Chapter 10
I. A General Overview of Effectual Calling (Par. 1)
II. The Nature of Effectual Calling (Pars. 2-4)
A. It is Monergistic (Par. 2)
B. It is Inscrutable (Par. 3)
C. It is Indispensable (Par. 4)
I. A General Overview of Effectual Calling (Par. 1)
Seven things about the effectual call of God are set forth in Paragraph 1.
1. Its Recipients: “Those whom God hath predestinated unto life…” The recipients of God’s effectual call are those whom God predestined to everlasting life. Romans 8:29, 30: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. And whom He predestined, these He also called.”
2. Its Author: “Those whom God hath predestinated unto life He is pleased effectually to call…” God the Father is the Author of the effectual call. Not God the Son. And not God the Holy Spirit. We might tend to think of God the Holy Spirit as the divine Author of effectual calling. But as we will see, the Holy Spirit is the Agent of the effectual call, not the Author. The Author of the effectual call is God the Father. Romans 8:29, 30: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. And whom He predestined, these He also called.” 1 Corinthians 1:9: “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Notice the juxtaposition of ‘God’ and ‘His Son’ in these verses. The clear implication is that God in these verses refers in particular to God the Father. God the Father therefore is the Author of the effectual call. This is an important observation. It provides a check against a wrong emphasis upon the Holy Spirit in the application of salvation because it demonstrates that God the Father is involved in the application of salvation, not just the Holy Spirit. This observation therefore should help us to avoid robbing God the Father of the glory that is due Him. It should also assist us in the proper directing of our prayers to God the Father with respect to the application of salvation.
3. Its Occasion: “Those whom God hath predestinated unto life, He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time…” When does God effectually call His elect to salvation? In His appointed and accepted time. John 3:8: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” This in no way eliminates the necessary use of means (prayer, Bible reading, preaching, evangelism). It doesn’t mean that either the use or the neglect of means is unimportant or inconsequential.
But it does remind us that God calls sinners to Christ, not only in His way, but also in His time. Salvation does not ultimately depend upon the man who wills or runs, but upon God who shows mercy.
4. Its Efficacy: “He is pleased, in His appointed and accepted time, effectually to call…” God’s call is an effectual one. It is not powerless or vain, like the call of some parents to their disobedient children. It never fails or falls short of its object. (Romans 8:30: Predestinated→Called→Justified→Glorified). The call of God in view here is not the outward, general call of the gospel in the preaching of the Word, but the inward, effectual call of God to salvation in Jesus Christ(1 Thessalonians 1:5).
5. Its Means: “He is pleased effectually to call, by His Word and Spirit…” These are the means of the effectual call. The Word of God: 2 Thessalonians 2:14: “And it was for this He called you through our gospel.” James 1:18: “In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures.” In addition to the means (or instrumentality) of the Word of God, the effectual call also comes through the means (or agency) of the Holy Spirit. John 3:3, 6: “Jesus said to Nicodemus, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’” Both the Word and the Spirit constitute the means of the effectual call—not just one or the other, but both. The Word and the Spirit must never be separated in the experience of the application of salvation. Religion that stresses the Word only is Rationalism. Religion that stresses the Spirit only is Mysticism. According to the Scriptures, God doesn’t call men to Christ by the Word apart from the Spirit. And He normally doesn’t call men to Christ by the Spirit apart from the Word. The fact that He is able to do so, doesn’t mean that He normally does so.
6. Its Transition: “God is pleased effectually to call, by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ;” What change is involved in the effectual call? What is the BEFORE and what is the AFTER in connection with the effectual call? Very simply, the effectual call involves a transition from death to life. Ephesians 2:1, 4, 5: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins. But God, being rich in mercy, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.” The effectual call is the divine summons out of a state of spiritual death, into a state of spiritual life in Christ Jesus.
7. Its Operations: The remainder of Paragraph 1 describes the operations involved in God’s effectual call. The mind is enlightened (Ephesians 1:18), the heart of stone is removed and replaced with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26, 27), and the will is renewed (Philippians 2:13: “It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” God works upon the whole man—mind, emotions, conscience, and will—to effect a profound transformation. By this transformation, those who are called by God are made willing to come to Him in the day of His power (Psalm 110:3). Though they are drawn to Christ by the power of God (John 6:44, 45), they come to Him freely and because they want to (Philippians 2:13). These, then, are the operations that are involved in the effectual call (enlightenment, removal and replacement, and renewal). We mustn’t think of these as disconnected processes. They all occur simultaneously. They are all part of the great transformation that God brings about in those whom He effectually calls.
So much then for the General Overview of Effectual Calling in Paragraph 1. Before we proceed to the final three paragraphs, there is an important observation to be made. If you’ve been paying careful attention, you may have noticed that Bible verses have been referenced without distinguishing between the effectual call and the new birth (regeneration). That’s because they are essentially the same thing. In effectual calling, the effective summons to Christ occurs simultaneously in conjunction with an inward transformation. The Bible speaks of these two things differently. But they are basically the same thing, looked at in different ways. To illustrate this, look at the following diagram.
In the diagram above, face ‘a’ of the block is drawn with a solid line, and face ‘b’ with a dotted line. Which face is nearer? Which face is farther away? It’s impossible to tell. It all depends upon how you look at the diagram. In the same way, it’s impossible to distinguish between the effectual call of God and the new birth. They are both the same thing only looked at from different viewpoints. One is a calling or a summons. The other is a birth, a new creation, an emancipation, a circumcision, a resurrection with Christ (John 1:13 2 Corinthians 5:17 Titus 3:3-5 Colossians 2:11-13 Ephesians 2:4-6). All of these Bible expressions are referring to the same thing. They are all referring to calling and regeneration.
II. The Nature of Effectual Calling (Pars. 2-4)
Three things about the nature of the effectual call of God are highlighted in Paragraphs 2-4.
1) God’s effectual call is monergistic (Par 2). Monergism means “working one way”, as opposed to synergism which means “working two ways.” Synergism is two parties working together with one another and cooperating with one another. The Bible doesn’t describe gospel salvation in synergistic terms, but in monergistic terms. God’s grace is the only efficient cause in the initiation and continuation of salvation. 2 Timothy 1:9: “…who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.” 1 Corinthians 1:26-30: “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.” Notice also that the Holy Spirit is the Agent of the effectual call. Titus 3:5: “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.” The Bible has a monergistic view of salvation, which includes the effectual call. This is precisely the view we find expressed in Paragraph 2.
2) God’s effectual call is inscrutable (Par. 3). That is, it is mysterious. This Paragraph is carried over verbatim from the Westminster Confession. It addresses the matter of the salvation of those who are incapable of being called through the ministry of the Word (infants, people who have never heard the gospel, mentally handicapped persons). There is an evident inconsistency here. Paragraph 1 asserts that God’s effectual comes about “by His Word and Spirit”. Paragraph 3, on the other hand, refers to “those who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word”. Paragraph 1 teaches that the effectual call normally comes about through the ministry of the Word. Paragraph 3 introduces a special category of persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word. Included in this special category are infants and elect persons. This immediately suggests several questions. Are any or all infants elect? Are any or all infants dying in infancy saved? If so, at what age does the cutoff occur? At what age is an infant no longer an infant?” Considerable debate has surrounded these questions.
The great Baptist preacher C.H. Spurgeon believed that all children were elect and saved. In his edition of the Second London Confession, he dropped the word ‘elect’ so that it reads, “Infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved.” He believed that “heaven will be filled with children.” The original 1677 edition of the Second London Confession reads, “Elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved.” We would agree that elect infants dying in infancy are saved. But are any infants elect? The passage that is used to “prove” that infants dying in infancy are saved is 2 Samuel 12:23 where David speaks of the child of his adulterous union with Bathsheba. God said that this child would die (2 Samuel 12:14), and that’s what happened. After the child died, David said in v. 23: “But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” It is assumed from these words that this child was in heaven, which is why David said that he would go to the child, but the child would not return to him. So does this passage prove that infants are saved? No it does not. It infers it, but it doesn’t prove it. Do any other passages prove this? There are none. Appeal is made in the Confession to John 3:3-8 (v. 8: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”). But again, these verses don’t prove that any infants are elect, or that all infants are saved.
Others, such as John Owen, categorize all infants, all those who have not heard the gospel, and all mentally handicapped persons along with reprobate persons. None of them are elect. They are all lost. This may be an extreme position in the opposite direction because the Bible isn’t explicit about this either.
The fact is that we don’t know with certainty what happens in every case to infants who die in infancy. We may hope that they are saved, but we can’t know for certain because God hasn’t told us in His Word. We do know that God has told us all that we need to know in the Bible. And we do know that the Judge of all the earth will do right (Genesis 18:25). We may safely leave the matter with Him. This is one of those rare instances where we might take exception with the Confession. God is certainly able to operate directly upon the soul and regenerate it apart from any outward means. But that is not the way God normally calls men to Himself.
Paragraph 3 reminds us that the effectual call of God is inscrutable. It is shrouded in mystery. This was asserted in Paragraph 1 where the Confession states that God is pleased to call His elect in His appointed and accepted time. Granting just this much, Paragraph 3 adds nothing materially to the content of the chapter.
3) God’s effectual call is indispensable (Par. 4). It is absolutely necessary if one hopes to be saved. God is not the Father of all men, not in the redemptive sense. There is no one-world religion. There is no universal salvation (Matthew 25:46). There is no salvation apart from the Word of Christ and faith in Christ (Romans 10:14). Apart from the gospel, there no salvation (1 Peter 1:23). Apart from God’s effectual call, there is no salvation (John 6:44). Many hear the outward call of God in the preaching of the gospel. But unless men are inwardly and effectually called of God, the outward call will be ineffective for salvation. 1 Thessalonians 1:5 “For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.” Matthew 22:14 “Many are called but few are chosen.” The Scripture drives us to the conclusion that no one can be saved apart from the outward and the inward call of the gospel.
Lessons to Think About
1) The biblical truth of effectual calling confronts us, in a pointed way, with the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. The truth of effectual calling is a terrible, awe-inspiring truth. Men can do nothing to save themselves. God must act. God must call them, or they will remain apart from Christ. The privilege of gospel preaching alone will not save them. They must be called. Jesus said, “You must be born again.” (John 3:7) In Pilgrim’s Progress, there is a character named Ignorance who didn’t think he needed a scroll (the Word of God). He didn’t enter by the Wicket Gate. He thought he would come to the Celestial City in the way of his own choosing. Bunyan says he was ferried across the river by a man named Vain-Hope. How many multitudes are just like Ignorance—trusting in someone or something other than Christ alone to gain eternal glory.
But theirs is a religion of vain-hope. How many will hear those frightening words spoken to the man in The Parable of the Marriage Feast who did not have the proper garments on: “Friend, how did you get in here?” And then he was cast out. How many are trusting in sacraments, morality, orthodoxy, and a host of other things, but not Jesus Christ. All who hope to be saved must be born again. They must be effectually called.
Someone might ask, “But how can I be sure if I’ve been called?” We respond by asking, have you come to Christ? Are you trusting in Christ, and only in Christ? Are you looking to His sufferings and death alone, His shed blood alone to cover your sins? If so, then you’ve been called. John 6:37 “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me.” All God’s elect believe upon Christ. John 6:44 “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” Nobody believes upon Christ unless the Father first calls him. Faith in Christ is an evidence that one has been called. It’s not the cause of the new birth. It’s the evidence of it.
2) Marvel at the amazing mercy and goodness to you in His calling and choosing someone like you.
“Why was I made to hear Thy voice, and enter while there’s room
When thousands make a wretched choice, and rather starve than come?
Blessed are those who have heard the divine summons to faith in Christ. Salvation is not a matter ancestry, education, position, or any number of other advantages. It is purely a matter of the grace of God received by faith in Christ.
John 1:12, 13 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
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