There’s often the accusation that Calvinists or those who adhere to Reformed Theology are too lazy to go soulwinning. It’s really a sad thing some fundamental Baptists have forgotten that they have Calvinist brethren. It can be often said that Calvinism kills missions. It’s not Calvinism per se but hyper-Calvinism. Instead, if these non-Calvinistic pastors do some research, they’ll find out that the KJV is a Calvinist translation. If they do some research they’ll discover some of the hymn writers are Calvinists. Then again, some non-Calvinist pastors are quick to say they accept Calvinists as brothers and sisters, provided such people show signs of being born again and are going out soulwinning. However, they are quick to throw away Calvinism like Charles H. Spurgeon’s cigar. I was once willing to disregard Calvinism like a cigar. Spurgeon is still respected by some non-Calvinist pastors who acknowledge he was a Calvinist.
John Piper’s devotional today mentions this passage:
The great missionary hope is that when the gospel is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, God himself does what man cannot do: he creates the faith that saves. The call of God does what the call of man can’t. It raises the dead. It creates spiritual life. It is like the call of Jesus to Lazarus in the tomb, “Come out!” And the dead man obeyed and came out. The call created the obedience by creating life (John 11:43). That is how anyone is saved.
We can waken someone from sleep with our call, but God’s call can summon into being things that are not (Romans 4:17). God’s call is irresistible in the sense that it can overcome all resistance. It is infallibly effective according to God’s purpose — so much so that Paul can say, “Those whom [God] called he also justified” (Romans 8:30), even though we are only justified by our faith.
In other words, God’s call is so effectual that it infallibly creates the faith through which a person is justified. All the called are justified according to Romans 8:30. But none is justified without faith (Romans 5:1). So the call of God cannot fail in its intended effect. It irresistibly brings into being the faith that justifies.
This is what man cannot do. It is impossible. Only God can take out the heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26). Only God can draw people to the Son (John 6:44, 65). Only God can open the spiritually dead heart so that it gives heed to the gospel (Acts 16:14). Only the Good Shepherd knows his sheep, and calls them by name with such compelling power that they all follow — and never perish (John 10:3–4, 14).
The sovereign grace of God, doing the humanly impossible, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, is the great missionary hope.
I think one problem with the free will to believe the view of man is pride. It’s very easy to reduce the presentation of the Gospel to an intellectual discourse. It’s very easy to say, “I will convince this person to get saved before the end of the day.” One can bring all the evidence of creationism, quote the Bible in context, and exhaust themselves until they practically may lose their cool or even so sick as a result of it. However, people are going to find all of that hard to believe. Christian preacher Dr. John F. MacArthur wrote his book Hard to Believe which highlighted the extreme difficulty of believing the Gospel. It’s because people find it hard and these are some words MacArthur wrote in Chapter 2:
Verses 22 and 23 tell us the Jews were looking for a sign. “You’re the Messiah.” they said to Jesus, “So give us a sign.” They were expeting some great supernatural wonder that would identify and attract them to the promised Messiah. They wanted something flashy. Even though Jesus had given them miracle after miracle during His ministry, they wanted some sort of supermiracle they could all look and say, “That’s the sigh!” That’s the proof the proof that this is the Messiah at last!”
The Greeks, on the other hand, weren’t so much interested in the miraculous. They weren’t looking for a supernatural sign; they were looking for wisdom. They wanted to validate a true religion through some transcendental insight, some elevated idea, some esoteric knowledge, some sort of spiritual experience, maybe even an out-of-body experience or another imaginary emotional event.
The Greeks wanted wisdom, and the Jews wanted a sign. God gave them exactly the opposite. The Jews received a skandalon, a crucified Messiah–scandalous, blasphemous, bizarre, offensive, unbelievable. And for the Greeks who were looking for esoteric knowledge, something high and noble and lofty, all this nonsense about the eternal Creator God of the universe being crucified as idiotic.
It often ends that trying to convince a person to get saved ends in frustration. The illustration of salvation is seldom pictured as a man about to drown. The man is holding to the plank of their own righteousness. The floater ring is the Gospel. What’s often ignored is that the fallen human is so spiritually dead that left to one’s self, they’ll never choose God. It’s because the things of God can’t be understood by the natural human (1 Corinthians 2:14). Ironically, Christians who don’t believe in election end up saying, “Lord, thank You for opening the eyes of that person when I gave him/her up to You.”
I still believe Calvinists and non-Calvinists can support each other. It’s pretty much a minor issue that some people tend to major. As Pastor Paul David Washer would say it’s never been an issue. The real issue is the doctrine of regeneration. The great missionary hope rests in the sovereignty of God. God is sovereign and that should be in the assurance. All that can be done is the responsibility of missions.
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