Think Wink.

In the acronym TULIP, one of the more contested points is the “I” or Irresistible Grace. Many people get the idea that this means God saves us whether we want to be saved or not. He saves some who are kicking and screaming all the way and their humanity is violated by God somehow. Now this post is to try to defend Irresistible Grace, or as I call it “Effectual Grace.” Instead, I was reading my Greek NT today and came across Romans 8:30. In that text, I noticed something that I just don’t think we should be allowed to miss in the effectual grace. There is a connection between “called” and “justified” that I want to explore.

Now the Greek of the middle portion of Romans 8:30 goes like this: kai hous ekalesen, toutous kai edikaiosen. First what caught my attention was the verbs themselves, ekalesen and edikaiosen. They are third-person, aorist, active, indicative. Indicative being a statement of fact; active being the subject performs the action upon the direct object; third-person because God is performing the action to man. The aorist tense, it doesn’t matter whether first or second aorist, is a very peculiar tense. It denotes past time with an undefined aspect of the action. Greek verbs usually convey continuous action (I was studying) or undefined action (I study). However, the aorist conveys the sense that the action is complete, it is not incomplete. But how or when it is done is not known by the tense of the verb. So when the call and justification took place is unknown. How the call and the justification is not known by the verb itself. All we know that God called and he also justified. But the call is a complete call and a certain call. The justification is a certain and complete justification.

The second observation comes from the pronouns, hous and toutous. Hous is a relative pronoun. A relative pronoun refers back to its antecedent. For Romans 8:30, it is all the way back in Romans 8:28 and Romans 8:29. “And we know that for those who love God…those who are called according to his purpose…For those whom he foreknew…” It is referring back to God’s people, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, those who have trusted Jesus for their salvation and delight in him as their only and highest treasure, Christians like you and me. They were called earlier in Romans 8:30. Now we learn something about these people who were called. Toutous is a demonstrative pronoun which is a pronoun that refers to a particular noun(s) and singles it/them out. It draws attention to them. Toutous refers back to the relative pronoun hous. What we come up with is that the ones whom God called, whom God predetermined to be conformed to the image of Christ, whom God had chosen beforehand, they are justified by God; they are given Christ’s righteousness and perfect standing before God.

Now this creates somewhat of a problem. How does that happen? This is true especially in light of verses like Romans 5:1, “we have been justified by faith;” or Galatians 2:16, “we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ…in order to be justified by faith in Christ;” or Philippians 3:9, “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” These verses have Paul saying that it is by faith, our trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, believing his promises to be true, that we are given the right standing before God in justification. So the question is how does Romans 8:30 fit into this biblical teaching and Pauline theology?

The Greek does not allow for any kind of rejection of the calling and thus no one who is called is left unjustified. Those whom God called he also justified. We can’t avoid it and still be faithful to Romans 8:30. Somehow the call, invitation if you will, of God justifies the person called. But if faith is the way we are justified, then somehow the call must bring about faith. It is the only way. God’s call to his chosen people brings about in them faith. I have no doubts of this because of the verb “justified” (edikaiosen) being in the aorist tense. How the call brings justification–which is by faith alone–I do not know. But Paul leaves no doubt that the call does do this. Look at 1 Corinthians 1:22-24 as well. Paul writes, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Now I want to focus on how Paul uses “called” here. He uses the adjective cognate of the verb kaleo, which is the verb used in Romans 8:28-30. The Jews want powerful signs of the Messiah, the Greeks are philosophers seeking after wisdom, the Logos. Paul gives them all Christ crucified. To the Jews, he is weak; to the Greek this is foolishness and not wisdom. But notice here, those who are called/invited, they see Christ as the very power and sign of God and he is the Logos and the wisdom (sophia) of God. All heard Christ crucified, Jew and Greek, and were called to faith by Paul. Only those Jews Greeks who were “called” in a more definite and specific way/sense actually saw the truth of the cross and of Christ. Only those who are called.

Thus I must conclude that God’s call can come on many levels. There is the call to a particular occupation or living status (i.e. marriage, a new home, new town/city/country). There is the call that is heard by the external ear and is rejected by the natural, sinful man/woman. Then there is the call that somehow, and I’m not saying how it works for that is a mystery not really explored so much by the NT writers, moves within the sinner’s heart and moves that sinner to trust in Jesus Christ and be justified and saved. God’s call does that; we come to Christ by God’s command/call/invitation. Yet somehow the Bible still commands us to make a choice. There is a deep and profound mystery here. I am amazed by God and his sovereign ways.

Related posts:

Who And [He] Predestined These Also [He] Called

Prayer

Faith, Works, Amen