The Southern Presbyterian Journal/Volume 13/Number 35/Effectual Calling
Articles on the Westminster Confession
by Gordon H. Clark
The Word of God (WCF 1)
Creeds
Knowledge and Ignorance
The Trinity (WCF 2)
A Hard Saying (WCF 3)
Providence (WCF 5)
Creation (WCF 4)
Healthy, Sick, or Dead? (WCF 6)
The Covenant (WCF 7)
Christ the Mediator (WCF 8)
Justification (WCF 11)
Sanctification (WCF 13)
Free Will (WCF 9)
Effectual Calling (WCF 10)
Adoption (WCF 12)
The Law of God (WCF 19)
Assurance (WCF 18)
Saving Faith (WCF 14)
Repentance (WCF 15)
Good Works (WCF 16)
Christian Liberty (WCF 20)
Perseverance (WCF 17)
Worship and Vows (WCF 21, 22)
The Sacraments (WCF 27)
Baptism (WCF 28)
The Church (WCF 25)
The Civil Magistrate (WCF 23)
The Lord's Supper (WCF 29)
Censures and Councils (WCF 30, 31)
Resurrection and Judgment (WCF 32, 33)
The article before last, on Christ the Mediator, referred to the unwillingness of the derelicts in a rescue mission to accept the gospel of Christ. If the evangelist had to depend solely on his own powers of persuasion, the job would be discouraging and indeed impossible. But the respectable sinner is as dead in sin as the drunken bum. No one can be saved without God's effectual call. Everyone who is born again is "born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Those who, in the interest of an erroneous theory of free will, attribute some ability to man's will, contradict John 1:13 and detract from God's grace.
Conversely, Calvinism and the Westminster Confession assign all the glory and efficacy to God. "All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased . . . effectually to call . . . to grace and salvation; enlightening their minds . . . renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them . . . and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ . . . being made willing by his grace."
The reader should of course check this with the Confession, read the words omitted above, and study the Scripture references. Any discouraged minister or evangelist who stretches out his hands to a rebellious people, can find renewed strength in contemplating these thoughts on God's almighty power. Perhaps the evangelist has unconsciously fallen into the temptation of trusting his own power and the ability of the sinner to respond. Returning to the Confession, and to the Scripture which it summarizes, he can once more adjust his message to God's word and trust God to call sinners to repentance.
For "this effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened (resurrected) and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it."
Unfortunately many ministers in the large denominations have substituted a social and political theory for this glorious gospel of grace. The president of Princeton Seminary advocates the admission of Red China into the United Nations. The Christian Century is full of pink political propaganda. The World Council emasculates doctrine, repudiates Protestantism by admitting the Greek Catholic organization that persecutes evangelicals, and raises no voice against state control of churches. Certainly it raises no voice to proclaim effectual calling.
How sad it is when ministers and professedly Christian organizations forsake the gospel of grace to preach something else! The outright denial of Biblical doctrines, in other words, heresy, is bad; but even apart from outright denial, the substitution of another message is almost if not altogether as bad. Whether people are lost because they have heard the Scriptures denied or because they simply have not heard the Scriptures, makes little difference. The servants of Christ have been given a message to proclaim, and failure to proclaim it cannot be excused on the ground that the substitute was socialistic politics instead of outright denial.
Sincere, conservative preachers ought to take stock of themselves too. It is all too easy to forget some parts of the message because we are so interested in some other parts. It is so easy to become lopsided. Then our people will become lopsided too. One excellent method of avoiding this unfortunate result is to preach a series of sermons on the Westminster Confession; or at least we should review the thirty-three chapters to determine what we have not preached on for the past some time.
The gospel must be preached, for ". . . . much less can men not professing the Christian religion be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they ever so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature and the law of that religion they do profess; and to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious and to be detested." (Sec. iv).