Mary and Martha faced a dilemma. Lazarus was dead. Their brother lay wrapped in grave clothes, covered in burial spices, and sealed in a tomb. How could they bring Lazarus back to life?
Perhaps they could try psychology on Lazarus: “It is much better being alive than dead! You will find that you feel better and enjoy the sights and sounds around you if you will only come back to life!”
Or maybe they should use persuasion: “Lazarus, why will you remain bound in your grave clothes? Don’t you see how much you are missing? Can you not do something about the awful stench that will soon envelop you? Do you really want to be dead when you could be alive?”
Or maybe they could show Lazarus how great life really is: “Lazarus, take a look. We’re walking, running, singing, and dancing! This could be you, if you would come to life. We’re going to enjoy a great feast. Think about all of the delicious food and drink that awaits us. Don’t you want to come along?”
Or maybe they could give proof that living people enjoy life more than dead people: “Lazarus, do you not see how much better communicators living people are compared to the dead? Your grave companions don’t even talk to you; they care nothing about you. But good friends await you coming to life. You can talk, go on trips, enjoy stimulating discussions, and even find a wife!”
Or maybe he just needs someone to talk him through: “Lazarus, you can do it! Just start breathing again. Slowly, slowly, take a deep breath; get your heart to pumping, fire up your brain. Here, watch us, watch how we’re doing it and just do the same.”
One more attempt, have him repeat after you a positive statement of life: “Lazarus, just repeat after me, ‘I, Lazarus of Bethany, will no longer remain dead. I choose to be alive, fully alive with no more signs of death’.”
I must say, all of those attempts to bring Lazarus to life appear well intentioned and certainly come out of love to see him enjoying life once again. But one problem kept all their excellent proposals from working: Lazarus was dead. Nothing but a divine voice with full authority could command him to come to life and it really happen. Indeed, that’s just what took place when Jesus stood before the tomb and cried out, “Lazarus, come forth!” The power of that divine call brought a dead man to life! Lazarus obeyed the call, getting up from his bed of death to return to the living.
Is something less than that powerful call needed to bring those “dead in trespasses and sins” to life? Can one spiritually dead take any more action spiritually than one physically dead can act physically? In either case, a sovereign act of God is needed to bring the dead to life. God’s sovereign action in effectually calling sinners assures their justification and glorification. A series of sovereign actions set in motion the certainty of our salvation through Christ. To see how God works on our behalf spurs believers to keep pressing on in the faith. How does God work sovereignly in our salvation? Let’s give attention to the last three links in the golden chain of salvation explained in these verses.
We’ve already noticed that the certainty of God’s symphonic working together for good on behalf of those loving Him and those called according to His purpose, has its foundation in divine foreknowledge and predestination. Foreknowledge, as we saw from the other uses in the New Testament, expresses much more than prior knowledge on God’s part. Rather it is an intentional affection or a sovereign love shown to a particular people. This followed with God predestining or drawing a horizon around these same people. Predestination does not merely put people into a potential position to be saved. God assures that those whom He predestines will be “conformed to the image of His Son.” But further, this sovereign act has an even higher aim: “so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.” Firstborn, in biblical language, implies preeminence or having the first place among everyone else in the family. The unfolding drama in Revelation unveils this preeminence, as the worthiness of the Lamb of God reaches its zenith when the bride is presented to the Lamb in the New Heaven and New Earth. So God’s purpose in predestining a people finds its ultimate aim in the same people presented as the eternal bride of the Lamb.
“Firstborn among many brethren,” expresses all of the elect of God as part of the eternal family. Hebrews 2:11 states that Jesus “is not ashamed to call us brethren,” which shows our unity with the Son. To be named with Him is far above all excellence but to be declared in union with Him exceeds our imagination! Eternity focuses on Jesus Christ’s glory in His people. If that glory means little to you now then it may be because heaven is not presently part of your future. If you would share that eternal glory then it must only be with the preeminence of Jesus Christ in your life.
But foreknowledge and predestination are not enough to transfer those in the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God’s Son. So the Apostle explains three more links to the chain in order to explain further the sovereign work of God in our salvation. As we investigate these three links, let’s do so in catechetical fashion.
Calling is distinguished in its dual usages. There is a general call of the gospel anytime that it is preached, taught, or explained. “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:3-4). Jesus came preaching the gospel of the kingdom, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). No exceptions or distinctions were made in those passages. All men are called to repent and believe the gospel.
Yet all men do not. Some do. How do we explain this phenomenon that two people—dead in trespasses and sins—can hear the same gospel preached while one believes and the other does not? They both hear the call of the gospel but one hears it generally while the other hears the gospel call effectually. The word describes “a kind of ‘summons’ from the King of the universe and it has such power that it brings about the response that it asks for in people’s hearts” [Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 692].
The New Testament writers commonly use this idea of calling to explain what God does when the gospel actually comes to life in a person so that he believes. The emphasis is upon seeing this as the action of God since the one he calls cannot make himself alive. It is indeed that “summons from the King of the universe” that comes with sufficient power to wake up the spiritually dead! Paul told the Corinthians, “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9). Peter similarly echoed, “…so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light,” and “…the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Pet. 2:9; 5:10).
In other words, He calls a particular people. We don’t make that decision of who will be the called. That arises from divine mercy and grace alone. But the certainty is that none are missing from those elected by God’s kind intentions to the praise of the glory of His grace (Eph. 1:5-6).
His calling is effectual, i.e. “it is an act of God that guarantees a response” of repentance and faith [Grudem, 692]. Because it is effectual it is also not robotic or contrary to the will of the believing sinner. Some have the idea that God’s calling forces a recalcitrant sinner to repentance. But the powerful summons of the King of the universe produces transforming results. We see hints of this summons in our own lives. A child may find himself complaining against his father’s authority, telling himself, “I don’t care what he tells me to do, I’m not going to do it!” He boasts to his friends that he’s going to be in charge of his own life. Then a voice is heard. It is a fatherly summons, “Son! Come home immediately!” All of the sudden, the stubbornness melts and the will changes into conformity with the father’s summons. If an earthly father’s authority overcomes a stubborn little boy’s will, how much more does the eternal Father’s authority that powerfully summons us to Himself through Jesus Christ in the gospel!
God’s calling works through the gospel. We notice this in Romans 10:14, “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?” And what does he preach? It is the gospel of Christ so that “faith comes through hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (10:17). The gospel comes to life as the Holy Spirit illumines the sinner’s heart and mind, renewing his will through the powerful act of regeneration, so that he hears and gladly believes.
Think about the powerful argument concerning human sinfulness and the corporate fall of man worked out in Romans 1-3 and 5. Is there a shred of desire to love and follow Christ in one who is at enmity with God? The Apostle has already explained, “The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so” (8:7). This divinely powerful call is needed to bring one in such condition to life in Christ. All would continue to pursue his own way apart from God’s initiative and powerful summons in calling us through the gospel.
It is the initial response of repentance and faith that is the first evidence of divine calling. He may have heard the gospel hundreds of times before but something changes. He hears it differently; it affects his senses differently; his mind is renewed and his will is now fully engaged in turning from his sin and trusting in the crucified and risen Christ as his Lord. Other gospel fruit accompanies his repentance and faith as he grows in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Has God called you to Himself through the gospel? Has the evidence of repentance and faith, and additional gospel fruit demonstrated that God has indeed sovereignly called you to Himself through Christ? Lazarus needed more than persuasion and psychology to bring him to life; he needed the powerful summons of Jesus Christ the Lord of life!
As a legal declaration, justification is the opposite of condemnation. Both terms have to do with the law of God. Divine justice regarding God’s law demands eternal satisfaction. Lawbreakers are condemned, lacking any ability to satisfy the law’s demands apart from facing God’s just wrath for their sin. All men are under the law, all have broken the law, and so all the world has “become accountable to God” (Rom. 3:19). But in great mercy, God has satisfied the law’s demands through the righteousness of One who perfectly obeyed at every point, and in His own body at the cross, bore the penalty against us as lawbreakers. Through this active obedience of Christ in fulfilling the law and His passive obedience in offering Himself as a sacrifice for our sins, God is just in declaring sinners righteous. This is the argument that Paul makes in Romans 3:19-31, which explains that apart from God publicly displaying Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, He could not justly acquit sinners and count them as righteous. Those in Christ are no longer held guilty before God and even more, are counted as righteous through the imputation of Christ’s righteousness on their behalf.
Guilt comes through inheriting a sinful nature through Adam and the ongoing practice of breaking God’s law through disobedience (cf. Romans 1-3; 5).
This involved the Incarnation by which the eternal Son became what He was not from all eternity—a man, in order that He might perfectly obey the law on our behalf, and then face a wrath-absorbing, sin-atoning, God-satisfying death in our place. The righteous died for the unrighteousness so that the unrighteous might be counted as righteous in Christ. As our Substitute, all that Jesus accomplished in His obedience and death, God credits to our account.
That’s what Paul hammers home in the chain of salvation in verses 29-30. He foreknew, He predestined, He called, He justified, and He glorified. Grace, God acting on our behalf, flows out of each declaration. “By the works of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight,” so unless God acts in grace toward us we have no hope of ever having a right standing with God (Rom. 3:20). Just as “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” even so, when we believe in the Son of God as our righteousness before God and our sin-bearer at the cross, God credits the righteousness of Christ to our account (4:3).
Those whom God calls through the gospel so that they repent and believe in Christ, having been secured through Christ’s sacrifice, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and kept by the power of God, belong to that throng whom God has justified and glorified through Christ.
Jesus Christ has accomplished glorification through His redemptive work and completes it upon His return to gather His bride, judge unbelievers, and restore the created order. Paul views it as already complete, noted by the past tense of “glorified.” So certain and so effective was the redemptive action of Jesus Christ, God views glorification as final. Believers’ final preservation and perseverance are assured by this divine certainty in glorification.
Each link in the chain assures the next link’s certainty, not because we perform at such an exceptional level but because God’s grace is powerful enough to accomplish it!
Believers will be raised in a renewed world while unbelievers will be raised to face eternal judgment. The Day of the Lord reveals it.
Do you see how important each link of the golden chain of salvation is for you? Your assurance is rooted in the action of God on your behalf. The level of our performance and faithfulness in the Christian life ebbs and flows with the seasons of life, but God is faithful; His grace is unchanging. If we would know assurance then let us think long and fruitfully upon the action of God past, present, and future. Let us see the centrality of Christ’s redemptive work and the effectiveness of God’s calling us out of darkness into His kingdom, even as Jesus called a dead Lazarus to life. Let us give no more thought to trying to appease God with our works of righteousness; let us instead, rely wholly upon the justifying work of Jesus Christ. And when we fret over perseverance, struggling to press on as a Christian, then ponder glorification. See it as certain, already accomplished in Jesus Christ. Then start singing about the grace of God!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be explicitly approved by South Woods Baptist Church.
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy:
Copyright South Woods Baptist Church. Website: www.southwoodsbc.org. Used by permission as granted on web site. Questions, comments, and suggestions about our site can be sent here.
Copyright 2011, South Woods Baptist Church, All Rights Reserved