To the Christian who has experienced this efficacious, lavish outpouring of amazing grace from the Holy Spirit will look to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and see the wisdom and glory and power of God though it be foolishness to those who are perishing. Be encouraged: The same grace that saved is the same grace that preserves and the Holy Spirit who breathed new life into you at the first will keep you alive in Christ until we see Him face to face.

Irresistible grace is the fourth part of the Tulip acronym and is the one doctrine of grace that every Christian, deep down, can never deny. No Christian will balk in a Sunday morning worship service when the congregation sings Amazing Grace (written by John Newton, a Calvinist pastor of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century) because every Christian knows that it was the amazing grace of God that saved us and, if not for this astonishing grace from the Lord, we would be eternally lost. It is, in fact, foundational in understanding the other four doctrines of grace. If election is thought of as the work of the Father, and atonement thought of as the work of the Son, then grace must be thought of as the work of the Holy Spirit.[1] It His divine task to efficaciously draw the sinner to Christ.

Salvation is a Trinitarian work, expressed best within the Covenant of Redemption. This Covenant of Redemption is implicitly understood from such passages as John 6:37 and 44, John 17, Ephesians 1:10-11, and many others. The basis of this teaching is that, from eternity past, the Father covenanted with the Son and Spirit, planning salvation, and promising an elect number of people from His creation as a gift and Bride to His Son in an arranged marriage. The Son covenanted with the Father and the Spirit and promised to incarnate as a man and redeem the elect, that He would then have a perfect Bride, not having any spot of sin or wrinkle of unholiness but declared perfectly holy and righteous through union with Him (Eph. 5:25-27). The Spirit covenanted with the Father and the Son, promising to efficaciously draw the elect to Christ through the preaching of the Gospel, and to seal them with an eternal seal until the day of their glorification (Eph. 1:13-14). It is within this framework of the Covenant of Redemption that the doctrines of grace are properly understood.

Man, who is dead in his trespasses and sins, is unable to come to Christ of his own accord; his will is stubbornly opposed to the things of God. Yet, God has elected a certain number from the human race to come to the Son, and the Son has already procured salvation for that elect number. Not a drop of Christ’s redeeming blood can be wasted.

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