Effectual calling

The call we hear and the call that brings us

Salvation in Scripture begins with God's call. The verb kaleō (καλέω), ‘to call’, describes God summoning people "out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9). Yet Scripture speaks of calling in two ways. Jesus closed the parable of the wedding feast with the words "many are called, but few are chosen" (Matthew 22:14): the gospel invites all who hear, and not all respond. Paul, on the other hand, writes that "those He called, He also justified" (Romans 8:30), and that the same message of the cross which seems foolish to some is something else to others:

but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

1 Corinthians 1:24

Lydia of Thyatira is the example. Paul spoke, and "the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message" (Acts 16:14). Reformed theology distinguishes the outward call, the gospel heard by the ear, from the inward call in which the Spirit opens the heart through that word and brings a person to Christ; the second it names effectual calling. It is a call "not because of our works, but by His own purpose and by the grace He granted us in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 1:9).

How the church came to say it

Augustine taught that among the many who hear the call there are those "called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28), whom God's call actually brings to faith Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints. After the Reformation the Reformed churches wrote this into their confessions. The Canons of Dort confess that when God works true conversion in the elect, he not only has the gospel preached outwardly but enlightens their minds by the Spirit, opens the closed heart and quickens the will that was dead Canons of Dort, III/IV.11. The Westminster Shorter Catechism sums it up:

Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.

Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 31

This call does not drag people against their will. The Westminster Confession says that those God calls "come most freely, being made willing by his grace" Westminster Confession 10.1. In this call, Reformed theology holds, the Spirit gives new birth (regeneration), works faith and unites a person to Christ; so it stands near the head of the order of salvation.

Where the traditions differ

All the traditions agree that God's call comes from his grace and that the gospel must be offered sincerely to everyone. They differ over why the call bears fruit in some. Reformed churches teach that God surely brings to Christ, at the time he has set, those he chose before the foundation of the world, and that his call springs from free grace, not from anything foreseen in them (see election). Wesleyans and Arminians teach that the Spirit's grace which comes with the gospel enables every hearer to respond, and that the call bears fruit when it is obeyed and can be refused. John Wesley glossed ‘whom he called’ in Romans 8:30 as "when obedient to the heavenly calling" Wesley.

Lutherans teach that God's call through the Word is no pretence but earnest, and that he wills to work through the Word in all whom he calls; that many are called and few chosen is the fault of those who despise the Word and resist the Spirit Formula of Concord, art. 11. Lutherans therefore do not speak of a separate inward call for the elect alone. Within the Catholic Church, too, Dominicans and Jesuits long debated how grace becomes effective, until in 1607 the pope closed the dispute without condemning either side Molina, Concordia. Through all these differences, everyone who has come to Christ can agree that the coming was not their own merit. The lesson Effectual calling and perseverance treats the Reformed teaching more fully.