Why Are There So Many Thin Christians?

Heb. 5:11-14

Knives and Forks

Hebrews 5:12 talks about believers who've been in the faith for a while and should be able to teach others. But instead, they need someone to guide them back to the basic principles of the faith.

New believers need to learn the basic principles of the faith. They need milk, and that's perfectly okay.

But Hebrews also talks about another kind of person, someone who knows church language, listens to God's Word, and might even explain the gospel in simple terms. Yet he's not willing to study any doctrine that challenges his established beliefs.

Many believers end up at that point with the doctrines of grace. When you mention God's election of a people, most people will agree. But when you bring up effectual calling, things get tricky because it raises a fear: if God renews a sinner's will, does God force the sinner against his will?

Scripture gives a clear answer here. It shows us exactly what kind of will the sinner has before grace touches him.

In Ezekiel 36:26–27, the Lord promises his people a new heart and a new spirit. He says he will remove the heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. He will put his Spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes. This is God's work, from start to finish. The sinner doesn't soften his own heart first and then invite God to finish the job. No, God removes the stony heart. He gives a living one in its place.

A will enslaved to sin still makes choices. It's not a machine. But that will can't freely love God, submit to Christ, or seek holiness. So, the problem isn't that the sinner lacks a will. The problem is that his will is bent toward sin.

Effectual calling isn't about God dragging someone to Christ against his will. Instead, the Spirit first renews the heart. He opens the eyes of someone who once loved darkness, and he comes to Christ willingly. God's grace reaches the sinner at the deepest point of his rebellion and changes him there.

That's why sovereign election and effectual calling go hand in hand. Election is God's eternal plan to save his people in Christ. Effectual calling is his work in time, through his Word and Spirit, to bring those people to Christ. God, having chosen his people, doesn't leave their salvation hanging on a heart that's still dead in sin. He gives what he commands.

The Westminster Confession of Faith explains this carefully. Chapter 10 says God calls his elect out of their state of sin and death, renews their wills, and effectually draws them to Jesus Christ. It also says they come most freely, made willing by his grace. That's called mercy, not coercion.

Some Christians resist this because they've heard the doctrine described unfairly. Others have learned to measure God's work by what seems fair to them before they've studied what Scripture actually says about sin, grace, and the new birth. Maybe a preacher helped form those instincts. Maybe a tradition backed them up. Either way, neither one can settle the question.

The Christian must study the Scriptures for himself. Hebrews doesn't let us settle for a diet of only familiar teaching either.

Its call to maturity includes the hard work of discernment. Those who are mature have trained themselves, through constant practice, to tell good from evil. And that kind of training takes more than repeating doctrines that have never troubled us. It means opening the Bible right where it corrects us.

Get the knives and forks. Read the passages. Let Scripture settle your mind.