A. 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.

First we must establish that this call is a function of regeneration, that its power and process is within the same powerful act of regeneration. In other words, the act that caused you to “see the light,” is a mind-awakening, soul-transforming, life-giving action of the Holy Spirit that is likened to a Word or a voice or a call, because of the specific way that it animates the new life. We can get a sense of that by some words by Paul to the Thessalonians.

“But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 2:13-14).

Now lest anyone try to explain this away by suggesting that the “sanctification in view” here is simply the progressive work throughout our lives, and likewise with the belief in the truth—while it is true that both of those are ongoing, what comes before and after speaks of something more decisively divine. What happens here is rooted in the eternal decree of election, and it is called being CALLED, and that in the past tense. So the most natural reading of that pair—SANCTIFICATION BY THE SPIRIT and BELIEF IN THE TRUTH refers to that initial making holy and that initial causing of belief. With that background in the text, we can get another definition of the call from Turretin:

“This calling is an act of the grace of God in Christ by which he calls men dead in sin and lost in Adam through the preaching of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit, to union with Christ and to the salvation obtained in him.”1

Effectual Calling is the Work of God’s Spirit

If you believe in salvation by grace alone, then you must also come to accept what is meant by the effectual calling. If regeneration is wholly a work of God, then this calling, being within it, is wholly a work of God: “[God] who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” (2 Tim. 1:9).

Right in the middle of those statements about God’s sovereign grace in John 6—about the Father’s will to give a people the Son and that he would lose none of them—and right after saying “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day” (v. 44), the very next words are these:

“It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—(v. 45).

So to be taught inwardly by God becomes a way in which Jesus unpacks what it means to be made to look to the Son to have this eternal life. 1 John 2 is one place that tells us that the Spirit is this inward Teacher, so that to be taught by the Father is specifically to have the Spirit as this Teacher in the soul of the Christian. 

This was the historic teaching well before the Reformation. For example, Aquinas wrote, “Therefore faith, as regards the assent which is the chief act of faith, is from God moving man inwardly by grace.”2

Effectual Calling Awakens Both Mind and Will 

Our answer first mentions the conviction of the Spirit, or CONVINCING US OF OUR SIN AND MISERY. We may recall the response recorded by Luke to Peter’s sermon at Pentecost: “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37). To be cut to the heart here means a kind of good and holy injury to our sinful nature. Calvin comments on Peter’s words here: 

“he noteth a double fruit; first, that they were touched with the feeling of sorrow; and, secondly, that they were obedient to Peter’s counsel. This is the beginning of repentance, this is the entrance unto godliness, to be sorry for our sins, and to be wounded with the feeling of our miseries. For so long as men are careless, they cannot take such heed unto doctrine as they ought. And for this cause the word of God is compared to a sword, (Heb. 4:12,) because it doth mortify our flesh, that we may be offered to God for a sacrifice. But there must be added unto this pricking in heart readiness to obey.”3

One controversial matter is whether the conviction of sin is wholly placed under a preparation distinct from the effective work, as Owen said,4 and (even granting this), whether the former is part of regeneration. We must acknowledge that the Spirit confronts even the unbelieving world with “sin and righteousness and judgment” (Jn. 16:8). 

ENLIGHTENING OUR MINDS IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST. Theologians refer to external means here, though as Owen says, “moral suasion alone does not regenerate … [yet] the means, instrument, and matter of this moral suasion, is the word of God, as contained in the Scripture, comprising the law and gospel; for by this we are commanded, pressed, and persuaded to turn and live to God.”5 In other words, when we speak of the Spirit’s work upon the mind, we are not simply speaking about arguments presented from the Word, even from the heart of the gospel; but the Psalmist prays, 

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10).

The Spirit does not stop short at the enlivening of the engine of man, only to leave the rest of the cars of the soul to be pulled into the life by the new mind. But all at once, God makes one new man. 

Having said that, there is a reason that the mind is prioritized within that whole renewal. It is because of the main means the Spirit uses. The incorruptible seed which is said to make us born again is “this word,” but, even more specifically, “the good news that was preached to you” (1 Pet. 1:23). So the Spirit enlightens the mind by illuminating the Word. As Dabney put it, “The Holy Ghost renovates the mental vision.”6

But not just the mind. If Edwards was correct, that the will is “the mind choosing,”7 then a renewed mind must necessarily issue forth into the RENEWING OUR WILLS. So in the classic passage on dual agency in sanctification, Paul commands the Philippians,

“work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12b-13).

Note that this is God willing in us—not God willing for us. The Spirit willing in us does not eradicate our will, but gets it finally moving. The Spirit’s willing here is more like the raging of the river, and our new wills, like the wheel of a mill, now animated and turning at full speed, where before, when there was no waters flowing, it stood still, insensitive toward the spiritual matters that human wills were made for. 

Effectual Calling is Distinct from the Gospel Call 

When the Westminster Divines use these next words HE DOTH PERSUADE AND ENABLE US, we must ask the question: Who is the “He” in this line? It isn’t the human evangelist. So when Paul speaks of the evangelist as a kind of necessary condition, he adds:

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Rom. 10:17).

Simply read the rest of Romans 10 to see the Spirit, through Paul’s words, distinguish between unbelieving Israel, who heard soundwaves perfectly well, versus that hearing that was joined to faith. So there is a particular action that is not something that is happening to all human beings, nor even to all who happen to hear the gospel in soundwaves, nor all who read about the gospel in the ink patterns, nor even those who can understand a good amount of facts about the gospel. This is a spiritual persuasion and a spiritual enablement. We might also think of where Paul was preaching in the city of Thyatira, and attention focused on a woman named Lydia. It says, “The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul” (Acts 16:14). Note the two parts. There is what the Lord did to her heart and there is what was said by Paul. So there is the Spirit and the Word. 

Because of this, Reformed theologians have distinguished between the outward—you might even say physical—gospel call. Dabney used the words “the common and the effectual”8 to distinguish these. One passage that clearly distinguishes between the gospel versus effectual call is Matthew 22:14: “For many are called, but few are chosen.” If to be “chosen” were simply God’s stamp of approval on our response to the call, well then what exactly would be the point of Jesus distinguishing the call that went out to all, and this thing that obviously made the difference? God communicates to Paul that he was to be used as an instrumental cause to “the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me’” (Acts 26:17-18). So the human speaker is calling to sinners with God’s own word. 

Turretin shows a link between several doctrines in this distinction: “A twofold calling is therefore acknowledged by us, corresponding to the twofold state of the church—the visible and invisible (viz., an external and internal).”9

There is a subjective and objective component to the call, and I have found that lopsided views of the effectual and gospel calls will tend to overemphasize one or the other of these to the point where the other is altogether obscured. Note the words about what we are persuaded with and toward; what we are enabled to do and toward what: TO EMBRACE JESUS CHRIST. There is the subjective action of the new heart that is called an “embrace.” Not simply an apprehension. Not simply recognition of facts. But there is a personal owning and trust, and a seeing oneself wholly at the mercy of and in the grip of the Savior. Which then points to the objective aspect—Jesus Christ. It is not a different Jesus Christ presented by the church or in the Bible to the unbeliever as it is to the believer. Is Christ divided? Would we lie about Christ to those who are unregenerate and only tell the truth about Him to those we know are regenerated? No! Of course not! So, the same Christ is the same Object in the gospel calls as in the effectual call. What makes the difference is not the data in the objective call, but the power of the Holy Spirit to do a work on the heart of the elect. 

Now one caveat about that. This does not mean that there are things that we can say that are true about our elect audience, that are not true about our non-elect audience. However, we often make that into an exercise of doing God’s job for him. Since we do not know who the elect are with that infallible sight into the heart that God has, we are stuck with the human limitations of tailoring our speech to our audience as best we can. This is important in a few areas. But the one area that is specifically addressed here is in the act of evangelism. So the last words of the answer are FREELY OFFERED TO US IN THE GOSPEL. Every word here is subject to equivocation. So it is important to remember that, in this context, the speakers are the Westminster Divines, and so—regardless of what we might want to talk about—they are only really talking about the activity of the Holy Spirit in the effectual call. In this context, (1) “freely” refers to God’s sovereign grace; (2) “offered” means what it says, “offered to us”; and (3) “in the gospel” refers to that knowledge or good news that He is enlightening for us to understand and embrace. 

Effectual Calling Defended Against the Charge of “Meaninglessness” 

Naturally this doctrine will face the charge of unfairness. But it will also face another charge that we need to think through. That is the charge that is doesn’t make any sense for God to extend an invitation that he only means for some but not all. 

Objection. “If all men come into the world dead to spiritual truths and unwilling by nature, then the offer of salvation to all is disingenuous. It would be an invitation that not all can accept, and thus it would be an offer that is not really meant.”

Reply. There are two basic ways that this objection has been dealt with in church history. One is to focus on the goodness of the eternal life promised in that invitation and corresponding guilt of man being already guilty for the response to general revelation (e.g. Rom. 1:20; Jn. 3:18). The other way of answering has been to say that, following the decree of predestination, God has not failed to offer since he did not “offer” to the reprobate in the same way anyway. To all the gospel is proclaimed, but the sense of offering whereby God makes entreaty to the soul, that is this work of the Spirit in regeneration. There is a spectrum within this way of responding. And, at least within the Calvinistic tradition, it has led to the controversy over what is often called the “Well Meant Offer.”

Dabney replies to this objection by pointing the Arminian to providence and saying, “If His admitting sinners to the gospel call, whom He yet foresees to be bent on their own destruction, is insincere; and the reality of His benefit therein is doubted, because He never efficaciously purposed to make them repent, His providential goodness also is no true goodness.”10 In other words, whenever the gospel call is reduced to the effectual call (whether the Arminian does it or the Hyper-Calvinist does it) there is the lurking Pelagian assumption that the goodness of God is owing to the capacities of man. 

What then is good about the gospel call? Dabney offers a “threefold” design of God in ordaining a common call: “First, it is His appointed and proper means for saving from among them, the elect … God’s second design … was the exercise of the general holiness, goodness, and compassion of His nature (which generally regarded all His creatures), in dissuading all from sin and self-destruction … God’s third design … is, that when men ruin themselves, as He foresaw they would, His holiness, goodness, compassion and truth may be entirely cleared, in their fate, before heaven and earth.”11

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1. Turretin, Institutes, II.15.1.2.

2. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Pt. II-II Q.6, Art

3. Calvin, Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 115–116.

4. John Owen, The Holy Spirit: His Gifts and Power (Ross-shire, UK, Christian Focus Publications, 2004), 205.

5. Owen, The Holy Spirit, 205.

6. Dabney, Systematic Theology, 560.

7. Edwards, The Freedom of the Will, 1.

8. Dabney, Systematic Theology, 554.

9. Turretin, Institutes, II.15.1.6.

10. Dabney, Systematic Theology, 557.

11. Dabney, Systematic Theology, 555.