Devotional 60: The Non-Elect: Why Some Are Not Effectually Called

The Confession Read

Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come unto Christ, and therefore cannot be saved: much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the laws of that religion they do profess. And, to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious, and to be detested.

— Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 10, Section 4

Introduction

He believed. He was baptized. He followed the apostles from city to city, watching miracles and hearing sermons that would have melted any ordinary heart. When Philip preached Christ in Samaria, Simon the sorcerer was among the first to respond — and not with hesitation, but with something that looked for all the world like genuine faith. The text says plainly, "Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done." If you had stood in that Samaritan crowd and pointed to Simon, you would have said, There is a convert. There is a brother. Yet when Peter arrived and the apostles laid hands on the new believers, conferring the Holy Spirit, Simon's heart was laid bare. He saw something he wanted, and he reached for his purse. "Give me also this power," he said, "that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost." Peter's reply cut through every external appearance to the root: "Thy money perish with thee... thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God." The man who believed, who was baptized, who followed — he was still in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. He had never truly come to Christ at all. This is the hard, necessary truth that the fourth section of our Confession sets before us. The outward call of the gospel goes to many. The inward, effectual call comes only to the elect. Between these two calls lies a vast and sobering territory — the territory of common operations, of near approach, of experiences that look like conversion but lack its substance. And beyond even that territory lies an even harder word: that those who have never heard the name of Christ at all, however sincere their devotion or upright their lives, cannot be saved apart from Him. We have spent three sections marveling at the sovereign grace of God in effectual calling. But the fourth section, like the minor key in a symphony, sounds the note that makes the major key intelligible. Grace is only astonishing when we understand what it saves us from. The Confession does not let us look away.

Scripture Foundation

Our Lord Himself sets the table for this doctrine with words more unsettling than anything the divines could devise. In the Sermon on the Mount, having preached the law of the kingdom with an authority that left the multitudes astonished, Jesus turns at last to a scene of final judgment — and what He describes ought to stop the breath of every professing Christian. Matthew 7:21-23 "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Who stands before the judgment seat in this passage? These are not atheists. These are not pagans crying out to Baal. These are people who called Jesus "Lord" — twice, with evident fervor. They prophesied in His name. They cast out demons in His name. They did wonderful works — the Greek word is dynameis, the same term used for the miracles of the apostles. By every external measure, these were Christian ministers engaged in Christian ministry. And yet Christ's verdict upon them is annihilation: oudepote egnōn hymas — "I never knew you." Not "I once knew you and you fell away." Not "I knew you for a season." Never. At no point. The relationship they thought they had with Christ was a relationship that existed only in their own minds. He looks at their prophecies, their exorcisms, their mighty works, and He sees only iniquity — work done without Him, for motives that had nothing to do with love of His glory. This is the first great biblical pillar under the Confession's teaching. There is a kind of religious experience that goes very far, that impresses other Christians, that produces measurable external results, and that nevertheless terminates in those most terrible words ever to fall from the lips of the Judge of all the earth: "I never knew you." The second pillar comes from the same Gospel, in the parable our Lord told to explain why the same seed produces such different results. Matthew 13:20-21 "But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended." The stony-ground hearer receives the word "with joy." The Greek is meta charas — with gladness, with delight. This is not the grudging assent of a man who knows he ought to believe but doesn't want to. This is emotional response, genuine as far as it goes. The word penetrates, it moves the affections, it produces a visible change. For a season — proskairos, temporary, for a time — this hearer looks indistinguishable from the good-ground hearer. He is in the same field, receiving the same seed, showing the same initial growth. But he has no root. The soil beneath the surface is rock. And when the sun of affliction beats down, the plant that looked so promising withers because it never drew life from deep soil. It was alive only to the surface. What is this but an exact portrait of the "common operations" our Confession describes? The Spirit can illuminate the understanding so that a man grasps gospel truth with real intellectual conviction. The Spirit can stir the affections so that a man feels genuine sorrow for sin and genuine joy in the promises. The Spirit can produce external reformation so that a man leaves off drunkenness or profanity and takes up church attendance and charitable giving. All of this is real, as far as it goes. But it does not go to the root. It does not create a new heart. It does not unite the soul to Christ. And when the test comes — and the test always comes — what had no root cannot stand. The third pillar is the most solemn passage in all of Scripture on this subject, a text that has troubled thoughtful readers for two thousand years. Hebrews 6:4-6 "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." This passage demands careful handling. The description is staggering. These individuals were phōtisthentas — enlightened. The light of truth penetrated their minds. They understood the gospel in a way the natural man cannot. They geusamenous — tasted the heavenly gift. The word "taste" here is the same verb used of Jesus tasting death for every man (Hebrews 2:9). It indicates a real experience, not a mere intellectual nod. They were metochous genēthentas — made partakers of the Holy Ghost. This is the language of participation, of sharing in something. Yet the author of Hebrews says they can "fall away" — and that when they do, renewal to repentance becomes impossible. What are we to make of this? The Reformed understanding, which the divines carefully incorporated into our Confession, is that these experiences describe the common operations of the Spirit in the non-elect. The enlightenment is real illumination of the understanding, but it falls short of regeneration. The tasting is genuine sampling of the heavenly gift, but not the eating and digesting of Christ by faith. The participation in the Holy Ghost refers to sharing in the benefits the Spirit confers upon the visible church — the conviction, the gifts, the fellowship of believers — without receiving the Spirit as an indwelling presence who unites the soul to Christ. This is a hard distinction. It is meant to be. The author of Hebrews is not writing to comfort the complacent. He is writing to startle those who have experienced much and yet may still lack the one thing necessary. How, then, can we account for people who have come so near to the kingdom and yet never entered? The apostle John gives us the theological principle that explains all such cases. 1 John 2:19 "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us." Here is the doctrine of perseverance in reverse. The elect persevere because God preserves them. Those who fall away — whether after weeks or after decades of apparent faith — reveal by their departure that they were never truly among the elect at all. The going out does not cause their lost condition; it manifests what was always true. They were in the visible church but not in the invisible church. They had the external call but not the internal. They experienced common operations but not effectual calling. When John says "they were not of us," he traces the deepest reality back before time, back to the electing decree of God. Their departure is the historical outworking of what was always the case: they were not among those given by the Father to the Son. And then there is the second clause of the Confession, the word that offends the modern ear most sharply. What of those who have never heard the gospel at all? What of the sincere Muslim, the devout Hindu, the upright pagan who lives by the light of conscience? Acts 4:12 "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Peter spoke these words to the Sanhedrin — the most religiously scrupulous body in Israel. He did not say, "There is no salvation in any other for those who have heard and rejected the gospel." He said there is no salvation in any other, period. The "must" in "we must be saved" is a divine necessity, not a human preference. It is the dei of the New Testament — the word that marks the unalterable purpose of God. As surely as Christ must suffer, as surely as the Scriptures must be fulfilled, so surely must salvation come through Christ alone or not at all. This is the apostolic foundation upon which the Confession builds its double assertion: those who hear the gospel and experience common operations are not saved if they never truly come to Christ; and those who never hear the gospel at all cannot be saved in any other way whatsoever. Between these two denials stands the great positive truth: Christ is the only Savior, and none who come to Him will be cast out.

What the Divines Meant

When the Westminster Assembly gathered in 1643, they faced not one error but several converging errors. The first half of the seventeenth century had seen the rise of Socinianism, which denied the deity of Christ and reduced His saving work to moral example. It had seen the spread of Deism among the educated classes of England — Lord Herbert of Cherbury had published his De Veritate in 1624, arguing that the five innate truths of natural religion were sufficient for salvation without special revelation. And within the church itself, a spirit of laxity had taken hold that we might call Latitudinarianism — the conviction that sincerity in any religion, or even in no particular religion at all, was enough to secure a man's standing with God. The divines wrote Section 4 with these errors in mind, and the structure of the section reflects a deliberate theological strategy. They begin, not with the pagan, but with the baptized church member. They deal first with those who hear the gospel, receive common operations, and yet never truly come to Christ. Only then do they proceed to those outside the visible church entirely. This ordering is intentional. It says, in effect: Do not imagine that the danger lies only beyond the walls of Christendom. The danger sits in the pew beside you. The danger may sit in your own heart. The phrase "called by the ministry of the Word" identifies what the Reformed tradition calls the vocatio externa — the outward, general call that goes to all who hear the gospel preached. This call is genuine. It carries real divine authority. When a minister proclaims Christ from the pulpit, God Himself is commanding every hearer to repent and believe. The call is not a pretense or a charade. Yet the same Word that carries the outward call does not, of itself, carry the inward power that makes the call effectual. That power belongs to the Spirit alone, and He grants it to the elect alone. "Some common operations of the Spirit" — the phrase is carefully chosen. "Some," not all. The Spirit's work in the non-elect is real but limited. It does not go as far as regeneration. It does not produce the new birth. "Common" does not mean ordinary or unremarkable. It means that these operations are common to both elect and non-elect — that a non-elect person may experience them without ever being saved. And "operations" translates a term that suggests real activity, not mere passivity. The Spirit is genuinely at work in these individuals, illuminating their minds and stirring their affections. What He does not do is renew their wills or unite them to Christ. The words "never truly come unto Christ" carry the weight of the entire distinction. The adverb "truly" bears enormous weight. There is a coming that is apparent but not real, external but not internal, temporary but not permanent. The difference between Simon Magus and Simon Peter is not that one experienced conviction and the other did not. Both experienced conviction. Both followed Jesus. Both were baptized. But one came truly to Christ, and the other came only to the benefits Christ could confer — to the power, the prestige, the wonder-working capacity that he thought the apostles could sell him. Simon Peter came to Christ for Christ. Simon Magus came to Christ for what Christ could give him. The object of faith was different, and therefore the faith itself was different — one saving, one merely historical and temporary. Then the Confession turns to those outside the visible church. "Much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way whatsoever." The divines pile up qualifiers to close every possible loophole. "Much less" — if those within the church who experience common operations are not saved, how can those without the church who have never even heard the gospel be saved? "In any other way whatsoever" — not through sincerity, not through natural religion, not through philosophical virtue, not through following the light they have. "Be they never so diligent" — diligence is admirable, but it cannot save. "According to the light of nature" — the light of nature is real and renders men inexcusable, but it does not reveal Christ. "And the law of that religion they do profess" — the divines grant that other religions have laws, ethical systems, patterns of devotion. None of them lead to God. The divines close with language of unusual intensity for a confessional document: "very pernicious, and to be detested." This is not the language of theological debate. It is the language of pastoral alarm. The divines were not writing an academic treatise. They were shepherding souls. And they knew that to tell a dying man he is healthy is not kindness — it is murder dressed in a doctor's coat. The doctrine that men may be saved apart from Christ is pernicious — the Latin root perniciosus means destructive, deadly, ruinous. It destroys souls by giving them false peace. It is to be detested — the word means to be regarded with abhorrence, to be recoiled from as one recoils from poison. The divines chose the strongest language in their theological vocabulary because the stakes could not be higher. This was not mere polemical excess. In the 1640s, the question of salvation apart from Christ was a live pastoral issue. The discovery of the New World had raised questions about native peoples who had never heard the gospel. The rise of Deism gave intellectual respectability to natural religion. The Socinians argued Christ's death was not a satisfaction for sin but a moral demonstration. Against all these, the divines raised a wall of confessional steel. Salvation is in Christ alone, through faith alone, by grace alone — or it is not salvation at all.

Theological Depth

The distinction between common operations and saving grace is not a novelty invented by the Westminster Assembly. It runs through the entire Reformed tradition, and it has been refined by some of the most penetrating theological minds the church has produced. Francis Turretin gave this doctrine its most precise formulation in his Institutes of Elenctic Theology. He distinguished five marks by which common operations may be known from saving grace. First, common operations are not accompanied by true conviction of sin as sin — they may produce sorrow over sin's consequences or fear of sin's punishment, but not that deep, evangelical sorrow that hates sin because it is against God. Second, common operations do not bring the will to rest in Christ alone — the temporary believer always mingles something of self with Christ, some confidence in his own sincerity. Third, common operations do not produce a permanent change in the governing disposition of the soul. Fourth, they may flourish in times of prosperity and wither under trial. Fifth, they do not produce the fruit of persevering holiness — there may be an initial burst of reformation, but over time the old patterns reassert themselves because the root has never been changed. Turretin's analysis helps us understand why the outward call is not a divine pretense. God genuinely commands all who hear the gospel to repent and genuinely offers Christ to all. The call is sincere because it reveals what God commands and what Christ has accomplished — a salvation sufficient for all, though efficient only for the elect. The fault lies not in the call but in the hearer. Jonathan Edwards, writing a century later in the context of the Great Awakening, took up the same question from the angle of religious psychology. His Treatise Concerning Religious Affections is an extended commentary on the very phenomena our Confession describes. Edwards had watched revival sweep through New England — and had watched many of the same people, within a few years, abandon their profession. The revival had stirred up common operations alongside saving grace, and the two were not the same. Edwards argued that the decisive difference between common and saving affections lies in their object. The temporary believer loves God for what God gives — for the comfort of assurance, the sweetness of spiritual experience, the prospect of heaven, the relief of a guilty conscience. The true believer loves God for what God is — for His holiness, His beauty, His excellency in Himself. Edwards drew on Augustine's distinction between uti and frui: to use a thing is to love it for the sake of something else; to enjoy a thing is to love it for its own sake. The temporary believer uses God as a means to an end — the end being his own happiness, his own peace of mind, his own escape from hell. The true believer enjoys God as the end — he would rather have God without heaven than heaven without God, because God Himself is his exceeding great reward. This is a searching test. It cuts through every external measurement. A man may preach eloquently, give generously, weep profusely under sermons, and yet if the deepest object of his affections is not the beauty of God in Christ but the benefits that flow from God to himself, he has not yet passed from death to life. Thomas Boston, the Scottish divine, employed a characteristically vivid image in his Human Nature in Its Fourfold State. Common operations, Boston said, are like the galvanic twitching of a corpse. Apply an electric current to a dead body, and the muscles will contract — the arm moves, the eyes may open. To an observer who does not know the body is dead, it might appear that life has returned. But it has not. It is the motion of death animated by external force, not life springing from an inward principle. So it is with the man who experiences conviction, joy, and religious zeal without regeneration. The Spirit's common operations animate him externally. But there is no new heart, no union with Christ. When the external impulse ceases, the motion ceases with it. Louis Berkhof, in his Systematic Theology, situated this doctrine within the broader framework of common grace and special grace. Common grace restrains sin, maintains moral order in society, and enables the non-elect to perform outwardly good actions. The common operations of the Spirit are the internal dimension of common grace — real gifts of God, manifestations of His goodness, but not saving gifts. They do not spring from the electing love that secures salvation, but from the general benevolence of God toward His creation. Herman Witsius, the Dutch covenant theologian, added an important covenantal dimension in his Economy of the Covenants. Witsius noted that the visible church includes many who are in covenant with God externally but not internally. They have received baptism, sit under the preaching, and partake of the Supper — but only in the external administration of the covenant, not in its substance. The substance is union with Christ, and that belongs only to the elect. The rest have the shell without the kernel. Witsius insisted this did not make the external administration deceptive. God truly offers Himself to all under the external covenant. Their failure to believe is not due to any deficiency in the offer but to the hardness of their own hearts — a hardness only sovereign grace can overcome. Together these five theologians — Turretin, Edwards, Boston, Berkhof, and Witsius — provide us with a rich vocabulary for understanding what Paul meant when he asked the Corinthians, "Who maketh thee to differ from another?" The answer is grace. "What hast thou that thou didst not receive?" If you are a true believer, the difference between you and Simon Magus is not that you were wiser or more sincere. The difference is grace — free, sovereign, distinguishing grace. You differ because God made you to differ. And that knowledge, rightly received, produces not pride but the deepest humility. It is the annihilation of all boasting and the foundation of all gratitude.

Puritan Application

The doctrine of Section 4 is not given to us for intellectual exercise. It is given to us as a mirror for the soul and a goad for the conscience. First, examine the nature of your own religious experience. The apostle Paul is direct: "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" The word "reprobates" here translates adokimoi — those who have been tested and found counterfeit. Paul is saying, in effect, that one of two things is true of every person reading his letter: either Christ is in you, or you are counterfeit. There is no third option. There is no middle category of sincere seekers who are on their way but not yet arrived. You are either in Christ or you are not. And Paul's command is not to assume that you are, but to examine — actively, rigorously, honestly — whether your faith is the faith of God's elect or the temporary faith of the stony-ground hearer. How do we conduct this examination? Not by measuring the intensity of our emotions — the stony-ground hearer received the word with joy. Not by counting our religious activities — the men in Matthew 7 prophesied and cast out devils. Not by checking our baptismal certificate — Simon Magus was baptized. The examination must go deeper. Do we rest in Christ alone for salvation, or does our confidence leak back onto our own sincerity? Do we love God for Himself, or only for what He gives? Is there the slow, steady fruit of persevering holiness — not perfection, but direction — a deepening hatred of sin and a deepening love of righteousness? These are the questions that separate the living from the twitching corpse. Second, do not rest in external privileges. The Jews of Jeremiah's day had a proverb: "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these." They thought the mere presence of the temple guaranteed their security. Jeremiah thundered against this delusion: "Trust ye not in lying words." The same delusion afflicts the visible church in every age. We trust in our baptism, our church membership, our doctrinal orthodoxy, our family heritage. None of these can save. None are Christ. The Pharisees trusted in their descent from Abraham, and John the Baptist told them God could raise up children to Abraham from the stones at their feet. External privileges bring you near to the means of grace — but they can become the most dangerous of idols because they look so much like the real thing. Ask yourself: if you were stripped of every external marker — your baptism, your membership, your reputation among believers — would you still have Christ? If the answer frightens you, good. Now run to Christ and cling to Him alone. Third, make your calling and election sure. Peter writes, "Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall." The word "diligence" translates spoudē — haste, earnestness, zeal. Making your calling and election sure is not a matter of casual introspection on a Sunday afternoon. It is the urgent business of your soul. And notice the order: calling and election. We cannot peer into the eternal decree of God. We cannot climb up into heaven and read our names in the Lamb's Book of Life. What we can do is trace the effects of that decree in our own lives. Has God effectually called you? Do you see the marks of that calling — a heart of stone removed, a heart of flesh given, a will renewed and made willing in the day of His power? If you see those marks, then your election is sure, because effectual calling is the infallible consequence of election. The chain cannot be broken. Pursue this assurance with diligence. Do not rest until you can say with Paul, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." Fourth, let the exclusivity of Christ fuel the missionary imperative. The doctrine that there is no salvation apart from Christ is not a doctrine of complacency. Rightly understood, it sets the church on fire with evangelistic urgency. If men and women are perishing without Christ — not merely missing out on a better life, but perishing under the righteous wrath of God — then to withhold the gospel from them is not tolerance but hatred dressed in the language of politeness. Paul's logic in Romans 10 is inexorable: "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" The exclusivity of Christ is the engine of missions. Pray for missionaries. Give to the work of gospel proclamation. Speak of Christ to your neighbors and family who do not know Him. This doctrine is not a wall behind which we hide — it is a fire that drives us outward. Fifth, let the doctrine of distinguishing grace produce humility, not pride. This application cuts against the grain of our fallen nature. When we grasp that we are saved and others are not — and that the difference is entirely due to God's sovereign grace — the flesh wants to turn that knowledge into superiority. "I thank thee, Lord, that I am not as other men." The Pharisee in the temple knew his theology and his morality, and his knowledge damned him, because it produced contempt for the tax collector beating his breast and crying for mercy. The right response to distinguishing grace is not "I am better than them" but "Why me, Lord?" The right response is wonder, gratitude, and tenderness toward those still in darkness — because you were once in that same darkness, and would still be there if grace had not laid hold of you. Every time you are tempted to look down on the unbeliever, remember: "Who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive?"

Prayer

O most holy and sovereign Lord, who workest all things after the counsel of Thine own will, we bow before Thee in fear and in hope. Thou hast told us plainly that many who call Thee Lord shall not enter Thy kingdom, and that there is no salvation in any other but Thy Son. These are searching words, and they search us. They strip away our false confidences. They silence our boasts. We confess that we have too often rested in external privileges — our baptisms, our church memberships, our orthodox opinions — as though these could substitute for a living union with Christ. We have confused the twitching of conscience with the resurrection of the dead. We have mistaken the taste for the feast, the common for the saving, the temporary for the eternal. Search us, O God, and know our hearts. Try us, and know our thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting. For those of us who have indeed been effectually called — who have passed from death to life, who have been given hearts of flesh, who have tasted that the Lord is good — we ask for the grace of humility. Let us never forget that we differ from the perishing only because Thou hast made us to differ. Let the astonishing particularity of Thy love produce in us not pride but wonder, not contempt for others but compassion, not sloth but urgency. Let us make our calling and election sure by the diligent pursuit of those graces that mark the heirs of Thy kingdom. And for those who have not yet come truly to Christ — those who have felt the stirrings of conscience, who have been moved by the beauty of the gospel, who have even begun to follow — break through the rock of their hearts, we pray. Let the seed of Thy Word find deep soil. Let common operations give way to saving transformation. Grant them the gift of repentance unto life, that they may know the difference between tasting and eating, between twitching and living, between Simon the sorcerer and Simon the son of Jonas. Thou hast told us that the doctrine that men may be saved apart from Christ is a deadly and destructive lie. Guard us from ever speaking that lie to ourselves or to others. Give us the courage to speak the truth in love — the hard truth that all have sinned, that the wages of sin is death, that there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. And give us the tenderness to speak it with tears, remembering that we too were once dead in trespasses and sins, until He who is rich in mercy made us alive together with Christ. We rest in this: that the Good Shepherd knows His sheep, and they know Him, and He gives unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of His hand. Keep us in that hand, we beseech Thee, through all the days of our pilgrimage, until faith gives way to sight and we see Him whom our souls love, face to face. In the name of Jesus Christ, the only Savior of sinners, Amen.