James White says that Irresistible Grace is absolutely necessary:
Unregenerate man is fully capable of understanding the facts of the gospel: he is simply incapable, due to his corruption and enmity, to submit himself to that gospel...
Who says? James White. What about the Bible?
"Dead in sin" is misunderstood by Calvinists by erroneously ascribing the symptoms of physical death to spiritual death.
Once sovereignly regenerated, the person is presumably able, under the influence of Irresistible Grace, to believe the gospel and thereafter to serve Christ from the heart. Yet grace is evidently no longer possible irresistibly upon the elect once they are regenerated, since they do not always behave as they should, much less to perfection.
Scripture does describe in very clear terms the Christlike life that believers are to live:
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things have passed away; behold, all things are become new. Christ liveth in me.... For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.... Every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.... Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not...greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world...." (2 Cor. 5.17; Gal. 2.20; Eph. 2.10; Phil. 2.13; 1 John 2.29; 3.6; 4.4)
The Calvinist cannot point to any passage in the Bible that clearly states that grace is irresistible or that God imposes it upon the elect who otherwise could not believe the gospel. Yet many passages such as the above clearly state that God intends Christ-likeness for those who are regenerated. Then why don't Christians perfectly perform the "good works, which God hath before ordained" for them (Eph. 2.10)?
If God irresistibly imposes His grace upon the "totally depraved" to regenerate them, why doesn't He impose it upon the regenerated unto perfection in Christian living? There is no biblical answer to this question if we deny free will and accept theory of Irresistible Grace.
How could God's sovereignty completely override human moral responsibility and choice, as the Calvinist insists, to the extent that man has no choice when it comes to salvation--and yet the elect are able to resist God's grace and His will and thus often fail to do the good works that God has ordained for them?
I can imagine a cult that could exist that would teach just these things to the extent that the person could lose salvation after being regenerated calvinistically. That god would be no less twisted that the twisted god of calvinism.
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