Prevenient Grace

THE CENTRALITY OF GOD’S GRACE

Everything begins with God’s grace because His grace is the starting point of our salvation. Peter makes it clear that God generously extends his grace to everyone.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Pet. 3:9)

Without grace, no one could be reconciled to God. Every step we take towards and with God is by His grace.

Paul explained this to the Ephesians to eliminate any possibility of a misunderstanding.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. (Eph. 2:1-9)

Paul describes sin as spiritual death and total bondage to evil. He says it is in the nature of sin to flaunt God’s authority and reject His love. Sin gratifies its own desires and thoughts and, above all, disobeys God. Despite the seemingly impenetrable barrier, God broke the hold sin, and evil had over humanity through Christ’s redemptive death on the cross. He made possible a new life for us by the Spirit through Christ’s resurrection from the dead, forgiving us, freeing us from sin, and bringing us into fellowship with Himself.

 In all of this, Paul says, God’s grace is central.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

Wesleyan-Arminianism is saturated with God’s grace. There are a few helpful acronyms summarizing the five main points of Wesleyan-Arminianism, FACTS and DAISY are two I know of. I created the acronym GRACE to remind me of the five points of Wesleyan-Arminianism. GRACE also matches Calvinism’s TULIP point for point in sequence.

For comparison, this chart sets out three Arminian acronyms alongside Calvinism’s TULIP.

FACTS1	DAISY2	GRACE	TULIP3
Freed by Grace (to Believe)	Diminished Depravity	Grace freely offered	Limited atonement
Atonement for All	Abrogated Election	Resistance to grace	Irresistible grace
Conditional Election	Impersonal Atonement	Active rebellion against God’s grace	Total depravity
Total Depravity	Sedentary Grace	Conditional election by grace	Unconditional election
Security in Christ	Yieldable Justification	Effective keeping grace	Perseverance of the saints

GRACE is central to God’s dealings with us. We receive the gift of salvation solely through God’s grace by faith in Christ. We are kept in grace, moment by moment, by God’s grace. God does nothing for us except through His grace.

The accusation that Arminians are Pelagians has always puzzled me. It completely misrepresents our understanding of God’s free and powerful grace. Arminianism has never taught that people can, of their own free will, choose to believe in Christ and be saved. Our understanding of God’s prevenient grace that draws us, enabling us to turn to God in faith, and then assists us every step of the way from repentance to full-blown faith in Christ until we are glorified, is the bullet that assassinates Pelagianism.

Prevenient grace is in harmony with what Jesus taught.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:44)

We find it in Paul’s teaching.

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? (Rom. 2:4)

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. (Titus 2:11)

John Wesley used the term “Preventing grace,” meaning that in salvation, God always takes the initiative by extending to us the grace we need to turn to him in repentance and faith because of our inability, through the effects of the fall, to respond to His offer of salvation in Christ.

By stressing God’s prevenient grace, we understand from Scripture how we are able to respond to God’s offer of salvation in Christ. From the outset, His grace draws us to Christ, and as we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, God’s grace leads us to saving faith in Christ without us adding one single thing to God’s gift of salvation in Christ.

Paul makes this abundantly clear in Ephesians 2:8-9

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

PREVENIENT GRACE AND THE GOSPEL

I find prevenient grace is an important factor when sharing the Gospel. We have fallen into the bad habit of aping the popular evangelistic invitation to, “Decide to accept Christ,” when this flatly contradicts the New Testament, which calls us to “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

John writes,

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:13)

The glaring lack of evidence of the new birth stares us in the face every time we gather for worship and to hear the Word expounded.

We know people in our churches who, years ago, “Chose to accept Christ” but who are still nothing more than lifeless pew fillers. Yet we remain unconcerned about whether they are living by the grace of God or still trying to feed off the husks of their sterile “decision to accept Christ.”

They might attend some church meetings and even tithe, but they have zero passion to share their faith in Christ. The most glaring evidence they are not “in Christ” and Christ is not in them, is the lack of the fruit of the Spirit. They have never grown one millimeter in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In light of this disturbing situation, we must face these hard questions: Where is the abundant life Christ promised? Where is the love of God among His people? Where is the mighty grace of God? Why have we parked our passion for the lost on the shelf of disinterest to gather dust? The tragic answer can only be because the mighty grace of God has never infused the lives of many who, despite lacking the fruit of the Spirit, claim to be in a saving relationship with Christ.

Have too many people been misled into believing that faith in Christ is merely an intellectual, or a religious decision? When in fact it is a hunger and thirst for God, which the Spirit quenches beyond all human expectation. When we are truly born of the Spirit, God lays His concern for the lost on our hearts, which ignites an incendiary fire in our hearts that kindles a passion to share Christ.

It is our pastoral responsibility to preach, teach, and counsel from the Word of God as we depend on the Holy Spirit. This brings conviction of sin to the unsaved, awakens those who are asleep, corrects those in error, and perfects the saints in holiness in the fear of the Lord.

If we want to see and experience the mighty redemptive works of God, we must stress the incredible power of God’s grace all along the line of the Christian life. Especially the fact that no one can be reconciled to God or grow in grace unless they depend for all they are worth on God’s mighty grace while they fully trust in Christ. Every blessing of the Gospel comes to us only through God’s grace by faith in Christ.

This is the Pauline doctrine, and every substitute that minimizes the grace of God or drives a wedge between grace and faith deprives people of the joy of free and full salvation. When God’s grace and our faith in Christ intersect, the miracle of the new birth is a reality, and through the Spirit, we enter into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

All Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version®. Pradis CD-ROM: Grand Rapids: The Zondervan Corporation, © 1973, 1978, 1984.

1 https://thirdmill.org/answers/answer.asp/file/45598 (Accessed 12 November 2014)

2 https://thewartburgwatch.com/2016/08/17/an-outline-of-the-facts-of-arminianism-vs-the-tulip-of-calvinism/ (Accessed 12 November 2024)

3 https://www.learnreligions.com/five-point-calvinism-700356 (Accessed 12 November 2014)

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