Irresistible Grace - An Odd Way to Speak

Doug Wilson:

"The language of irresistible grace is both odd an obvious...reminiscent of one of C.S. Lewis's Dufflepuds, who said that water was powerful wet stuff... No one speaks of the doctrine of irresistible creation. However, when we think about it for a moment, we should realize that creation ex nihilo is about irresistible as it gets. Was there any likelihood that nonexistent matter was going to defy God when he summoned the universe into being?

It is the same with the grace of new creation: For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shinned in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor. 4:4-6)

The God who summoned light from darkness at the beginning, without consulting the wishes of darkness, is the same God who summoned the light in our souls into being. He the Creator, and he is the New Creator.

Birth is another irresistible process. I do not recall being consulted about this, and I have it on good authority that this was because I was not there. I was born a Wilson, not a Smith. I was born a boy, and not a girl. I was born in the United States, and not in Ethiopia. I had all kinds of irresistible things thrust at me, and did not begin to seriously reflect on what I was doing with it all until about sixteen years later."

Wilson goes on to say that just like the wind we do not, and cannot, control the wind, we do not and cannot control the Holy Spirit by our repentance or by our prayers. (John 3:7-8) The Holy Spirit gives us a new birth by unmerited grace alone, as He wishes. Just as we begin to breathe upon new life, we begin to confess our sins and love Christ as Savior and Lord in faith upon our new birth.

(Quoted from the book, "After Darkness, Light")