The story of your life can only be authored by you. At least that’s what we are told through common statements like “be true to yourself,” “follow your heart,” and “you do you.” We are catechized to believe the only one with the power to define who we are is the person we look at in the mirror. That’s why people are bothered by the message of a God who redefines you.
American culture is dominated by stories with deep morally individualistic assumptions about how we relate to ourselves. They are injected into our common conversations, found in self-help books, written into Disney movies, and seen on our social media posts to justify our actions and behaviors.
In her book “Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone,” Dr. Brené Brown writes, “True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness.”
This modern understanding of identity tells us we don’t get our sense of self from outside ourselves. Rather, we know who we are by being who we want to be, and we know who we want to be by looking on the inside to find the “real” us.
A few years ago, I met a college student who said, “I spent years trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be—the perfect daughter, the straight-A student, the good girl. But I was miserable. It wasn’t until I finally had the courage to be true to myself that I found real joy and peace.” Her story is culturally compelling because she takes agency and, through a means of self-discovery, liberates herself.
We see this play out in popular culture too. Take the beloved Disney movie “Moana.” The opening song says, “Remember you may hear a voice inside, and if that voice starts to whisper to follow the farthest star, Moana, that voice inside is who you are” (italics added).
Into our culture of radical self-expression, God declares, “I’m going to make you a whole new person.” Irresistible grace is when God takes away our old, misguided heart and gives us a new one with a renewed will, through Jesus Christ (“Westminster Confession of Faith” 10.1). Instead of looking inside for hope, the Bible tells us we must look outside of ourselves to the God who created us.
Who needs irresistible grace from the outside if you’re doing just fine on the inside? Is grace passé? Is it no longer needed? Let’s examine where modern identity formation fails, and then what irresistible grace offers in three ways.
The Problem with Modern Identity
First, this understanding of modern identity is crushing and incoherent. If you are to look on the inside to find your true self, which version of you is the real you? As I sit here and write, looking inside my heart, I identify with really wanting peanut butter brownies. I also identify as one who must lower my cholesterol and be healthy. These are contradictory feelings. Which version is the real “me”?
These feelings are both my authentic self. Depending on the situation, “peanut butter Mike” or “healthy Mike” shows up. Ironically, the emphasis on “being yourself” when our feelings are varied and incoherent makes us feel displaced and rootless when we can’t be sure of exactly which version of me should be trusted.
Second, modern identity is deeply exclusionary. We were meant to be shaped by more than our own desires. We were meant to have our identity encouraged, affirmed, acknowledged and appreciated by people outside of us like parents, siblings, friends, spouses, coworkers, and neighbors. When we declare to people who we are, it excludes them from having a meaningful role in our lives, and we are excluded when others do the same to us. This creates conflict and confusion when those around us do not see us exactly as we see ourselves.
Consider the ongoing debate around author J.K. Rowling and her views on gender identity. To be reductionistic, Rowling believes her identity is that of a woman, and to be a woman, you must be born a woman. That is, there is something unique to being female that cannot be fully understood or claimed by those who were not born biologically female, and to deny this fact does great injury, harm, which leads to the erasure of women.
Others in our culture believe being a woman is fundamentally a matter of self-definition and that anyone who identifies as a woman should be recognized and accepted as such, regardless of their biology. For them, to question or deny someone’s self-declared gender identity is to commit a profound act of injury, harm, and erasure.
Both sides are locked into an endless zero-sum conflict, unable to find common ground, because their very definitions of the self are at odds, and they both need others to confirm and validate their identities. There is no recourse except conflict when our self definitions are challenged.
The Freedom of Irresistible Grace
In contrast, the doctrine of irresistible grace offers a liberating alternative.
First, it teaches that our identity is not something we have to discover or create on our own, God frees us from ourselves. God calls us to himself and away from ourselves. We are not left to figure out if the real Mike is peanut butter Mike or healthy Mike. Rather, God takes the initiative to reveal himself to us and transform us from the inside out.
As the “Westminster Confession of Faith” states, “This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man…” (WCF 10.2). This means when we are called to God, that calling is so real, so powerful, and so sure, it becomes our commanding identity.
That doesn’t mean peanut butter Mike doesn’t exist, or healthy Mike doesn’t matter. Instead, who I am is no longer primarily defined by what I do, where I was born, how much I make, or who I’m attracted to. That is what is happening when Paul writes: “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself…It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Corinthians 4:3-4). Paul is saying, “I’m not defined by what others think of me or say about me. In fact, I’m not going to even get my identity from even what I think of myself.”
When Paul says, “God judges me,” he’s referring to God’s declarations about who he is. Paul is saying, “I don’t have to achieve my identity, I receive it.” When we make God’s view of us more important than even our own view of ourselves, that’s irresistible grace in action. Grace, when experienced and tasted, is not something you would ever turn from.
Jesus did not come primarily to teach us or show us how to live (though he did that too). He came to be our substitute and secure our salvation. He saves us not just from sin. He saves us from ourselves.
When we experience God’s grace, like Charles Wesley, we find ourselves singing, “My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee.” That’s irresistible grace. No one who has their chains fall off stays in the dungeon.
Second, the doctrine of irresistible grace doesn’t lead to exclusion when properly understood. Modern identity formation weaponizes our identities against each other as we define ourselves against each other and then need others to confirm and validate those identities. At the center of the Christian faith is a man who died for his enemies. As a result, you become one who gives your life in service, even to enemies.
What happens when someone denies your identity? You don’t fall to pieces. You don’t need others to rise up against your identity deniers. You don’t need others to recognize and accept your identity, because you already have it secure in Christ.
What happens when you lose your job? Divorce? Moral failure? God’s love calls you into repentance, which drives you further into his love and care. A Christian’s identity is, therefore, stable. It’s unshakable. This is because our identity is not based on our past, present, or future performance or on the recognition of others. It’s based solely on Christ’s life and work.
Christianity is not some vitamin supplement that adds the vague idea of “God’s love” to the mix of other things in this world through which you are proving yourself and achieving self-worth performatively. No, you are a new creation in Jesus. If he is your greatest affirmation, if his grace is irresistible, then everything in your life becomes defined by it. Instead of pursuing things that we hope will bring a sense of meaning to our lives, we discover our lives have meaning because we are eternally loved by the God who made all things.
Addressing Objections
Irresistible grace often sounds like God has so much power that humans have no responsibility. If you go to the book of Exodus and look up the word “hardened” you will find a number of verses where “Pharaoh hardened his heart” as well as “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” In other words, the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is sometimes attributed to Pharaoh and at other times to God. Many readers ask, “Well, which one is it?”
The Bible says humans are accountable for their actions, and God is sovereign at the same time. Paul says Christians on their own are “dead in your transgressions” (Eph 2:1-3). If you are dead, you can’t move, either to accept or reject God’s grace. He must be the one who makes us alive. Grace is irresistible because grace is all God’s doing. That is why when he decides to show grace to someone, he cannot be stopped.
People have a problem with irresistible grace because it seems like it prevents human agency. How much agency does a dead heart have? If we would never come to Christ on our own, then we need his grace to be irresistible.
Doesn’t irresistible grace mean we don’t have “free will?” It depends on what you mean by “free.” We have the capacity to make choices and decisions. However, our choices and decisions are captive to our desires. We are free to choose, but we will always freely not choose God.
How can we trust God’s use of his power in changing us if so many misuse their power? Look how Paul describes Jesus in Philippians 2. He says Jesus, “being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking on the very nature of a servant…becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8, NIV, italics added).
Notice what Jesus is doing with power here. He had all the power (he’s the very nature of God), but rather than using it for selfish gain, he uses it for the sake of others (becoming a servant). Everyone has some type of power, but our Savior uses his power by serving others. The surprise of the Bible is that the person who has the most wealth and power in the universe is the one who gives it all up to serve us, that is why we can trust his power and his grace.
Embracing Irresistible Grace
In a culture that tells us to look inside for our identity, the doctrine of irresistible grace points us to a better way. Ironically you get an identity that can’t be shaken when you let the story of God’s grace become the defining narrative of your life.
Jesus didn’t die for people in general. Jesus died for you. Trusting in him rather than yourself will bring you the freedom you always wanted because now you are freed from having to assess yourself or needing the assessment of others. There is no greater freedom possible than when God’s irresistible grace changes you to become who God created you to be.
The essence of every other story is, “Here is how to live.” The essence of Christianity is, “Here’s how Jesus lived and died for you.” God is gracious and his grace changes you. When he decides to change you, there is no stopping him. His grace cannot be resisted and that’s not just good, it’s necessary. As we embrace this, we will find Jesus’ life and work more beautiful, wonderous, and moving in our hearts.
Michael Keller serves as senior pastor of Redeemer Lincoln Square in Manhattan.
Read the other articles in our Calvinism for a New Generation series here:
Perseverance in an Age of Anxiety
Limited Atonement in an Age of Shamelessness
Unconditional Election in an Age of Inclusivity