Effectual Calling and the Bondage of the Will 
Our will can choose only that in which our nature delights. If our nature is in bondage to unbelief, then our will is 
not free with respect to God. Jesus knew why some did not believe: “No one can come to me unless the Father who 
sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.… This is why I told you that no one can come to me 
unless it is granted him by the Father” (Jn 6:44, 65). This is why Jesus told Nicodemus that one cannot even “see
the kingdom of God” without being “born again [or from above]” (Jn 3:3). As the conversation unfolds, it becomes 
clear that Jesus is not telling Nicodemus how he can bring about his new birth but how the Spirit accomplishes it. 
Jesus explains, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from 
or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (v. 8). The new birth is a mysterious work of the 
Spirit in his sovereign freedom, not an event that we ourselves can bring about, any more than our natural 
birth. Two chapters earlier, we read, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to 
become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 
1:12–13). 
By nature, we “by [our] unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Ro 1:18). It is not that we are ignorant, but that we 
willfully reject, distort, and deny even that which we know about God from creation (vv. 20–32). Paul asks his 
fellow Jews, “Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, 
are under sin, as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God …’ ” (3:9–
11). The fallen mind is darkened to the gospel apart from the Spirit’s gift of faith (1 Co 2:14). Believers “were dead in 
the trespasses and sins in which [they] once walked.… But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with 
which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ …” (Eph 2:1–2, 
4–5, emphasis added). Even faith belongs to the gift that is freely given to us by God’s grace (vv. 5–9). We are saved 
for works, not by works (v. 10). Therefore, salvation “depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has 
mercy” (Ro 9:16). 
In our fallen condition, we try to justify ourselves by assuming that while we may commit sins from time to time, we 
are basically good “deep down.” At least our hearts are right. However, Scripture challenges this perspective. 
Jeremiah lamented, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9). 
The Sinai covenant required Israel to circumcise its own heart (Dt 10:16), but the command could not effect any 
change. Even in this constitution of the Sinai covenant itself, God looks ahead to Israel’s disobedience and the new 
covenant in which he will circumcise their heart and the heart of their children (Dt 30:1–10). This is more clearly 
prophesied in Jeremiah 31, where God’s circumcision of the hearts of his people will be based on his forgiveness and 
grace alone. God’s commands—even the command to repent and believe—cannot change hearts so that they can 
obey them. Through the law the Spirit inwardly convicts, but only the gospel—the announcement of Christ’s saving 
person and work—can absolve us and give us a new heart. Jesus, too, emphasized that wickedness is not first of all 
perverse actions, but a fountainhead of perversity in the heart, from which these acts spring (Mt 12:34). We cannot 
change our own heart by an act of will or by changing our behavior. 
Most Arminians will agree that we cannot make the slightest move toward God apart from his grace. It is a 
caricature to suggest that Arminianism (at least the evangelical variety) denies original sin and the fallenness of 
human beings in heart, mind, and will. Nevertheless, Arminians generally hold that God provides sufficient grace to all 
unbelievers so that they may be regenerated if they fulfill certain conditions. According to H. Orton Wiley, “The Holy 
Spirit exerts His regenerating power only on certain conditions, that is, on the conditions of repentance and faith.”
To Calvinist ears, this sounds like demanding that a blind person see before he or she has been healed of 
blindness. The glory of the new covenant is that God gives in the gospel what he demands in his law: both 
justification and the renewal of heart and life. Only because of God’s one-sided act of regeneration does anyone 
repent and believe. 
 Horton, M. (2011). The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (pp. 564–565). Grand Rapids, MI: 
Zondervan.