Irresistible Grace Effectually Calls Levi

Luke 5: 27-29 (ESV)

27 After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, "Follow me." 28 And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. 29 And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.

We aren’t told whether Jesus knew this tax collector prior to calling him. I mean "knew" in the strictly human sense of having seen him before or conversed with him. There is a sense that I cannot imagine, in which Jesus knew everything. Peter admitted as much and Jesus never rebuked him for it. (John 21:17) I think this "omission" is not only a good thing, but a vitally deliberate thing brought about by God Himself.

Had the passage implied that Jesus went and found his friend to ask him to be a disciple - or that he sought out Levi because he was either a good man at heart, or knew that Levi would respond positively to the call (the same thing, really) - had this been the case then the perverted minds of men would justly seize upon it to misrepresent the true nature of salvation. They would undermine the sovereign grace of God in salvaton and modify it according to the influence of man. It is the "natural" thing to do. Unfortunately, the natural man can neither accept nor understand the things of God. (1Corinthians 2:14)

It has been a constant tendency throughout the church age, despite the clear teaching of scripture and despite implicit figures like this one, to raise up man’s part in salvation at the expense of the glory of God. Pelagius was a very reasonable person; very nice and pious. He was nevertheless a crass heretic deserving of damnation, absent his repentance for perverting the Truth. Arminius later arose to some of the same error. He was a lovely man, too. Probably much nicer than Calvin and certainly nicer than Luther.

The truth is that most of us (certainly these days) come into the kingdom of God as Arminians. The tragedy is that even after years of Christianity, many remain that way. In doing so they are staying much closer to the natural state of mind than to the mind of Christ, which we are all supposed to have.

So, in this incident, we see a man who - for all we can tell and according to all the evidence - is a "stranger" to the Lord. He does not sit in his tax booth where he has been scamming the people for years and secretly wish that God would deliver him from his sin. He isn’t hoping Jesus would come along and pick him out of the thousands that cross His path. He is oblivious, content, lost. But he gets the effectual call from Jesus. The same Voice that cried, "Lazarus come forth!" and at which, had He not used the name "Lazarus", all the dead in the cemetary would necessarily have risen - this same Voice called Levi out of the world, and the necessity of the result was the same. It was irresistable. It was effectual. It was eternal and final.

This is the true gospel. The Lord saves whom he wills and He does it to the uttermost. He never fails to bring out of perdition every soul whom He purposed from eterntiy to save. It depends not upon man, but upon God alone.

Oh, but Levi responded! Yes He did! How else could the call have been effectual unless it was evidenced in Levi’s behaviour? To be elect is not to be an automaton. It is to be so influenced and drawn (literally "dragged") by the Holy Spirit to respond to the outward call that it becomes our will to do so. We are made willing. (Psalm 110:3)

I wonder if it ever occurs to Arminians to wonder about the great rejoicing that is shown by Levi. Do they see that it is precisely because he sees that there was no hope for him unless Christ had called him? He wasn’t looking. He couldn’t hear. And He certainly knew that there was zero worthiness in him that Christ should look upon him. Do they notice the concept of "zero worthiness?" It means absolutely none, including any innate or latent inclination to come to Christ. Our coming is the work of the Holy Spirit - it is not our work at all. We repent and we believe but we do so as a gift of God to those whom He effectually calls.

It is no wonder that Christianity today (yes, and "Christianity Today") is so adrift, so carnal and so full of spiritually murderous teaching like self-esteem and self-fulfillment theology. This is diabolical error; corrupted misrepresentation of Truth. It makes Christ a liar. It makes salvation a cooperative work between man and God instead of receiving it as it is taught - a monergistic work of the Three Persons of the One True God. Unless we get back to believing and preaching this truth with passion and consistency the church will continue its accelerating slide into apostasy - an apostasy that increasingly puts man at the centre in place of God. The "church" itself is in danger of completing the work that Satan started in Eden.