Old Testament Corroboration
In the Old Testament, a picture of salvation is seen in Ezekiel 37 where God makes dead, dry bones come to life by His very Word:
The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley, and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live....So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone...So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came upon them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel....Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel....And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD.
This passage is again a demonstration of salvation. Before salvation, we, like the scribes and Pharisees mentioned in Part 1, are spiritually like these dead, dry bones. And God Himself must speak life into us by His Word.
Other examples of God alone doing the work of salvation are seen in the Old Testament. One example is Ezekiel 36:25-27, where God says:
Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you* shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you* shall keep my judgments, and do them.
Notice how many times God says, "I will" in this passage. God cleanses us and gives us a new heart and His Spirit, and thereby causes us to walk in His statutes and to do His will. It is completely by God's action. This is seen again in Deuteronomy 30:6,8, where God circumcises our hearts to love Him so that we do His will:
And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God will all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live....And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day.
We are given life by God as He circumcises our hearts, only then do we return to Him and obey His voice and do all His commandments. This is why we read later in Philippians 2:13:
For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure.
God does the work in us both to will and to do if His good pleasure. Ultimately, this means that He chooses to save us, and causes us to draw near to Him:
Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts.... [Psalm 65:4]
Whosoever Believes And Calls Upon God Are First Drawn By Him
We just read in Psalm 65:4 that the man is blessed whom God chooses and causes to approach unto Him, that he may dwell in God's courts. However, in an attempt to take some credit for salvation, many quote the famous verse John 3:16, which says,
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
They conclude from this verse that anyone can be saved if only they would believe on Christ of their own free will (“whosoever believes”). But, as we read earlier, I John 5:1 says,
Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God....
We learn from this verse that the "whosoever" who believe in Christ are those who are first born of God. Remember we saw in Part 1 that we must be born again from above? God must give us spiritual life in order to even see the kingdom of God because we are spiritually dead before salvation. And, according to the verse above, "whosoever" God saves (makes born again) are those who believe in Christ, they are the ones who shall not perish but have everlasting life. It is not "whosoever believes of his or her own free will," but rather, "whosoever believes because they are born again." This is seen again in Acts 13:48:
...and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.
Another verse that some use in an attempt to prove that anyone can be saved by their free will and in which the word “whosoever” is used is Romans 10:13, which says:
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
It is argued that whosoever calls upon the Name of the Lord of their free will shall indeed be saved. The problem is, according to the Bible, not one of us will call upon the Name of the Lord until God makes us spiritually alive and causes us to call upon Him:
And there is none that calls upon thy name, that stirs up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities. [Isaiah 64:7]
So will not we go back from thee: quicken us [that is, make us alive], and we will call upon thy name.
So before anyone will actually believe in Christ and call upon God it is necessary that they first be drawn of Him, that they be born again. Thus, "Whosoever (is born again from above by God) shall call upon the name of the Lord and shall be saved." Thus Jesus said in John 6:44-45,65:
No man can come to me, except the Father which has sent me draw [literally, drag] him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall all be taught of God. Every man therefore that has heard, and has learned of the Father, comes unto me....Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. [John 6:44-45,65]
The word "draw" here is the same word used in John 21:6, which refers to dragging a heavy net full of fish:
...They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.
It is seen again in John 21:11:
Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, and hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken.
The believers are as these fish who are caught in the net by the “fishers of men.” That is, they are spiritually dragged to the Lord by God Himself: No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.
God Must Incline Our Will Toward Him In Salvation
In the same way that many quote John 1:12 without quoting verse 13 in an attempt to take some credit for salvation, so many quote Philippians 2:12 without quoting verse 13 of that passage as they attempt to show we are saved by some action that we do. Verse 12 reads:
...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
This verse appears to say that we must do something of our own in order to secure or maintain salvation. After all, it does indeed say that we're to work out our own salvation. But then verse 13 continues,
For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
So, the reason we would ever be motivated to work out our own salvation is because God has first of all given us eternal life and inclined our will according to His sovereign good pleasure. This agrees with I Kings 8:57-58:
The LORD our God be with us, as he was with our fathers: let him not leave us, nor forsake us: that he may incline our hearts unto him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and his judgments, which he commanded our fathers.
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