Luke 18:27. The things which are impossible with men, are possible with God.
These words follow Christ’s memorable saying of the camel and the needle’s eye. Various attempts have been made to escape the harshness of the declaration. Men have read cable for camel, as if it were easier for a cable to thread the narrow opening; and some have talked of a little gate, named the “needle’s eye”. But, after all, the impossibility remains an impossibility. Such was the intention of our great Teacher; and such was the understanding of the apostles, who did not say, How hard for a rich man to be saved! but, “Who then can be saved?” – in other words, it is impossible.1
1 Taken, with editing, from Faith, a volume of sermons by Alexander (1804-59).
And to this conclusion, the words before us were addressed: You say it is impossible for anyone to be saved; remember that the things which are impossible with men are possible with God. The plain meaning is that, apart from God’s effective power, it is impossible for the worldly man to be saved; indeed, the same is true of every unconverted man apart from supernatural power. Though the hindrance is of that particular sort which belongs to things moral, and so is different from material obstacles or difficulties, it is an absolute hindrance, and only God can take the impossibility out of the way. The proposition of the text, of which this is a special case, is general, and implies that God is able to do what is impossible to man, particularly in the way of saving the soul.
1. Human power is very limited.
The things which are “impossible with men” are innumerable. All human power is derived, and is granted in small proportions, and for a very narrow circle of effects. Especially is this power scanty and utterly insufficient in the spiritual world. That strength which the first Adam had has been diminished since the fall; in consequence a reflecting man nowhere feels his impotence more than in changing his moral resolutions, dispositions, or character – in others or in himself. Here the things which are impossible with men meet us at every turn.
In the instance of the ruler who came to Jesus, it is perfectly plain to any unbiased mind that the power in question is the power to save a soul; that is, to convert it, to remove the insuperable moral obstacle out of the way. That obstacle is the love of wealth. Here is a most amiable and exemplary young ruler; he is grieved at the necessity to sell all that he had and casts many a longing look behind, but he refuses to follow Christ and goes away. For all this a reason is given: “He was very rich”. That settled the question. He trusted in riches; he gave his heart and love to riches. This constituted the impossibility. This led to Christ’s terrible utterance, which ought to ring in the ears of the rich, as long as there remains a wealthy sinner on earth.
Now the problem is how to break this influence – to neutralise this attraction, to turn this perverse and idolatrous heart – for till this is done, salvation is impossible. And, if there is any thing intelligible in language, the Saviour teaches that no human power is competent to work this revolution. In the matter of converting a soul to God, all human power is reduced to zero. This is true of the ability to convert a fellow creature, and of the sinner’s ability to convert himself.
(1.) There is no power in man to convert another man.
They are most aware of this who have made the most frequent and strenuous efforts to remove the leopard’s spots or change the hue of the Ethiopian. We may argue; we may adduce motives; we may persuade; we may coerce or bribe people to make some external performance; but convert them we cannot.
(2.) There is no power in man to convert himself.
The text, if it has any meaning at all, has this in it. I know very well how much this differs from the philosophy of our age, and the dictates of proud human nature. It is not the doctrine of Pelagius2 merely, but of the natural heart, that a man is able to convert himself at any moment. The doctrine of the text, and of all the Scriptures, is that he has no such ability.
2 A fourth/fifth-century monk who rejected original sin and predestination.
You may call this inability moral, and it certainly concerns moral subjects, and so differs from the inability to create or to annihilate a world. But by using such a description you do not bring the effect sought any closer. No one feels himself any nearer to conversion after hearing such a distinction. You say it is a culpable inability, and we agree with you; but this does not lessen it. Joseph’s brethren hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him; the greater their hatred, the more their guilt – but, at the same time, the more their inability. Theorists on the side of human power sometimes plead for a human ability which nevertheless leaves the sinner utterly indisposed to holy acts. If an ability does not make one able to carry out the action, it is fit only for derision. If, overleaping distinctions, you argue for a complete ability to change the heart, you are clearly at issue with the Word of God, which declares it to be impossible. It is impossible for the camel to pass the needle’s eye; it is impossible for the unregenerate sinner to regenerate himself; it is impossible with men.
After reflecting a little on what goes on inside us, it becomes apparent that the human soul has no power to change its own nature. To change one’s nature, or even one’s dispositions, is not a direct object of human power. The power of the will does not reach it. By a mere act of will, we cannot change hatred to love, or love to hatred. The feelings direct the will, rather than the will the feelings. But we make a violent supposition when we allow, even for a moment, that the sinner wills in the right direction. The very thing he needs is something which shall make him will rightly. Everyone wills according to his disposition and nature. The good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree evil fruit. Make the tree good, and the fruit will be good. But the depraved soul has no power of transporting itself, as it were, against the force of gravity, up beyond the atmosphere of sinning. Such is the humbling truth pronounced by Scripture and confirmed by the experience of every soundly-converted person.
2. What is impossible with men is possible with God.
Especially it is possible for Him to change the heart, to save the soul and to rescue even the slave and worshipper of mammon. But it is like causing the camel to march through the eye of a needle. The fair construction of the passage leads us to look upon the salvation of the sinner as a work which requires omnipotence. So in a parallel place we find: “With God all things are possible”.
It is good for us often to be contemplating God as almighty. He always accomplishes all that He wills. What are described as natural impossibilities, are not objects of power, and commonly involve absurdity or self-contradiction in their very statement. Moral impossibilities, or such things as would involve God in denying Himself, are equally excluded from the scope of omnipotence. But there remains an infinite range for the sweep of this divine perfection. The work is immediate; He wills and it is done. We readily open our minds to the belief of this power, when exercised on the material universe; but equally it operates in the vaster world of mind. He that could create the soul can recreate it. And we do not find any class of divine operations more frequently mentioned in Scripture than those by which He moulds and changes the spiritual nature, producing new directions of human thought and feeling, and new determinations of the human will – all in perfect accordance with that constitution of moral freedom which He has Himself ordained.
Here Pelagian error, among its many forms, springs up in a shape suited to the prepossessions of our age. Pelagians tell us that God Himself cannot act as a cause upon the will; that it is of the very nature of will to act without a cause, in a self-determining manner. To render this more plausible, a specious distinction is devised between things natural, proceeding according to the sequence of cause and effect, and powers supernatural – namely, moral or free – with which cause and effect have nothing to do. Hence every man is a god unto himself, in all that he wills; and not even the Almighty can cause him to will or do anything, by any influence other than by presenting motives. God Himself, they say, cannot operate as a cause upon the soul of a sinner. To work upon an ungodly will, is not among the objects of power. Pelagius taught the same in a cruder form.
Suppose we should allow this boastful distinction; suppose we should remove all that concerns the will, all that is moral, from the cycle and system of cause and effect; we should only be allowing Pelagius to beg the question in debate. That question is whether God can operate directly upon the soul to produce holy acts, or to infuse a holy principle.
If with these errorists we say, No, we fly in the face of Scripture, and yield all that is worth retaining in the system of grace. For what is grace, but God communicating to the soul of man, effecting that good action which is beyond the power of unaided nature. Just put the proud assumption into plain language: God Himself cannot cause holy sentiments in any creature. For the moment (say they) you introduce the relation of cause, you expel the notion of freedom; thus they invent a condition of freedom which philosophy does not accept and which would make religion impossible. As if He who made the soul, and made it free, could not so act upon it as to render its holiness certain and yet leave its freedom untouched! To will is in its very nature free. But God works in us both to will and do of His good pleasure. Therefore it is possible for God to act causatively upon the will, without destroying its freedom.
They talk of moral suasion (as if there was any other sort of persuasion); they condescend to admit that God can persuade; He converts the soul by arguing, and He is the greatest persuader because He is the best reasoner. But as to any proper effectiveness on the souls of sinners to turn them to God – No, away with it, they say; it violates liberty; it brings natural laws into the domain of the supernatural; in a word, it is impossible with God. With such a belief, one must read the whole Bible backwards and make conversion by God a fable. What an irrelevance does the reply of Jesus become!
They were considering the case of a sinner whose conversion, on any human principles, is out of the question. Jesus replies: It is possible with God. How so? How is it possible with God, if God cannot put forth a single influence which shall act upon the will of that sinner – if that will is the mountainous obstacle in the way? If everything depends on the self-determination of the sinner, with which God cannot interfere without destroying liberty, obligation and morals, then we ought to invert the text, and read, That which is impossible with God is possible with man.
Solemnly pondered, this one verse, without any other, is enough to establish the doctrine of God’s power over the soul. For what does it declare that God is able to do? You answer at once, To secure the sinner’s salvation; that is, to convert his soul; that is, to change his purposes. And let it be observed that liberty must be equally endangered – in the view of those who dread any such action of God as must always end with what He has appointed – whether this is done directly or indirectly, by one act or by a series of acts terminating in the sinner being turned to Christ.
When the text teaches that it is possible for God to convert the most hopeless sinner, it is declaring that conversion is a work of power. God does not say in His counsels, I will throw in light; I will offer motives; I will outbid the world; I will try persuading that wealthy foe – not, however, meddling with the sacredness of his inviolable will. No, He says, I will convert that Pharisee; I will envelop that soul in a cloud of overpowering glory; I will act upon the very seat and source of all choices; I will renew that persecutor’s nature and bring him to My feet.
Now I put it to every unprejudiced and simple mind, Is this not the very impression which is derived from reading the Scriptures for a course of years? Do we not find them everywhere referring regeneration and conversion to the power of God – a power operating directly on the human will? And is the opposite doctrine not constructed by inferences from foregone conclusions in philosophy? The truth is: philosophers themselves have not been at one on this point; a large proportion of them, including some of the ablest, have maintained that divine activity and human liberty are perfectly consistent. We argue purely in ignorance when we object that, if God operates as a cause upon the will, He impairs or destroys moral freedom. This is not a truth of intuition, to be assumed without proof; nor can it be demonstrated.
From the very nature of the case, we cannot be conscious of whether a higher power is acting on us or not. We are indeed conscious that we act freely, and this is a truth which we cheerfully avow. But we possess no such certainty on the other side, as could justify the contempt which some people cast on Scripture’s teaching about God’s real, gracious influence on the soul. To say that, in turning unto God, we act without spiritual influence, is to say more than we know, or can know, without revelation. But all the teaching of revelation is so clearly the other way that the greatest ingenuity is needed to explain away its language. The convert knows, by his consciousness, that he acts, that he acts from motives, that he never acted more freely in his life. But he cannot know from consciousness that God acts. Of this, God must testify, which He does when He assures us by His servant Paul that it is God who works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. It is therefore possible with God!
Age after age this doctrine has been a target for assailants, while it has been precious in the esteem of true believers. The controversy first took a definite shape in the days when Augustine in Africa and Jerome in Palestine raised the standard against Pelagius and his followers. The writings of Augustine in particular have been the arsenal of theologians in this warfare; and for many years they succeeded in keeping the decisions of the so-called Catholic Church on the right side on this issue. But the mystery of iniquity was continually, though secretly, working against grace. Various schools of error within the Church, but especially the Franciscans, and above all the Jesuits, laboured for a scheme favourable to human nature till it was clear that the body of Popish scholars had become radically corrupt.
We also find the doctrine of our text prominent at the Reformation. It had been taught by Wycliffe and Hus, and Luther championed it in his controversy with Erasmus. In this matter there was no division among the Reformers. Down to our own day, pure evangelical piety is uniformly found associated with high views of God’s spiritual power and direct effectiveness, in the conversion of the sinner. On the other hand, wherever we observe a breaking of the Protestant and Puritan line, a retreat from Reformation ground and the confessions of the Reformed Churches, and a desertion of the ranks for liberalism and the Socinian heresy, we find a corresponding and proportional disposition to fritter away the meaning of Scripture declarations concerning man’s helplessness and the power of the Holy Spirit. And these two antagonist systems will not end their great campaign till truth shall sound her trumpet in ultimate victory.
If then there is any creed which can truly be called Catholic, as having commanded the support of the best Christians, in all generations of the Church, it is this: conversion by any human agent is impossible; God converts the sinner; His act in regeneration and conversion is an act of power; such agency does not overbear or obliterate human freedom; and the power of God in this field of grace is infinite.
Application.
1. We must all admit that there is much in this to humble and alarm the impenitent sinner, and this may account for some of the opposition which the doctrine has encountered.
No one likes to hear that he is poor and miserable and blind and naked. To be dependent on someone else is humiliating, if not galling. Human greatness, by puffing up the depraved dispositions, indisposes men to submit to God’s method of saving sinners.
The doctrine of the text and its context shows no complacency towards ungodly wealth. It announces the infinite peril of setting the heart on earthly good. The great danger is that every hearer will be thinking of someone wealthier than himself. We have no reason to think that the young ruler was a millionaire, or that Jesus directed the never-to-be-forgotten needle’s eye only to those who possessed hundreds of thousands. The arrow of conviction flies clear over your head, while you whisper, Who is this rich man? It is that eminent banker or successful merchant or happy heir; it is not I! And a second says, It is not I! And others add the echo, It is not I!
Yes, it is you and you and you! Do not look around you; look no further. It is you who have already been kept away from Christ by the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. The group has vanished. Jesus and that kneeling, sorrowing, departing young ruler have long since passed in body from this earth. But in reality, each of you passes before Jesus; each of you hears His proposal; each of you has rejected it. Your condition is fearful. Each of you is in the hands of an offended God. But for His sovereign power, your salvation is impossible.
2. Believers ascribe their conversion to the power of God.
It was impossible with men. Grace wrought it, by the same mighty power which raised Jesus from the dead. Does it seem mysterious that Omnipotence should move the human will at regeneration? Scripture does not relieve the mystery. “The wind bloweth . . . so is every one . . . born of the Spirit.” Those who are so renewed, are “born, not . . . of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”. Paul confirms this: “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy”. All the saints in heaven agree in ascribing the original action to God and not to themselves, and in owning that, if He had not first sought them, they never would have sought Him. The very disposition towards being saved is from His free love: “By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God”.
The difficulty of selecting passages from Scripture on this subject is great, because of their large number. Better than single proof texts is the whole tenor of the New Testament, which ascribes the new nature and all holy thoughts, feelings and choices, to the power of God. It is hardly possible for any man, whatever his theory may be, to fall down on his knees and refer to his own conversion, without using expressions which indicate that the effectiveness was from God, and that His grace operated upon the creature as a real cause. This is implied in all our thanksgivings and all our confessions. This is that heavenly effectual calling, about which the apostles express themselves so strongly, and which is everywhere referred to God’s sovereign pleasure. Nor is there any temper of soul more congenial to true piety than that in which the believer says, “We are the clay, and Thou our Potter”.
3. The doctrine which we have been studying gives the greatest possible encouragement to prayer for the unconverted.
Prayers of this kind have of late besieged heaven – going up in squadrons and mighty armies. All in vain, if God exercises no power antecedent to the sinner’s consent. We have those who are dear to us as life, and for whom we intercede; perhaps they are beside us now; perhaps they are where no power but that of the Almighty can reach them. But it does not matter whether God reaches them or not, if He is at the mercy of their stubborn hearts, and if His omnipotence cannot sway their will. If Jehovah can put forth no causation in regard to human choices, then He cannot secure the holiness of those for whom we plead. It is not God, but they, who hold the power to decide.
To pray to them might be reasonable, but not to pray to God. For what can God do, unless they consent to act first? Let the impiety be with such as have broached and trumpeted the unscriptural tenet! No, it is our comfort, and it encourages us to lift up our head in prayer to God, that He is able to influence the unregenerate soul with direct rays of converting power. The things which are impossible with men, are possible with God.
He can breathe on the swollen tide of unholy thoughts flowing along its rocky channel and instantaneously turn back the free yet mighty river, so that it now flows as sweetly heavenward as its flow was turbulently towards the lake of fire. Unless then we mock heaven when we ask God to convert the rebel, we mean more than this: that He should do so if the rebel agrees to convert himself. And our hope of the eventual illumination of the world, the future perseverance of holy angels, and the everlasting fidelity of ransomed saints, resides wholly in the power of God being exerted to keep them from falling.
This earth of ours, ever since it was blessed with the gospel, has seen comparatively little of the omnipotence of grace. She has not seen the knowledge of God inundating her populations “as the waters cover the sea”. She has not seen nations born at once. She has not seen Israel restored, idolatry abolished, and all men knowing the Lord. But she shall see this, and more. She shall see it in answer to prayer. She shall see it as the consequence of God’s irresistible and gracious influence on each individual soul. It is the glory of the Holy Ghost thus to work on the corrupt mass of humanity. These are supernatural influences, and without them religion degenerates into a poor form of rationalism. Here we fix ourselves; on this we hang for ourselves and for others – for the beginnings of our new life, for its consummation, for regeneration, for sanctification and for glory. “O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgements, and His ways past finding out. For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Rom 11:33,36).
Faith works by love but natural conscience works by fear.
God will rule by the sceptre of love. God would have His people a willing people. Every natural man is an inward atheist.
Reason is the great enemy of faith, and when it is sanctified it is the great servant of faith.
Thomas Manton