We read in John’s gospel that Lazarus had been dead for four days before Jesus arrived. The only power in the universe that could bring that corpse out of the tomb was the power of God. Christ did not invite Lazarus out of the tomb; He did not wait for Lazarus to cooperate. He said, “Lazarus, come out,” and by the sheer power of that imperative, that which was dead became alive (John 11:43). Lazarus cooperated by walking out of the tomb, but there was no cooperation involved in his transition from death to life.
In similar fashion, Paul says in Ephesians that we are in a state of spiritual death. We are by nature children of wrath, and according to Jesus, no one can come to Him unless the Father draws him (John 6:44).
Paul continues:
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—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:4–7)
In our flesh, we can do nothing; left to ourselves, we would never choose the things of God. While we are in that state of spiritual death, walking according to the course of this world and obeying the lusts of our flesh, God makes us alive. After God makes us alive, we reach out in faith, but that first step is something that God alone does. He does not whisper in our ear, “Will you please cooperate with Me?” Rather, He intervenes to change the disposition of the hearts of spiritually dead people by His Holy Spirit.
Sproul, R. C. (2014). Everyone’s a Theologian: An Introduction to Systematic Theology (pp. 227–228). Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust.
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