After removing the stone, Jesus called with new creation power, “Lazarus, come out.” The heart that stopped four days before pulsed with new life. Lazarus walked out of his grave. Lazarus’s resurrection and gives a picture of what it is like for God to resurrect people who are dead in their sins spiritually. God takes what is dead and morally repugnant from sin and makes it into something alive and beautiful.

Like any other six-year-old, I lived life to the fullest. I climbed the cherry trees, played on the playground with my sister, and built my Legos. One day, a sense of dread and sadness began clouding my carefree days. I didn’t know what was wrong. I explained how I felt to my mom. She gently said, “You need Jesus.” At that moment, something extraordinary happened. I believed in Jesus. I did not have all the theology worked out in that moment of newfound belief. But I knew I needed Jesus. Desperately.
There is nothing more beautiful in the world than a person trusting and clinging to God for grace. True belief is the result of God’s effectual calling. And this effectual call is the dawning of new creation life.
It is often thought that systematic theology is abstract and theoretical. This is far from the case. The great truths of theology help us make sense of everyday life. We experience the truths of theology in life. Theology is systematic because each doctrine is dynamically connected. Effectual calling is organically related to the Trinity, election, creation, the doctrine of sin, atonement, eschatology, and all the other doctrines. Two theological relationships that continue to capture my attention are effectual calling and the new creation.
God’s Call and New Creation
God’s work in the heart is nothing less than a new creation. If God doesn’t do this work, people hear of the death and resurrection of Jesus and respond with anything but saving faith. Apathy, curiosity, mockery, or hostility are common responses to the gospel. But a person will only respond in saving faith if God calls that person and opens the heart to believe.
Just as God spoke and created the universe and everything in it, God speaks to the human heart and creates something new (2 Cor. 4:4). The God who said, “Let there be light!” says, “Let there be faith!” While the gospel is preached or shared, God creates something new in the heart of the person who responds in saving faith.
In systematic theology, the effectual calling, this new creation call, is also known as new birth or regeneration. Jesus taught that people must be born again to believe the gospel with saving faith (John 3:3–8). The Holy Spirit was active in the creation of the world. He formed it, brought order from the chaos, and made it beautiful (Gen. 1:2). The Spirit is also active in the new creation of the believers. Through the power of the gospel, the Spirit causes them to be born again, bringing order to their chaotic and dead hearts and making them spiritually beautiful.
God will one day restore the cosmos and make all things new. This new creation call to the individual through the gospel is the downpayment of resurrection life that will one day overtake all creation.
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Reland’s work left a tremendous contribution to missionary work to Muslim countries. Modern authors agree that his writings, while firmly founded in Christian orthodoxy, have contributed to foster a balanced view of Islam among scholars, missionaries, and the general public – thus facilitating a peaceable and informed discussion.

In academic circles, Adriaan Reland is hailed as a remarkable Orientalist and linguist whose studies and writings have contributed to dispel many prejudiced views of his time. What most sources ignore, however, is his motivation.
Born in 1676 in the small village of De Rijp, in North Holland, to a Protestant minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, Reland never forgot the reason for his work and studies. “My labors shall make way for others for the triumph of the truth and the evangelical faith and the ultimate aim of our actions, the glory of the only and one God, Father, Son, and Spirit,”[1] he wrote.
Excelling in his studies, he entered the University of Uthrecht at age 14 and completed his doctorate in 1699. Two years later, his interest and proficiency in Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic led to his appointment as Professor of Oriental Languages at the University of Utrecht. This gave him an opportunity to continue his study in a wide range of Asian languages, including Malay (although the university itself didn’t have hardly any original text).
Reland’s Influence on Missions to Muslim Countries
Reland completed his main work, De religione Mohammedica libri duo, in 1705 (and extended it in 1717). His motivation was similar to what had moved the famous theologian Gisbert Voetius and his pupil Johannes Hoornbeek to launch heartfelt appeals to western scholars to correct their “coarse ignorance about Mohammedism,” pleading for a study of Arabic in order to truly understand the Qur’an. This was particularly important for Dutch missionaries that had moved to Muslim areas of Southeast Asia. Reland repeated this exhortation, adding that some of the prejudices typical of his age had seeped into the Latin translations.
While firmly convinced of the exclusive truth of the Bible, Reland contended, with rare objectivity for his times, that religions should be examined impartially through a study of their authentic documents and not through the writings of their detractors (he reminded his Protestant readers of the unfounded accusations Roman Catholics had published against them).
In fact, after summarizing Islamic teachings for his readers, he corrected 39 myths commonly believed about Muslims.
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The true author of Scripture, not only can accurately predict future events but is also sovereign over the development of language. God knew Isaiah 7:14 would be further fulfilled by Jesus’ birth to a virgin, even though the original sign wasn’t about a virgin, but a young woman giving birth to a son and naming him Immanuel.

Have you ever thought you were so familiar with something, only to find out later you’d been overlooking some important details? This happens to me with songs, books, and movies. I hear, read, or see them so many times, only to be amazed when, out of the blue, I notice something in them I didn’t see before. Sometimes this happens to us with familiar Bible passages too.
Here’s the familiar: Jesus was born of a virgin, and Isaiah 7:14 prophesied about it. Nothing shocking yet. But let’s look at the details surrounding Isaiah’s statement about the virgin birth.
King Ahaz of Judah was having a bad day. Ephraim and Syria were attacking Jerusalem and trying to overthrow the king. So, God sends Isaiah to King Ahaz to tell him these attackers won’t be successful but will be destroyed. Then God tells Ahaz to ask for a sign, but Ahaz refuses. God gives him one anyway. Here it is: “Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14).
Wait a second. How is the prophecy about Jesus being born of a virgin a sign for Ahaz? Jesus won’t be born for another 700 years. Let’s keep reading.
He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken. (Isa. 7:15–16)
These verses explain the sign God is giving Ahaz. A baby named Immanuel will be born, and before the kid is very old, the kings attacking Ahaz will be gone. This was fulfilled in Ahaz’s day, and the little boy named Immanuel was an ongoing sign that God delivered Ahaz and Judah. We find in the very next chapter of Isaiah that Immanuel was living during Ahaz’s reign (Isa. 8:8).
The main point of this sign in Isaiah is that a child would shortly be born.
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