- There is More Honour to Disagree

There is More Honour to Disagree than to Misrepresent

RBF: 3. What is regeneration? God had issued the effectual call to man, but he is dead in sins and trespasses and whose mind is enmity against God and therefore will not respond to the call with love and a believing heart. A radical change must take place in his mind, heart and will before he can respond to the call. The effectual call “carries with it the operative grace whereby the person called is enabled to answer the call and to embrace Jesus Christ as he is freely offered in the gospel.” (Murray, John: Redemption Accomplished And Applied, p.96; Ezk.36.26; Jn.3.8; James 1.18; 1 Pet.1.23). In this way, regeneration is given a context by the call. This context is the Word or the truth of the gospel. When regeneration is taken out from this context it will lose its reality and meaning. The Confession anticipated that, when it pointed out that “He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time to effectually call by His Word and Spirit”. The application of regeneration is implied by the operative grace of the effectual call (see Confession 13.1 “They who are effectually called and regenerated”). The call also provides regeneration a purpose. The end of regeneration is the conversion of the heart. When a person is regenerated he will respond to the call and turn to God. God would not regenerate a person and leave him to continue in the state of sins and trespasses. This is not the biblical concept of renewed life. Renewed life is defined by a life in Christ. Take for instance, according to John’s gospel, a person is to be born again in order to see and enter the kingdom of God (3.3-8). The apostle Paul’s teaching states that the saints are made alive together with Christ (Eph.2.1-5). 1 John 2.29 states that the one who practices righteousness is born of God. God would regenerate a person so that he would believe the kingdom of God is in Christ and therefore enter it; or that he believes that Christ has been made alive and therefore he is now sharing the same life with Christ; or he believes that Christ is worthy of a righteous life and so he practices it. These are simply the examples of faith that was given by the Holy Spirit.

SF: “All those that are justified, God vouchsafed [guaranteed]… to make partakers of the grace of adoption…” The order specified here without any shadow of doubt is simply this: justification, regeneration and adoption. Do you agree with this plain statement of the Confession? It is quite plain that it declares that justification precedes regeneration. Is this statement too difficult to understand? Or is it just too plain to suit your theological ideas? Any one with elementary English and an unprejudiced mind will understand the statement to mean that justification must precede regeneration. And regeneration is the means to make the justified elect the partakers of the grace of adoption. God does not adopt those still under condemnation and spiritually dead. He adopts those whom He has freed from condemnation and made alive by His Spirit!

I have suggested just now that there are theological, biblical and logical reasons why justification must precede regeneration. Why don’t you think outside the ‘standard reformed position’ box and think about that proposition. But the fact that you have placed regeneration ahead of justification has discredited your whole scheme. Your standard reformed views are in plain disagreement with the Confession of Faith. Your order disagrees with the order summarized in the 1689 CoF. Please cease claiming that the 1689 CoF teaches your view. There is more honour to disagree with it than to misrepresent it.

You are seemingly confused about the effectual call and the gospel call. An elect who is not yet regenerated is entirely passive in the effectual calling unto life. He does not answer the effectual call. It is the effectually called elect who consciously responds to and answers the gospel call and embraces the grace preached and conveyed by it. The call to eternal life is described as ‘effectual’ because the omnipotent God through His Word (life-giving Logos) and Spirit is always successful in bringing a spiritually dead elect into spiritual and eternal life. A spiritually dead person is entirely passive in the effectual call unto spiritual life. Only a person birthed with spiritual life can consciously respond to, or answer the gospel call. That is why in the gospel call, the preacher reasons, demonstrates, explains, persuades, pleads, and exhorts the hearers to flee from sins and believe in Jesus Christ… all the time conscious that only those who have spiritual life in the audience is capable of such spiritual activities. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Without spiritual life, the most persuasively preached gospel is still utter foolishness to the hearers without spiritual life.

In the paragraph above, there is much that you have written that I don’t quite understand but that’s a small loss. However, I am puzzled by your statement, ‘The end of regeneration is the conversion of the heart.’ Could you please elaborate what you mean? The end of regeneration is that eternal life may be bestowed, to bring to spiritual life one who was spiritual dead; not the conversion of the heart. The end or goal of the gospel call is the conversion of the mind, heart and will – in that number and order – to the truth of the gospel. Only a justified living child of God can be converted to the truth by the ministry of the word. If you can’t distinguish between effectual call to life and the gospel call to conversion, you have not begun to rightly divide the word of truth.

God does not regenerate a person and leave him to continue in the state of sins and trespasses. When God regenerates an elect, He puts His laws in his mind and writes them on his heart. He is called out of that state of sin and death that he is in by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, i.e., he is called to eternal life in Jesus Christ. As a result he ‘fears God’ and ‘works righteousness.’ He is still ignorant of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That explains the great urgency of bringing the gospel to him, that he may be brought to know the good news of the salvation that God has accomplished for him and in him. Cornelius was one such man. The Ethiopian eunuch was another. The ‘god-fearing’ Jews that were converted on the day of Pentecost were also in this category. Natural man does not fear God… he is at enmity against God. The effectual call of God produces God-fearing men who need to be brought to faith in Jesus Christ. “And you… will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people… to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

The Lord Jesus said, “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me,” John 6:45. ‘All’ and ‘everyone’ embrace the complete number of the elect, thus that which is spoken of here is the effectual call. These regenerated elect are all taught by God their Father, yes, by God the Father Himself, and not through the preachers. They have heard and learned from the Father when God effectually called them to eternal life. They come to Christ because they have been taught by God the Father. ‘Coming to Christ’ here is being brought to life and union with Christ at effectual calling. Those who are drawn to the Son by the Father at effectual call are then able to answer to the gospel call to come to Christ. The effectual call to life, i.e., being taught by God, with His laws put in their mind and written upon their hearts and brought to Christ are various aspects of the effectual call. For the Father said of these New Covenant saints, “I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” Heb 8:10. Being united to Christ, brought to Christ, is the effect of the effectual calling. Only a person united to Christ at effectual calling has spiritual ears to hear the gospel call and respond. Every single elect is effectually called. There are effectually called sentient elect who do not receive the gospel call, 1689.10.3. To those whom the gospel call does come, they can be persuaded to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.