SALVATION:
REGENERATION: THE NEW BIRTH: CONVERSION; EFFECTUAL CALLING
THE
CHRISTIAN IS BORN AGAIN
Romans
9 and Selected Verses
Charles
e Whisnant, Pastor/Teacher/Theologian,
Reading
Abraham Kuyper this morning he gives a description of salvation: He
said a child knows nothing of his own existences, as a child, nor of
the first period of his life, from his own observation. If he were
to tell you his history from his own recollections, he would began
with the time he could remember. ( My own first recollection)I was
walking with my dad to the church holding his hand when I was about 5
years old.) ) But being informed by others of his early life he can
go back of his recollections and speak of his parents, family, time,
and place, how he grew up, etc. So there is a differences between
the two accounts.
So
there is a difference between what I believed happen when I was saved
and what really did happen. When I was saved (as I have dated) I
was personally ignorant of the implanting of the new life, I only
remember that I needed to be saved, which I believe led me to faith
and repentance as far as I knew those terms back in 1954 when I was
seven. Well as I was getting order I was not satisfied with this, I
wanted to know just how did I become saved. Was it that I raised my
hands? Was it that I went to the alter? Was it that I prayed and
quoted John 3:16? Was I just persuaded by the preaching? Where was
the starting point of my salvation I wondered as I got older.. So I
have spend a life time just learning what really happen when I was
saved.,
I
must say then that the first act of salvation for me was wholly
passive and unconscious. Generally that is the case with those who
are children, and in most cases adults as well.
So
the question ask is this: “WHAT HAD GOD WROUGHT IN THE SOUL THAT
BRINGS ABOUT SALVATION TO HIM? I am not sure that I knew that for
years after I went forward at Williamsroad Baptist Church in Roanoke
Virginia the same time that Winston Hall did.
Quoting
Kuyper:
But
this subjective representation, more or less incomplete, can not
satisfy us now. It was to be expected that the supporters of "free
will" would abuse it, by inferring that the origin and first
activities of the work of salvation spring from man himself. A
sinner, hearing the Word, is deeply impressed; persuaded by its
threats and promises, he repents, arises, and accepts the Savior.
Hence there is nothing more than a mere moral persuasion, obscuring
the glorious origin of the new life. To resist this repulsive
deforming of the truth, Maccovius, already in the days of the Synod
of Dort, abandoned this more or less critical method to make
regeneration the starting-point. He followed this order:
"Knowledge
of sin, redemption in Christ, regeneration, and only then faith."
And this was consistent with the development of the Reformed
doctrine. For as soon as the subjective method was abandoned, it
became necessary in answer to the question, "What has God
wrought in the soul?" to return to the first implanting of life.
And then it became evident that God did not begin by leading the
sinner to repentance, for repentance must be preceded by conviction
of sin; nor by bringing him under the hearing of the word, for this
requires an opened ear. Hence the first conscious and comparatively
cooperative act of man is always preceded by the original act of God,
planting in him the first principle of a new life, under which act
man is wholly passive and unconscious.
Thus
God worked in my heart, spirit, soul , as a child creating a new life
without my knowledge, while later the work God brought into my heart
the knowledge of regeneration with my full knowledge and consent.
REGENERATION,
THE NEW BIRTH:
….the
first effect of the power of God in the heart in regeneration is to
give the heart a Divine or sense; to cause it to have a relish of the
loveliness and sweetness of the supreme excellency of the Divine
nature. Said Jonathan Edwards
In
reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the
kingdom of God unless he is born again.” JOHN 3:3
Regeneration is a New Testament concept that grew, it
seems, out of a parabolic picture-phrase that Jesus used to show
Nicodemus the inwardness and depth of the change that even religious
Jews must undergo if they were ever to see and enter the kingdom of
God, and so have eternal life (John 3:3-15). Jesus pictured the
change as being “born again.”
The concept is of God renovating the heart, the core
of a person’s being, by implanting a new principle of desire,
purpose, and action, a dispositional dynamic that finds expression in
positive response to the gospel and its Christ. Jesus’ phrase “born
of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5) harks back to Ezekiel 36:25-27,
where God is pictured as symbolically cleansing persons from sin’s
pollution (by water) and bestowing a “new heart” by putting his
Spirit within them. Because this is so explicit, Jesus chides
Nicodemus, “Israel’s teacher,” for not understanding how new
birth happens (John 3:9-10). Jesus’ point throughout is that there
is no exercise of faith in himself as the supernatural Savior, no
repentance, and no true discipleship apart from this new birth.
Elsewhere John teaches that belief in the Incarnation
and Atonement, with faith and love, holiness and righteousness, is
the fruit and proof that one is born of God (1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:7;
5:1, 4). It thus appears that as there is no conversion without new
birth, so there is no new birth without conversion.
Though infant regeneration can be a reality when God
so purposes (Luke 1:15, 41-44), the ordinary context of new birth is
one of effectual calling—that is, confrontation with the gospel and
illumination as to its truth and significance as a message from God
to oneself. Regeneration is always the decisive element in effectual
calling.
Regeneration is monergistic: that is, entirely the
work of God the Holy Spirit. It raises the elect among the
spiritually dead to new life in Christ (Eph. 2:1-10). Regeneration is
a transition from spiritual death to spiritual life, and conscious,
intentional, active faith in Christ is its immediate fruit, not its
immediate cause. Regeneration is the work of what Augustine called
“prevenient” grace, the grace that precedes our outgoings of
heart toward God.
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