Soli Deo Gloria

One of the monumental points of my Christian life has been my understanding of regeneration from a healthy reformed perspective. When one first hears “regeneration precedes faith” it can be a shock to your system when you’re brought up being told that one is born again after he believes. However, the Bible must be our dividing rod when contemplating any doctrine and when we let God’s Word speak on this matter it’s undeniable that salvation is entirely monergistic and not synergistic.

The common view of the ordo salutis (or order of salvation) looks something like this:

faith - rebirth - justification

However, the Bible says differently. As sinful creatures we do everything in our power to have some say so or gain some level of glory in everything we do - even in salvation. I believe that many Christians today are putting more faith in their faith than in the person of Jesus Christ!

As a reformed evangelical I hold to what the Bible says on the matter of salvation and salvation is of the LORD (Jonah 2:9). You see, we want to believe that we have a little spark in us that has the ability to respond to the Gospel. That we are just sick and not dead in our sins and transgressions. However, Scripture is absolutely clear on this matter:

“… even when we were dead in our sins and transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” Ephesians 2:5

Here Paul is clear that we are spiritually dead in our sins. Contrary to some erroneous teachings, we are dead, not just sick. We are unable whatsoever to respond to the Gospel message unless God regenerates us to be able to respond.

Jesus taught this plainly to Nicodemus. Notice in John 3:3 Jesus states:

“Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Notice that nowhere in this conversation with Nicodemus does Jesus tell him how he can be born again but that he simply must be.

In addition, this teaching of monergistic regeneration is not something new or novel. It was taught by Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield and even the great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas - the Doctor Angelicus of the Roman Catholic Church! (Not someone you would expect to hold this view since nearly all of the Roman Catholic Church holds to a synergistic view of salvation.)

Monergism is not to say that we are robots - we still must act in trusting, saving faith in Jesus Christ but that faith only becomes available to us after we are regenerated by God. We are dead in our sins and only the power of God can regenerate us to a state of having the ability to act in faith and put our trust and faith in the risen Savior.

John also writes of regeneration preceding faith in 1 John 5:1:

“everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.”

God gets all the glory in everything - and that means everything. God is glorified for those who end up in heaven for his mercy and grace and He is equally glorified for those who end up in hell to demonstrate His just righteousness as a righteous and good Judge.

Even our faith is not something we can grasp onto as something that will earn us a spot in heaven. It is Christ Jesus and everything He has done through His atoning work on the cross, taking on the wrath of God we so deserve and being raised from the dead that is our salvation. Our faith in Christ is a glorious gift from God. (Ephesians 2:8) In monergistic regeneration God receives all the glory. Soli Deo Gloria - one of the five sola’s of the protestant reformation could not be more appropriate here.

If we believe that faith precedes regeneration we must take a hard look at the fact that it would be in direct contrast not only to the teachings of early church scholars and theologians but more important against the teachings of Paul and of our Lord Jesus Christ himself.

What a glorious doctrine! In the most important aspect God gets all the glory and in another aspect it gives us a passion to preach the Gospel message knowing that God has chosen those who’s hearts will be receptive to the Gospel message through the power of the Holy Spirit. It reminds us that we save no one - we are called to be faithful and joyfully proclaim salvation by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone and all for the glory of God alone. (Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Solus Christus, Soli Deo Gloria)

For more reading on monergism check out www.monergism.com - an excellent online resource that has a generous collection of reformed papers, an awesome book store and some well respected links.

Theology