Regeneration Precedes Faith
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.
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Jay, thanks for touching on this crucial issue within the church, the doctrine of salvation and the life of a Christian. You summarize the idea of regeneration before faith very clearly. It should be piercing. To grasp onto even the slightest idea of our involvement in salvation as playing a role in saving ourselves diminishes our state in sin and short changes the satisfaction that the cross had in fulfilling our penalty of sin. How can a man save himself when he is drowning? He can’t… Before we are saved we are the same in our state of sin… we were dead and can only be made alive through the power of the spirit!
I wonder whether worldly-minded people will look at this truth and view it as (of all things) arrogance on the part of the one who proclaims it? “You must think much of yourself to believe that God would single you out for regeneration. Do you think you are special or something?”
Amazingly of course is that this truth is in fact the basis for our humbling – we are incapable of doing anything to make ourselves right before God and are so poor and lowly of estate that even the faith to believe must be given to us by God.
Nice write up, Jay. As always, passionate and on point.
Marvelous! Indeed, no one can come to the Lord without being drawn by Him. No one is capable on their own. Folks get so hung up on measuring this by human standards, by what they think would be “fair.” That kind of thinking is an attempt to get God to fit your own requirements. Pretty brassy, trying to make your Creator conform to what you want Him to be! Why does God do things the way He does? Who knows? Frankly, it’s none of our business, as the Lord Himself states in Isaiah 55:8,9 (NET): “Indeed, my plans are not like your plans,and my deeds are not like your deeds,for just as the sky is higher than the earth, so my deeds are superior to your deeds,
and my plans superior to your plans.” All we need to do is trust Him and have faith in Him.
Once a person accepts the Re-formed re-definiton of regeneration, erroneous Re-formed interpretations of the Scriptures, and unbiblical Re-formed presuppositions, then you will come to believe Re-formed Doctrine.
Biblically however, regeneration occurs when Jesus Christ comes to dwell in our hearts through faith (Eph. 3:17), to give us His life (col. 3:4), our gift of eternal life (1John 5:11, 12). We receive the promise of the Holy Spirit through faith” (Gal. 3:14). Those who have the Son living in them have eternal life, those who do not have the Son of God living in them do not have the life of regeneration. Biblically, faith precedes the gift of eternal life. Biblically regeneration is the specific work of God which saves us. The Apostle Paul tells us “We shall be saved by His life” (Rom. 5:10), “We are saved by regeneration” (Titus 3:5), and when we are “made alive with Jesus Christ, by grace we have been saved” (Eph. 2:5). Faith also precedes salvation. Those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31) will be saved by regeneration when Jesus comes to dwell in their hearts, giving them God’s gift of eternal life, God’s gift of salvation.
Folks, there was no regeneration, no indwelling of any man by the Lord Jesus Christ before the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Even Peter specifically states, we are born again THROUGH the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1Peter 1:3). NO man was born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead before He rose from the dead. That one fact proves that many Reformed interpretations are unbiblical, because many Re-formed interpretations require regeneration before the resurrection. Many essential Re-formed proof texts require regeneration to be occuring throughout the book of John. Jesus was not indwelling men in the book of John. At a point in time, God sent His Son to redeem men so they could be adopted as sons, and then after the redeeming work, after men could receive the adoption as sons, then, because they are sons by adoption, God sends forth the Spirit of His Son into our heart (Gal. 4:4-5). Any interpretations which place regeneration before the resurrection are erroneus. These erroneous Re-formed interpretations are used to proof text presuppositions such as the Re-formed teaching of the “Bondage of the Will”. “Bondage of the Will” is not a Biblical concept. Men did not have bound wills prior to the resurrection. They did have faith from Abel on through the end of the Old Testament, and through the book of John, but no man had yet been regenerated by the indwelling of Jesus Christ. The Re-formed description of the unregenerate is not Biblical. Many ungodly, faithful believing men were unregenerate. All of the names listed in Hebrews 11 were not regenerated. They were not saved in their lifetimes, they died awaiting the salvation (regeneration) that God would provide through His Son.
It is amazing to me that the most wonderful teaching of the whole Bible is obscured by this terrible Doctrine. “Christ in you, your hope for glory” (Col. 1:27)…”Christ coming to dwell in our hearts by faith” (Eph. 3:17)…”Christ is our life” (Col. 3:4)…”Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20)…”Christ in me” (Rom. 8:10). Don’t miss it folks. When Paul admonishes to examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith” there is a context that goes with the verse. He goes on to state, “Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, THAT CHRIST IS IN YOU — unless you fail the test.” (2Cor. 13:5)
Reformed Doctrine is unbiblical. It is based upon re-defined Biblical words, unbiblical assumptions, and erroneous interpretations of the Bible. It causes confusion and much discention in the Body of Christ. In Doctrine definitions must be Biblical, they must be tested. Every assumption must be tested, and every interpretation must be true to its context.
Sola Scriptura,
Melani Boek