Well, thank you very much, Cliff,
for the very kind welcome. Always a privilege to speak on
behalf of the SGU. Let me just say a few things
by way of introduction. So Cliff first asked me to do
this in September 2018. So I've had nine months to think
about this. So you'd think I'd have a fairly
sure idea of what I was talking about. But I don't claim to be
infallible. And I don't claim to have all
the answers to all your difficult questions, so you might have
to think about some of the things I say afterwards in your own
time. I always think of these meetings
as an opportunity to provoke some thought. And I think that
if I say things that you already agree with, then it's probably
slightly a waste of time. That's not to say I've gone out
of my way to be deliberately provocative, or at least not
very much. So there may be some things that you might want to
question, which is fine. And then thirdly, speaking on
the subject of regeneration, I think something very important
to say is that it's obviously much more important to experience
regeneration than it is to understand it, or to be able to analyse
it. There's an excellent quote by
Abraham Kuyper, And he says, he who breathes deeply, unconscious
of his lungs, is often the healthiest. So in other words, the person
who is not thinking about breathing is probably the healthy man.
And perhaps we could say the person who's not so concerned
to understand regeneration may be the regenerate man. So I've
got quite a lot of material here, more than I thought I'd have.
So I'll try not to detain you for too long, but my plan was
to speak for about an hour and to cover these three questions.
First of all, what is regeneration? Secondly, who regenerates? And
thirdly, how? So three questions. What is regeneration?
Who regenerates? And how is it done? So what is
regeneration in the first place? Well, you might think it's a
strange thing for me to say that my thoughts on regeneration are
still evolving. Perhaps you think that it's a
very simple thing, that regeneration is just a black and white thing
and easy to understand. But let me try and show you that
it isn't. I'm going to read you two quotes, both from the Gospel
Standard, one from 1971 and then one from 1972. This is a 1971
quote. In regeneration, there is a new
nature bestowed, a new life implanted, and it is manifested in two very
distinct ways. First, we feel ourselves to be
exceeding great sinners. Secondly, we are made to long
for our wants to be supplied. With the knowledge of sinfulness
comes misery and condemnation. And where these things are felt,
there will be a longing for mercy and deliverance. So in regeneration,
according to that quotation, a man is made to feel his misery
and condemnation and made to long for mercy and deliverance.
He's talking about conviction of sin. In 1972, a year later,
this quote comes up. By the work of the Holy Ghost
in regeneration, a union is made between Christ and his people,
whereby they partake of him. So to me, that's not so much
talking about the work of conviction anymore. It's now talking about
an experiential union with Christ, a feeling upon him, and an enjoyment
of salvation. So even in the same publication,
you get this word regeneration, but it's clearly a very different
idea that is being conveyed. And that's not surprising, because
we often find in the Bible that the Bible uses the same words
to mean different things. Let me show you one example.
You're familiar with the way that Christ spoke to Nicodemus
in the third chapter of John, when he spoke of the necessity
of being born again. And we all know the words of
Christ. But if you look at that word
born that he uses there, and if you turn to the opening chapters
of Matthew, you will find that that same Greek word is used
in two places. First of all, it's used in chapter
one of Matthew in verse two, where we have the words Abraham
begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judas
and his brethren, and so on through that chapter. Each time it's
the same word that we have translated begat there that Jesus uses when
he says you must be born again. But then if you go to the next
chapter in Matthew's Gospel and you look at the opening verse
of chapter two, you read, now, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem
of Judea. And it's actually the same word
in the Greek that's used and translated born in Bethlehem
of Judea as is used in the previous chapter and translated begat.
And those are different things, aren't they? So when it says
Abraham begat Isaac, it wasn't that Abraham gave birth to Isaac,
it was that Abraham was Isaac's natural father. And when it says
Jesus was born in Bethlehem, it doesn't say that Jesus was
begotten in Bethlehem. He was already, Mary was already
pregnant with Jesus when they travelled to Bethlehem. He wasn't
conceived there. So it means different things. It refers both
to the begetting act of the father and to the giving birth that
the mother is more involved in. And given that, it's not surprising
that you find different authors using the same word, regeneration,
but meaning very different things. We've already seen that to some
extent in the two quotes that I've already read you, but if
you look at John Calvin, You come across this sentence in
his works. He talks about sanctification, which daily advances till at
length it is perfected in the day of regeneration or resurrection
of the body. He's talking about the day of
resurrection, the last day, and he refers to it as the day of
regeneration. You look at John Owen, on the
other hand, and he always speaks of regeneration as being the
same thing as the new birth. You look at the dictionary definition
of the word regenerate, and you'll find something like this. It
means to improve a place or system, especially by making it more
active or successful. It's not surprising when we consider
these things that the word is used in many senses. So, to properly
discuss regeneration, we really need to first agree on what we
mean by the word. What are we talking about? It
only appears this one time, but it appears twice in scripture.
It appears in one of the Gospels when it's talking about the regeneration
of the universe, really, or the regeneration of all things. And
it appears in this chapter that Cliff read to us in Titus, where
we read about the washing of regeneration. It only appears
twice, this word, but the idea of regeneration, the idea of
renewal, a change, a new birth, new life, however you want to
put it, is often spoken of. So as I say, to discuss regeneration,
we need to agree on what we're talking about. And so if you
ask questions about regeneration, often the answer is, it depends.
So you could ask, is regeneration all at once? Or is it elongated? And the answer is, well, it depends
what you mean by regeneration. Is it a work in which the man
is passive or active? Again, it depends what you mean
by regeneration. Does it come before faith or
does it come after faith? It depends what you mean by regeneration.
Is it produced by the word or without the word? Again, it depends
what you mean by regeneration. Because of these things, trying
to pick through this minefield can be quite frustrating. We
give you an example of that. Some of you have probably read
that book by John Murray called Redemption Accomplished and Applied.
This is one of the sentences that you'll find in that book.
He says, every regenerate person has been delivered from the power
of sin, overcomes the world by the faith of Christ, and exercises
that self-control by which he is no longer the slave of sin
and of the evil one. Regeneration is such a radical,
pervasive and efficacious transformation that it immediately registers
itself in the conscious activity of the person concerned, in the
exercises of faith and repentance and new obedience." Well, he
uses some long words, doesn't he? But essentially what John
Murray is saying is that the moment a man is regenerated,
he will begin to believe, begin to repent and begin to live differently.
He also says that conversion is simply another name for faith
and repentance. So the implication is that conversion
comes immediately upon regeneration. And when you consider the meaning
of conversion, a turning, what John Murray seems to be teaching
is that a man is regenerated and then immediately there's
a turning. That regeneration, excuse me, that regeneration comes and then
immediately conversion follows. Then along comes Peter Masters,
and he wrote a book called Resistance of Souls, and he's very critical
of John Murray. On this point, he's very complimentary
about John Murray generally, but he says on this point, John
Murray gets it wrong. He says that John Murray is teaching
an all-at-once view of regeneration, whereby the convert is totally
born again in a flash at the beginning of his conversion experience,
so that he has no need to consciously seek or struggle to find the
Lord. Instead of that, Masters argues
for what he calls elongated regeneration. And he uses terms like this,
initial regeneration. To many people, of course, that's
nonsensical. Regeneration is a moment in time, and it's a
once-in-a-lifetime experience. So to talk about initial regeneration
to some people would be a nonsensical statement. It reminds me of a
time when I was listening to a sermon by Martin Lloyd-Jones,
and it was a sermon on Romans 7. and he started considering
whether Paul was a regenerate man or an unregenerate man and
in the end he kind of settled in the middle and he started
saying things like he wasn't a fully regenerate man which to me didn't
make any sense at the time and perhaps having prepared this
I can perhaps more understand what he meant by that now but
Peter Masters draws a distinction between what he calls this initial
regeneration and conversion And this is what he says about it.
Elongated regeneration has an initial part in which spiritual
life is implanted, which results in a new openness to the truth,
susceptibility to conviction, and a willingness to respond.
In some cases, this subsequent process may occur virtually simultaneously
with the act of initial regeneration. But usually, there is a more
prolonged time of struggle. The person may be initially regenerate,
but to our view, he is a seeker. He speaks of seekers, and these
are people who are inevitably on the way to conversion. And
Peter Masters doesn't believe that a man can be initially regenerated,
but then not converted. He's inevitably on the way to
conversion, but he is not there yet. So does he really disagree
with John Murray? Well, I'm not really sure. So
Murray does teach that regeneration is an instantaneous act, which
immediately leads to faith and repentance. He says when a person
is regenerated, it is impossible for that person not to believe.
But Murray, I'm sure, would also recognize that there is such
a thing as degrees of faith. I don't imagine that he was teaching
that for all Christians, the moment they are regenerated,
he immediately enjoys full assurance of forgiveness and a sense of
peace with God. And I'm sure Murray, too, would
recognize that there are people that we could describe as seekers
and that they are regenerate people. But it's also true to
say, isn't it, that the seeker does have some faith. And he
does have some repentance. He has enough to make him seek.
So I think that Peter Masters is slightly unfair on Murray.
But then, along comes Ian Murray. And he wrote a book called The
Old Evangelicalism. And just like Peter Masters criticizes
John Murray, he takes him to task for disagreeing with what
he says is the traditional Puritan and Reformers elongated regeneration
view. So, Ian Murray now comes and
he takes Peter Masters to task for disagreeing with John Murray.
And he says this about Peter Masters. He says, Masters wants
to treat regeneration not as an act, but as a process, in
order to leave room for human participation. But to look for
participation in rebirth is to change its meaning. I'm not sure,
again, whether that's really fair on Peter Masters. He accepts
that what he calls initial regeneration, which he puts at the start of
the conversion process, as he calls it, he accepts that that
is an instantaneous act, that life is given to a passive sinner
without his participation. So when you read these three
books, and on the surface, they all seem to disagree. But when
you actually boil down what they're saying, I wonder if you put them
all in the same room, they would actually say, oh yeah, I see
what you mean, actually. So you can see that we need to
be careful to define the terms we are using. When we talk about
regeneration and the new birth and conversion, are these all
the same thing? And we can very easily, and we've
all seen it, we can very easily end up arguing over things, not
realizing that we are using the same words in different ways.
It's very easy to contradict ourselves, even. Listen to this
quotation from Charles Spurgeon. See if you can spot the contradiction.
He says, when a man is converted to God, it is done in a moment.
Regeneration is an instantaneous work. Conversion to God, the
fruit of regeneration, occupies all our life. But regeneration
itself is effected as an instant. At the beginning of that quote,
he says, when a man is converted to God, it is done in a moment.
At the end of the quote, he says, conversion occupies all our lives. He's contradicting himself. So
what do I think is meant by regeneration? And what do I think is the teaching
of scripture and Christ on this? Well, this is where it gets a
bit complicated. So bear with me. But when Jesus
spoke of the change required, he spoke of it as a new birth.
And he used that term deliberately. There were other terms he could
have used. He could have spoken of it as a new creation. He could
have used the illustration of a vine and its branches, as he
does elsewhere. But he deliberately chose to use this illustration
of a new birth. And that, to me, indicates that
there are parallels between the new birth and natural birth.
Now, some of you might remember, if you were here a few weeks
ago when I was preaching one Sunday morning, I said something
like this in preaching. I said, new birth is not a process,
but an instantaneous event. And I said, well, it's a bit
like natural birth, isn't it? It's not a process. It's an instantaneous
event. When I got home, Liz was talking to me. And she said,
did you say that natural birth is an instantaneous event? And
I said, yes, I did. And she said, that's probably
something only a man could say. She said, natural birth is not
instantaneous. We don't get a new baby in a
moment, do we? It takes nine months and there
are a number of events that make up that process until you are
holding the new baby. So there's something in that.
I think there's also teaching in the fact that the word that
Christ uses for new birth is sometimes used to speak of the
act of the father and sometimes the act of the mother. Sometimes
it's speaking about the begetting and sometimes it's used to describe
the bringing forth of that that has already been begotten. These
two things, they're separate things, but the word that Jesus
uses is a word that is used to describe both of them. So I would
partially agree with this man, Louis Burkhoff. Some of you may
have read his systematic theology. This is what he says about regeneration.
And as I say, I would partially agree with this. He says, two
elements must be distinguished in regeneration. Namely, generation,
or the begetting of a new life, and bearing, or bringing forth,
by which the new life is brought forth out of its hidden depths.
Generation implants the principle of the new life in the soul,
and the new birth causes this principle to begin to assert
itself in action. He says, this distinction is
of great importance for a proper understanding of regeneration. Now, why do I say that I would
partially agree with him? Well, I wouldn't lump those two
things together and call them regeneration. I think I would
call the first of those two things regeneration, and the second
I would describe as the new birth. In other words, In the first,
life is implanted. In the second, life is seen.
Bear with me on this. It can lead to some quite shocking
statements. For example, the implication of what I am proposing
is that spiritual life does not actually begin with the new birth. But is there not even there a
parallel with natural life? If I was to ask any one of you
how old you were, you would probably think of your last birthday,
and you would say, well, I was 21, in case of Cliff, on that
day, and now it's six months later, so I'm 21 and a half.
That's not true, is it? When a child is on its first
birthday, we say the child is one year old. The child is not
one year old. The child is about one year and
nine months old. If we were asked to give a summary of our life
based only on what we remembered, not on what other people have
told us. We would not even start with birth, would we? Let alone
conception. We know nothing by experience
of that point when life really began in a strict scientific
sense. It's a mysterious thing, isn't
it? You cannot see life. And if you think about the early
stages of an embryo as it begins to develop in the womb of the
mother, you cannot see life there. But there is life. And you begin
to see the effects of life. I was thinking of another illustration.
Recently we took some cuttings from a plant in our garden and
we put them inside in water and they started to grow roots. And
then, as we do, we forgot about them and we didn't put any more
water in until one day we looked at them and they were all flopped
over and they looked like they were dead. They all looked like
they were dead. So we thought, well, perhaps some of them will
survive. We put some more water in and one of them perked up
again. All the rest, there was nothing
we could do about them, but one of them began to revive. Now,
that one plant, it was alive already, wasn't it? Before we
put the new water in, it was already alive. It's not that
we gave life back to it. There was already life there,
we just gave it something that allowed the life to begin to
develop more. So, essentially, what Louis Burkhoff
does, and what I'm proposing, is sometimes a helpful thing
to do in our minds, is to separate regeneration from the new birth.
Now, you might think this is something very new and novel,
and perhaps you're right to some extent, but it's not completely
new. There's a book by J. I. Packer, and he wrote a book
called God's Words, and there's a chapter on regeneration. This
is what he says in that chapter. He says, since the 17th century,
reformed theologians have tended to distinguish between regeneration
and the new birth. He says there is this tendency
since the 17th century to do that. I'm not really sure that
that's true. I've read quite a few theologians
since the 17th century. I've not found many that make
that distinction, but there are some. There's a man called Highwell
Jones. Some of you have probably heard
of him. He was the first principal of the London Theological Seminary. And he says this, perhaps something
may be said for holding in our minds the distinction between
conception and birth. He talks about a period of spiritual
gestation. And he gives the example of some
men, he says, in the initial stages of their conversion experience,
if you want to call it that, they see men as trees walking.
These are the seekers, essentially, that we read about in Peter Masters
a few moments ago. They have enough faith to be
looking for something, but not yet enough faith to have found
it, or rather to have found him. Again, listen to this quotation
from Thomas Boston, his Fourfold State of Man. He makes a number
of comparisons between natural birth and spiritual birth, and
this is one of them. He says, natural birth is carried on by
degrees. So is regeneration. It is with the soul, ordinarily,
in regeneration, as with the blind man cured by our Lord,
who first saw men as trees walking, and afterwards saw every man
clearly. It is true that regeneration being, strictly speaking, a passage
from death to life, the soul is quickened in a moment, like
as when the embryo is brought to perfection in the womb, the
soul is infused in a moment. Nevertheless, we may imagine
somewhat like conception in spiritual regeneration. Then listen to this quote from
Abraham Kuyper. He says, in his book, The Work of the Holy Spirit,
and he speaks of the first stage of the work of grace, and this
is how he describes it. He says, the first stage is the
implanting of the new life principle, commonly called regeneration
in the limited sense, or the implanting of the faith faculty,
This divine act is wrought in man at different ages, when no
one can tell. We know from the instance of
John the Baptist that it can be wrought even in the mother's
womb. Then he speaks about the second stage, and the second
stage, he says, is the keeping of this implanted principle of
life, while the sinner still continues in sin, so far as his
consciousness is concerned. but they have latent life within
them. What do we mean by latent? Well,
the definition of latent is present and capable of emerging or developing,
but not now visible, obvious, active or symptomatic. And then
he speaks of a third stage. And the third stage, he says,
is the core, the external core and the internal core. And he
says the sleeper arises. as if this new life that was
given in regeneration begins to be seen in some measure of
faith and repentance, however small. Well, what about conversion,
you might ask? Where does that fit in? Well,
a conversion very simply is turning, isn't it? That's what the word
means. Conversion is turning. It is not regeneration, because
the sinner is not passive in conversion. It is something he
does. He turns to God from idols. It
must therefore follow regeneration and the call. And it requires
the Gospel to come in word and in power. That's what Paul said
to the Thessalonians, didn't he? He looked back to the time
that he spent with them and he says, our Gospel came not unto
you in word only, but in power, but also in power. And they turned
to God from idols. They were converted. So the way
in which Louis Burckhoff describes it is something like this. The
sinner is regenerated. there is latent life, like a
spark or a seed. The Gospel will then, perhaps
immediately, perhaps not, come in power, effectual calling,
and faith and repentance will begin to show themselves in some
measure, the new birth. The sinner is now a seeker. There
will be growth and development, and in due course, under means,
the Word of God preached, the sinner will be brought to see
the worthlessness of his current path and the worth of Jesus Christ. So there will be a turning, conversion. Well, you may ask, what are the
timelines involved? The fact is, as we do not know
when we were regenerated, we cannot know how long it was before
the new birth. It may be immediately. It may
be years later. God is sovereign. Does this mean
that there may be regenerate people in a congregation who
have not yet been born again? Yes. And those are the people
to whom the gospel will come in power. It suits their felt
need. A felt need. So there must be
life. Abraham Kuyper again says the operations of grace are riveted
together as the links of a chain. The work of grace must begin
with the quickening of the dead. Once implanted, the still slumbering
life must be awakened by the call. Thus awakened, man finds
himself in a new life. He knows himself justified. Being
justified, the new life results in conversion. Conversion flows
into sanctification, and sanctification receives its keystone through
the severing of sin in death. And in the last day, glorification
completes the work of divine grace in the entire person. Now, many other people, you will
have read them, will say that calling comes prior to regeneration,
or at the same time. They say that with the call comes
the life, which enables the sinner to receive the call. But calling,
to me, is what brings the sinner to act. And life must come before
activity. which is why I say that I partially
agree with Kuiper's construction. Question two then. Who regenerates? Who is responsible for regeneration?
Well, given all that I have said already, the answer really should
be obvious. If regeneration is the initial
implanting of latent spiritual life into the sinner, And if
it comes without warning, without human cooperation, and even without
human consciousness, it must be the work of God. This is what
William Shedd says concerning regeneration. He says, it is
a work of God in the human soul that is below consciousness.
There is no internal sensation caused by it. No man was ever
conscious of that instantaneous act of the Holy Spirit by which
he was made a new creature in Christ Jesus. And since the work
is that of God alone, there is no necessity that man should
be conscious of it. Abraham Kuyper, he says, this
divine work comes to us from such infinite heights and depths.
It affects us so mysteriously. And in the beginning there was
such utter lack of spiritual light that one can scarcely more
than stammer of these things. Who comprehends the mystery of
the natural birth? Who had knowledge when he was
being curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth? And
if this took place without our consciousness, how can we understand
our spiritual birth? Depending upon our own experience,
we know absolutely nothing of it, and all that ever was or
can be said about it must be taken exclusively from Scripture.
It has pleased the Lord to lift only a corner of the veil covering
this mystery. no more than the Holy Spirit
deemed necessary for the support of our faith, for the glory of
God, and for the benefit of others. Yet whilst regeneration comes
unconsciously, it does ultimately have an effect. It must do. The
man who has been regenerated will ultimately feel and do things
that he would not feel and do if he had not been regenerated.
It cannot be the work of man. He doesn't even know it's happened.
It's the very beginning of his spiritual existence. There is
no spiritual life before regeneration. Therefore it is nonsensical to
talk about man contributing or cooperating in his regeneration. There is no spiritual man to
contribute or cooperate, and the natural man certainly cannot. But what is the alternative view?
How does the Arminian view regeneration? Well, one of the reasons they
go wrong is because they fail to distinguish the different
things that I was talking about a few moments ago. They fail
to distinguish between regeneration, the new birth, conversion and
salvation. They see statements that clearly teach that salvation
is by faith. And so they teach that regeneration
comes by faith. They would teach that the sinner,
not as entirely dead as the Calvinist would teach, believes, and as
a consequence, is regenerated. And you will have read their
criticisms of the Calvinist position. They say that the Calvinist,
if he's to be consistent, when a sinner asks, what must I do
to be saved, the consistent Calvinist, they say, should only reply,
well, there is nothing you can do, except perhaps pray for regeneration. They say, how can the Calvinist
say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,
as Paul and Silas said to the jailer? But you see the difference. The jailer didn't say, what must
I do to be regenerated? His question suggested that he
already was. When we come across a convicted
sinner, someone who is seeking salvation, There is no reason for us to
hesitate to give them the same answer as the answer that Paul
and Silas gave to that jailer, to point them to Christ as the
way of salvation. The Arminian view, however carefully
it is phrased, inevitably leads to the conclusion that a man's
regeneration is the result of his own decision. One man chooses
to believe and so is regenerated. Another man chooses not to, and
so isn't. But what made the first man choose
to believe? Was it his circumstances or his
character? If it his circumstances, then
that is not within his control but God's. If it was his character,
that also is not within his control but God's. Our choices are not
made at random. We choose according to our inclination.
And we don't decide our inclination. You may think it's a fascist
illustration, but I often think of this in terms of what I have
for breakfast. Sometimes you come downstairs
in the morning, and there's something that you want for breakfast,
and there's something that you don't fancy. Sometimes you want cornflakes,
sometimes you want porridge. Now, if I come downstairs and
want cornflakes, I can't make myself want porridge. There's
nothing I can do to change my inclination that is towards the
cornflakes and away from the porridge. Well, if that's true
of that small and perhaps inappropriate example, how much more is it
true concerning these spiritual things? Under the Arminian system,
regeneration really is for those who are wise enough or educated
enough to make the decision to believe. Salvation under that
scheme is for one type of person only, the wise, or the intelligent,
or the educated, or those with some other characteristic. There
is no hope of salvation for the sinner who is so foolish, lost
and ignorant that he continually makes wrong decisions, the sinner
who is just born that way. This is not good news for anyone,
and it certainly wouldn't have been good news for those that
Paul writes of when he wrote to Titus. We ourselves also,
he says, were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving
diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful
and hating one another. And in particular, the Arminian
system is not good news when we consider the salvation of
infants. If regeneration comes as a result of the sinner's choice
to believe, then it requires a hearing of the Gospel, because
faith cometh by hearing, and that requires understanding.
If a sinner cannot be regenerated unless they make a conscious
choice to accept Christ, as He has set out before them in the
preached Gospel, infants cannot be saved. No, if salvation is
by grace, then regeneration, the first step of the process
by which the sinner is brought to enjoy that salvation, must
be by grace. It must be a sovereign, supernatural
work of God, coming into a man without his invitation, cooperation,
or even knowledge. We have it spoken of or set before
us in Ezekiel's prophecy, don't we? And we have those gospel
promises relating to what God says he will do. He says, I will
sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be cleaned. He speaks
of giving a new heart, a new spirit, taking away the stony
heart, giving a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within
you and cause you to walk in my statutes. You see how the
Arminian system is entirely the wrong way round. They would teach
that the sinner walks in the statutes of God, in the way of
faith, and as a result of that is given a new heart, a new spirit.
This is entirely back to front. Well, we've considered something
of how regeneration, of the definition of regeneration, and we've considered
something of how regeneration is accomplished. No, we haven't.
We've considered something of who is responsible for regeneration.
In the third place, how is regeneration accomplished? How is it done?
Well, here again, we have to be very careful to define our
terms. Clearly, the answer to the question
will very much change depending on what we mean by regeneration.
If we were to go with the definition of Calvin, that regeneration
is the day of the resurrection of the body, then to ask the
question of how it is accomplished is really to ask how the sinner
is brought into heaven. And that's a big question, isn't
it? It's a bit like asking, you imagine a man who is out at sea
in his boat, and he falls overboard, and he's at the point of drowning.
And then he's rescued by a lifeboat, and the lifeboat was sent by
a man who saw him from the clifftop, and he managed to make a telephone
call, and the lifeboat was launched, and the rope was thrown, and
the man was drawn on board. Well, what was it that saved
the man? Well, there were many things,
weren't there, in that chain? You could say, well, it was the man
that saw him from the cliff that saved him, or it was the phone
call that he made that saved him, or it was the launching
of the lifeboat, or it was the rope that was thrown, or it was
his grasp of the rope. It was a chain of events, wasn't
it? And each one was vital. Then again, if we call regeneration
the same as conversion, again it is a large question. God uses
means in converting the sinner, the preaching of the Gospel being
the primary means. But providence also plays a role
here, doesn't it? Providence and grace, in the
experience of the converted man, they are one thing. They're bound
together. And I'm sure all those of us
who make any profession of being converted, we can look back to
things that happened in our providential lives that were vital in bringing
us to the point at which we were converted. He is a God of providence
as well as a God of grace. But if we understand regeneration
in the way that I have defined it, to mean a kind of spiritual
conception, then if we define it as the initial mysterious
and subconscious implantation of life, then the simple fact
is that no means are used. In other words, this work is
done immediately, not immediately. This is what Samuel Hopkins said
about it. He was an American theologian who died in about
1803. He says, the operation of the Spirit of God, in this
case, is as immediate or as much without any means as that by
which Adam's mind was at first formed. In that there was no
medium, no means made use of. God said, let it be, and it was.
The Almighty first produced it immediately or without any cooperating
means. the text that we read, that chapter
in Titus, it spoke of the washing of regeneration and it's not
my intention to spend much time demonstrating that that's not
a reference to baptism but it's more likely perhaps a reference
back to that verse that I just referred to in Ezekiel's prophecy,
then will I sprinkle clean water upon you the giving of a new
heart, a new nature and that is a sovereign work, a work of
God Let me give you some other views
on the causes of regeneration. Some give the impression that
faith is the cause of regeneration. And some give that impression
by accident. Wilhelmus Abraham, he was a Dutch
theologian, died in 1711. The Christian's Reasonable Service
is a well-known book. This is what he says. Prior to
the first act of faith, man is spiritually dead. The soul receives
the very first principle of life simultaneously with the first
act of faith. In a chronological sense, faith
and spiritual life begin simultaneously, but in the order of grace, faith
proceeds as being the origin of life. There is no spiritual
life apart from union with Christ, who is the life of the soul.
And faith is the means whereby union with Christ comes about.
But if faith is the origin of life, then, by implication, it
must be possible for a dead sinner to believe. And as faith is an
active thing, we then are led to the conclusion that the dead
sinner is not passive, that the dead sinner is active, that he
believes before he is alive. But then the same author, he
goes on to say this, being as impotent as has been stated,
it is clear and self-evident that man at the very first moment
of his conversion is not independently active, nor does he cooperate
with the prevenient and quickening grace of God, but is a passive
object and solely the recipient of the illuminating and quickening
power of God. We are not speaking here of a
man who already has been regenerated, but rather of an unregenerate
man being regenerated. Such a person is passive rather
than active. You put these two statements
together and it seems to me that there is an inevitable contradiction. If the sinner has faith, is believing,
then he is not passive, because faith is an active thing. And
faith is the result of hearing. Where a person hears the Gospel
and it draws forth true and living faith, that person must already
have been regenerated. They do not become regenerated
because they respond. There's that hymn, isn't there,
by John Newton, and it's perhaps, I know it's easy to pick holes
in the hymns, but What does John Newton say in that hymn, 193?
He says this in the second verse, by faith in me the soul receives
new life, though dead before. By faith in me the soul receives
new life. Well, again, that to me is to
teach that faith comes before life. And yet there is a sense in which
we can understand what John Newton means, can't we? the fullness
of life, life experienced by the sinner, it does come from
believing. So, I wouldn't be too critical of John Newton.
Now, you may be ready to say, well, this is all pointless,
because doesn't it say in the epistle of James, chapter 1,
verse 18, that of his own will begat he us with the word of
truth? And again, you might be ready
to say, well, what about the first epistle of Peter, chapter
one, verse 23, where he talks about being born again by the
word of God? You might say, well, don't these
say clearly that regeneration is by the word? Well, again,
many have taught this, or at least seem to teach it. You read
these words from the Belgic Confession. It says, we believe that this
true faith produced in us by the hearing of God's Word and
by the work of the Holy Spirit, regenerates us and makes us new
creatures. From the canons of Dort, as the
almighty operation of God, whereby He brings forth and supports
this our natural life, does not exclude but requires the use
of means by which God, of His infinite mercy and goodness,
has chosen to exert His influence, so also The aforementioned supernatural
operation of God by which we are regenerated in no wise excludes
or subverts the use of the Gospel, which the most wise God has ordained
to be the seed of regeneration and the food of the soul. But
again, we're back to the same issue, aren't we? What is meant
by regeneration in these confessions? Here, surely, the reference is
not so much limited to the initial implantation of life, but to
the whole process of conversion, in which the Word of God and
faith certainly play a part. Again, hearing itself requires
life, that seed of life that is implanted in regeneration. But the sinner must be brought
to faith. to believe and rest upon the finished and perfect
work of Christ, and then in believing he finds and experiences that
life eternal which flows out of an experimental union with
Christ. Thus the pathway begins with
unconscious life, but it is only by faith, by believing, by coming
to Christ, that the Christian knows what it is to enjoy that
living bread that is Christ, and that living water that springs
up into eternal life. You see a similar conflict in
John Owen, his Discourses on the Holy Spirit. It is what he
says, the Word of God, thus dispensed by the ministry of the Church,
is the only ordinary outward means which the Holy Ghost maketh
use of in the regeneration of the adult unto whom it is preached. But then, later on, He says,
the Holy Spirit doth make use of the Word of God in the regeneration
or conversion of all that are adult, and that either immediately
in and by the preaching of it, or by some other application
of light and truth unto the mind derived from the Word. For by
the reasons, motives and persuasive arguments which the Word affords
are our minds affected and our souls wrought upon in our conversion
unto God, whence it becomes our reasonable obedience." Again,
John Owen is clearly talking about what I would describe as
conversion, not regeneration. Reasonable obedience. It implies
that the sinner is active, not passive. And John Owen goes on
to say, that the whole of the work of the Holy Ghost in our
conversion doth not consist herein, in the Word, but there is a real
physical work whereby he infuseth a gracious principle of spiritual
life. In other words, something additional
is required if the Word is to have an effect. And we see this
very clearly in the parable of the sower. You are familiar with
the parable. The seed results in life. There is no life without the
seed. But the thing that is stressed in that parable is that the effect
of the seed, and whether it comes to fruition, depends primarily
on the condition of the ground. The good ground was good before
the seed got there. It was made good before the seed
came to it. And in a natural sense, how is ground made good?
By an external work upon it, the farmer ploughs. And so God
regenerates the sinner in order that he might hear the word,
understand it and respond to it. It is the word that brings
the life forth by which the sinner is born. To go back to those
two passages that I just quoted, James chapter 1 verse 18, of
his own will begat he us with the word of truth. Well, again,
you look carefully at the original in that passage. Begathias. That word begat is not the same
word as the word that is translated begat in Matthew chapter 1. It
is not the same word as the word that is translated born in Matthew
chapter 2. This word only appears here in
this chapter of James. It appears twice. First in verse
15. In verse 15 we read that, when
lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is
finished, bringeth forth death. Now that word, those words bringeth
forth death, is the same word in the Greek that we have in
verse 18, where it speaks of a begetting. And in verse 15,
you'll notice it says bringeth forth twice. The second bringeth
forth is the same word as in verse 18, but the first is a
word that is really used in relation to a woman giving birth. This first here in James is about
the bringing forth of life already present, not the first implantation
of that life. Similarly with the first epistle
of Peter. When Peter speaks of being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, he speaks of
being born again by the Word. And that same expression, that
same word is used in verse 3, which speaks of a being begotten
again unto a lively hope, a lively hope. That sounds more like the
new birth than regeneration. In that being born again that
Peter speaks of, it's not just that life is given, but life
is seen. There is a lively hope. Now, where it gets complicated
is this. You think again of that parable
of the sower and his seed. That work of preparing the ground.
Is that actually regeneration? Or is it something preparatory? After all, we might say there
is no life in the ground until the seed is there. It is dead
ground until the arrival of the seed. But we could equally say
that the seed cannot grow until it is in the ground. We might
almost say that the seed is potential life, that it has the potential
for life until it arrives in the soil. Now, many writers,
when they come to this issue, they speak about preparatory
work. If you've read Owen's Discourses on the Holy Spirit, you'll know
that he has a whole chapter on preparatory works. But these
are some of the works that he calls preparatory. He speaks
of a diligent attendance on the means of grace, illumination,
conviction of sin, and an outward reformation of life. He acknowledges
that these things are the Spirit's works, but he says they cannot
be regeneration because they are seen both in the elect and
in the non-elect. In other words, he says, many
people know these things, but they are never regenerated, never
born again, never converted. Their religion is temporary.
And there are many that speak of these things as the effects
of common grace. They say that these things are
experienced by all, elect or not, so they cannot be the special
work of the Holy Spirit. Listen to William Shed again.
He says, there is a work performed in the soul previous to the instantaneous
act of regeneration, just as there is a work performed in
the body previous to the instantaneous act of death. A man loses physical
life in an instant, but he has been some time in coming to this
instant. So a man gains spiritual life in an instant. though he
may have had days and months of a foregoing experience of
conviction and sense of spiritual death. This is the ordinary divine
method, he says. The Holy Spirit does not ordinarily
regenerate a man until he is a convicted man. Until, in the
use of the means of conviction under common grace, he has become
conscious of his need of regenerating grace. Now, I wouldn't say it's entirely
wrong to speak of works preparatory to regeneration. There is a sense
in which to say this is simply to accept that God is the God
of providence, as well as the God of grace. He watches over
his people, he manages every aspect of their lives, even prior
to their regeneration. He has a special regard for them,
over and above what some people might call common grace. But
there is never a time in the life of the elect when God switches
over from common grace to special grace. It is special grace from
beginning to end. I would assert that when Shed
speaks of someone who has experienced days and months of a foregoing
experience of conviction and sense of spiritual death, he
is describing someone who is already regenerate. What dead
man can know true conviction? What dead man can know a sense
of spiritual death? Only the living can feel any
sense of their spiritual deadness. Only the living can know real
conviction. There is counterfeit conviction,
which can be known by the unregenerate, just as there is counterfeit
faith and counterfeit repentance. But the non-elect will never
know real conviction. He will never know real faith.
He will never know real repentance. The counterfeit and the real
are not the same. and for real conviction, real
faith, or real repentance, life is required. Listen to another
view, that of John Flavel in The Method of Grace. He speaks
of those that are come under the preparatory workings of the
Spirit, nigh to Christ, who see their own indispensable necessity
of Him, and His suitableness to their necessities, in whom
also encouraging hopes begin to dawn, and their souls are
waiting at the foot of God for power to receive Him, for a heart
to close sincerely and universally with Him. And he says, O what
vehement desires, what strong pleas, what moving arguments
should such persons urge and plead to win Christ and get possession
of Him? They are in sight of their only
remedy. Christ and salvation are come to their very doors.
There are once but a few things to make them blessed forever.
This is the day in which their souls are exercised between hopes
and fears. Now they are much alone and deep
in thoughtfulness. They weep and make supplication
for a heart to believe and that against the great discouragements
which they encounter. This is not a work preparatory
to regeneration. These are signs that regeneration
has already happened. Again, another quote from Octavius
Winslow. He says, anxiety for salvation
is, as we have remarked, conversion in its latent or incipient state. It may arise from various causes,
but essentially it is the same. You feel yourself a lost sinner.
You have made the startling, momentous discovery that you
are not saved. Hitherto, living in ignorance
of yourself as a sinner and of your state as under condemnation,
Living for the world as your portion and for self as your
God, you now awake as from the sleep of death and find and feel
yourself lost, guilty, self-destroyed. Your great anxiety now is how
you may be saved. Shall we attempt to analyze your
anxiety? You feel yourself a sinner. This
is the great concern of your soul. Sin is your distress, your
burden, your alarm. Sin as sin against God. Sin as
polluting your entire being. Sin as exposing you to condemnation. Sin as the most oppressive way
that ever crushed you to the earth. Sin as separating you
from the holy on earth and from the glorified in heaven. This
is the cause of your present conviction, anxiety and alarm. But, startling and solemn as
this discovery of your condition as a sinner is, be not more startled
if I pronounce it as most blessed. It is the first dawn of light,
the first pulse of life in your soul. I feel sometimes there is a tendency
to talk about common grace and works preparatory to regeneration
because it gives a reason to encourage the use of means. People
say that if there is no such thing as a preparatory work by
common grace, then what is the point of encouraging people to
read and to pray and to hear sermons? But by going down this
route, some Calvinists have handed ammunition to the Arminian. Let
me give you an example. This is from the website of an
Arminian church in the United States. And actually, after I
found it, I discovered that this church is called Salem Bible
Church, and it's in New Hampshire. So it's like your sister church.
This is what they say. For a moment, let's assume that
what the extreme Calvinists are saying is true. When they say
extreme Calvinists, really they mean Calvinists. If regeneration
precedes faith, then what must a sinner do to be regenerated?
The extreme Calvinists have never satisfactorily answered this.
Shedd's answer is typical. This man, William Shedd, he was
a professed Calvinist. But Shedd's answer is typical,
they say. Because the sinner cannot believe, he is instructed
to perform the following duties. Read and hear the divine word,
give serious application of the mind to the truth, and pray for
the gift of the Holy Spirit for conviction and regeneration. And they quote this response
by a man called Roy Aldrich. I don't know him. He's obviously
an Arminian preacher. They say Roy Aldrich's response
to this is penetrating. A doctrine of total depravity
that excludes the possibility of faith must also exclude the
possibilities of hearing the word, giving serious attention,
application to divine truth, and praying for the Holy Spirit
for conviction and regeneration. The extreme Calvinist, it seems,
deals with a rather lively spiritual corpse after all. The tragedy
of this position, this is what, again, carrying on with what
this Arminian Church says, the tragedy of this position is that
it perverts the Gospel. The sinner is told that the condition
of salvation is prayer instead of faith. How contrary this is
to Acts 16.31, the words of Paul and Silas to the jailer. The
sinner is not told to pray for conviction and regeneration.
The sinner is told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Again,
you see what I was talking about earlier, how they confuse salvation
and regeneration. And they say, well, a man must
believe if he's to be saved, therefore he must believe to
be regenerated. And when you read what they say,
it's quite a good analysis of what William Shedd says. There's
much truth in it. And certainly, if we ever get
to the point where, when asked by anyone what they must do to
be saved, we say, well, you must read and hear the word, give
serious application of the mind to the truth, and pray for conviction
and regeneration. And then, perhaps God will regenerate
you, although he will be under no obligation to do so. So who
knows? If we find ourselves saying that,
we have gone wrong. It is true that the unregenerate
sinner cannot believe, but it is equally true that we cannot
know whether a person is unregenerate or not. If they come asking what
they must do to be saved, we surely ought to treat them as
regenerate, and therefore it is no contradiction for the Calvinist
to say to them what Paul and Silas said to the jailer. But
the Arminian will ask, well, what should we say to those who
are obviously unregenerate? Well, if regeneration is something
that comes unobserved, there is no such thing as obviously
unregenerate. Surely this is why the Gospel
is to be preached to all, not to the elect only, and not to
the obviously convicted only. Some of you will have read that
portion of Mr. Gosden's statement in the May
Gospel Standard recently. J. H. Gosden, in his book Free
Will, Free Grace and the Free Offer, or maybe the other way
around. But he says, we are charged with preaching the gospel to
the elect only. Strictly, that charge is true.
We do preach only to the elect, yet not to them only as such,
but indiscriminately to all broken-hearted sinners in whom the law's relentless
claims are really insistent, and its inflexibly just sentence
of condemnation for transgression is solemnly positive. In other
words, he says, the Gospel is only to be preached to those
who really are convicted of sin. Of course, it's not a practical way of proceeding.
When you read about Paul on his missionary journeys, and I'm
on the Penultimate page, so stick with me here. When you read about
Paul's journeys, he doesn't come to a new place and preach the
law and then say, right, who's convicted? Who are the broken-hearted
sinners in whom the Law's relentless claims are really insistent?
You come with me and I'll tell you about Jesus Christ. He never
does that. We are to preach the Gospel to
every creature, to the Jew and the Greek, even though it is
a stumbling block to the former and foolishness to the latter,
as well as to them which are called. We are to preach the
Gospel to those to whom it is a savour of death unto death,
as well as to those to whom it is a savour of life unto life.
We are to scatter the seed freely on all, not spend time trying
to build hedges and fences so that the seed only falls onto
the good prepared ground. We are to tell all men about
the reality of sin and what it has done and is doing to them.
And we are to tell all men about the work of Christ and His office
as the Saviour of sinners. And we are surely to trust the
Holy Spirit to regenerate the elect so that they are able to
receive and comprehend these truths and respond to them. So
this matter, which some might say is not really worth thinking
about too much, perhaps there are some who will say, well,
regeneration, conversion, the new birth, does it really matter?
It has a great impact on how we preach the Gospel. And it
reminds me of one preacher who I used to hear many years ago
fairly regularly. in his sermons, you would occasionally
feel that he was on the verge of encouraging sinners to look
to Christ, to believe on him. And then he would stop. And you
could almost sense this struggle going on in his mind, as if he
was thinking, well, who am I encouraging to look? If they are born again,
they're already looking. And if they're not born again,
they cannot look. And you would almost get this
sudden stop, as if he would suddenly be concerned that if he proceeded,
he was going to be labelled an Arminian. He would say if they're
born again, they're already looking. And it's wrong to speak of any
additional experience. But if they're not born again,
they cannot look. It has a great effect on how we deal with people. If a person comes to us and says,
well, I'm convicted of sin, I need to be saved, how can I be saved?
It's not that we must say, well, are you sure your conviction
is deep enough? Are you sure you're really sorry about your
sin? And we mustn't say to them, well, your conviction is a sign
that you're already born again. So don't worry about it. You're
already born again. Everything will be fine. And
there are people who would do that. We sang about it in that
hymn, didn't we? Are the ruined saved by sinking? Are the ship... No. Are the ruined
saved by... Well, you know the hymn, I mean. We sang it. But the teaching
is that the ruined are saved by their doubts. And there are
those who will speak of doubts and fears as a mark of grace.
They'll say, well, if you have doubts and fears, you're probably
all right. And they'll leave people there. Though there is
something to be said to those who are convicted of sin. It
is true that we can divide mankind up into the sheep and the goats,
the wheat and the chaff, the elect and the reprobate. Preaching
has no role in creating sheep, but preaching has a role in bringing
the sheep to the point where they are seen to be sheep and
not goats. So I've said many things, perhaps
I should try to summarise. We've looked at those three questions.
What is regeneration? It is the implanting of a seed
of spiritual life within a sinner. It's given in order that the
call of the Gospel may be effectual to that sinner and result in
faith, repentance and a new birth. Secondly, who does it? It is
the sovereign work of God the Holy Spirit. There's much more
that I could have said about the work of regeneration as being
a work of the Holy Spirit specifically. But it is the sovereign work
of God the Holy Spirit. It comes uninvited. It comes
unasked for. Man contributes nothing to it.
He cannot prepare himself to it. How is it accomplished? It is accomplished without means.
But it is not the beginning of God's work for the sinner. He
leads them in providence as much before regeneration as after. Well, there's much to think about.
I'll tell you honestly, I found preparing this address one of
the most difficult I've ever attempted. But that's not surprising,
is it? What are we talking about here?
We're talking about a work which, at its heart, is incomprehensible.
The wind bloweth where it listeth. Who can describe the beginning
of the wind? Who can identify the start of
the wind? It's a work which is incomprehensible, a work which
no amount of human analysis, especially not mine, can ever
fully lay out clearly. Well, I trust that I've not just
confused you with many words. I'm conscious that I've quoted
many people. I've not quoted much scripture. Perhaps that
was my fault. But remember that first quote
of Abraham Kuyper. He who breathes deeply, unconscious
of his lungs, is often the healthiest. If you don't understand all these
things, and if you think, well, it's all above my head, Don't
let that cast you down, because it's not really the vital thing.
To know regeneration is far more important than being able to
understand it. May God give us an understanding of these things
and work out the things that I've spoken of in the experience
of each one of us. Thank you. Let us join together in the singing
of our concluding hymn this evening. Hymn number 195. The tune is
Warrington 432.