Regeneration Precedes Faith

By R. C. Sproul



One of the most dramatic moments in my life for the shaping of my theology took place in a seminary classroom. One of my professors went to the blackboard and wrote these words in bold letters: "Regeneration Precedes Faith."



These words were a shock to my system. I had entered seminary believing that the key work of man to effect rebirth was faith. I thought that we first had to believe in Christ in order to be born again. I use the words in order here for a reason. I was thinking in terms of steps that must be taken in a certain sequence. I had put faith at the beginning. The order looked something like this:



"Faith - rebirth -justification."



I hadn’t thought that matter through very carefully. Nor had I listened carefully to Jesus’ words to Nicodemus. I assumed that even though I was a sinner, a person born of the flesh and living in the flesh, I still had a little island of righteousness, a tiny deposit of spiritual power left within my soul to enable me to respond to the Gospel on my own. Perhaps I had been confused by the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Rome, and many other branches of Christendom, had taught that regeneration is gracious; it cannot happen apart from the help of God.



No man has the power to raise himself from spiritual death. Divine assistance is necessary. This grace, according to Rome, comes in the form of what is called prevenient grace. "Prevenient" means that which comes from something else. Rome adds to this prevenient grace the requirement that we must "cooperate with it and assent to it" before it can take hold in our hearts.



This concept of cooperation is at best a half-truth. Yes, the faith we exercise is our faith. God does not do the believing for us. When I respond to Christ, it is my response, my faith, my trust that is being exercised. The issue, however, goes deeper. The question still remains: "Do I cooperate with God's grace before I am born again, or does the cooperation occur after?" Another way of asking this question is to ask if regeneration is monergistic or synergistic. Is it operative or cooperative? Is it effectual or dependent? Some of these words are theological terms that require further explanation.



A monergistic work is a work produced singly, by one person. The prefix mono means one. The word erg refers to a unit of work. Words like energy are built upon this root. A synergistic work is one that involves cooperation between two or more persons or things. The prefix syn -



means "together with." I labor this distinction for a reason. The debate between Rome and Luther hung on this single point. At issue was this: Is regeneration a monergistic work of God or a synergistic work that requires cooperation between man and God? When my professor wrote "Regeneration precedes faith" on the blackboard, he was clearly siding with the monergistic answer. After a person is regenerated, that person cooperates by exercising faith and trust. But the first step is the work of God and of God alone.



The reason we do not cooperate with regenerating grace before it acts upon us and in us is because we can- not. We cannot because we are spiritually dead. We can no more assist the Holy Spirit in the quickening of our souls to spiritual life than Lazarus could help Jesus raise him for the dead.



When I began to wrestle with the Professor's argument, I was surprised to learn that his strange-sounding teaching was not novel. Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield - even the great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas taught this doctrine. Thomas Aquinas is the Doctor Angelicus of the Roman Catholic Church. For centuries his theological teaching was accepted as official dogma by most Catholics. So he was the last person I expected to hold such a view of regeneration. Yet Aquinas insisted that regenerating grace is operative grace, not cooperative grace. Aquinas spoke of prevenient grace, but he spoke of a grace that comes before faith, which is regeneration.



These giants of Christian history derived their view from Holy Scripture. The key phrase in Paul's Letter to the Ephesians is this: "...even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have you been saved)" (Eph. 2:5). Here Paul locates the time when regeneration occurs. It takes place 'when we were dead.' With one thunderbolt of apostolic revelation all attempts to give the initiative in regeneration to man are smashed. Again, dead men do not cooperate with grace. Unless regeneration takes place first, there is no possibility of faith.



This says nothing different from what Jesus said to Nicodemus. Unless a man is born again first, he cannot possibly see or enter the kingdom of God. If we believe that faith precedes regeneration, then we set our thinking and therefore ourselves in direct opposition not only to giants of Christian history but also to the teaching of Paul and of our Lord Himself.





(from the book, The Mystery of the Holy Spirit, Tyndale House, 1990

Gospel Call Update #9

Well, we made it out the other night. Good times.
Glad to see my brother in Christ Zach out for the first time to do street evangelism! He told me that he is definitely hooked.  Awesome.
Despite the brisk night atmosphere, in all, Josh, Zach, Michael, Jesse, and myself stepped out onto the BSU campus to share the Good News with everyone we could find.

We had a large number of fascinating conversations that were heated and mellow alike. They involved such things as Mormonism, Atheism, and Pantheism. We had encouragement from a young lady that said the campus needs more open-air preaching! Praise God! Another young girl was from the Drive church and she was not comfortable with open-air preaching, however we spoke with her for some time and she was very willing to listen and seemed genuinely teachable. There were many other great witnessing experiences with the students.  If you go to The Well, please ask one of the gentlemen mentioned above about their experiences in witnessing to the lost. I know they would be more than happy to tell you about it.

  One student we spoke with who's name was Tre(short for Robert somebody the 3rd) said he was part of a fraternity and they had a Christian statement of faith.  Michael was speaking with him for some time before I walked up. This particular individual had absolutely zero Bible learning, yet I have rarely met a more inquisitive guy on the street. The questions he asked were those such as "Can God make a rock that He cannot lift?" or "Why didn't the Apostles just go get Christ down off the cross?" 
We took those opportunities to declare God's sovereign free grace, and I want to give a thanks out to Matt Marino my pastor for the brilliant shepherding God is doing through him so that many of us are more than equipped to field questions with powerful and penetrating answers.
Tre listened quite intently and he asked question after question. As I stepped away, Michael talked with him still longer and ended up getting contact information into Tre's hands as well as a promise from the guy to check out Sunday service.
We will see. Pray for Tre.

   Shawn was there and he preached for awhile until a Mormon guy came up and started asking him questions. at that point Shawn just engaged him and they debated for some time while the rest of us were having
                 Gospel-centered conversations.

                                       One fellow I got hold of was trying to leave but took the time to tell me that he had a belief, it just wasn't the same as mine and that was OK. He said that he believed in a higher power, but not the God of the Bible. Again, he was trying so hard to leave, so I held him to the grindstone and tried to get him to give me his source of truth. In the end he just said himself. I told him that was frightening and exhorted him to believe in Christ. He said he did not believe Christ is God, so I informed him that Christ would be denying him before the Father if he continued in his unbelief. His friend walked up and they left while mocking me.

Praise Christ for His Word and promises are eternal and no man or demon can ever snuff out what He has done!!!

Please remember to pray for this ministry and pray for those who would hear the Word of God.

As we began to leave the campus several things became apparent to us.  This city is ripe for the picking, God is doing something amazing amongst the brethren at The Well, it is indescribable joy to participate in the Great Commision, and ......summer is coming.

Gospel Call Update #8

Hi all! This is a combination of the last two times we went out to evangelize. As I have noted before, I will probably be combining two or three ventures at a time now that the ministry is growing and we are hitting the streets more frequently. These updates are intended to let you know how to pray for us and to get excited about evangelism. We always need more Christians to join!

 We headed to downtown Boise Thursday, January the 13th during a steady rain. It was around 630pm and we numbered 6 brothers total. There was certainly hesitancy about continuing with  plans due to the rain. We were not so much concerned about ourselves, but the amount of people who would be around. As is often the case, we are reminded by the Holy Spirit that it is not about the amount of folks, but the quality of the message. The Gospel will always do its job and we remain confident that if we go out, God will lead us to just the person He wants us to speak with whether it be amongst a crowd of a thousand or just a few passing pedestrians. Primarily, open-air preaching is about the glorification of Christ our Lord. It says in I Corinthians 10:31
  "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."
How much more so the very proclamation of God's Gospel? So it is that if there were not one soul present, we would still preach the Gospel and take joy in God's glory! The fruit of which can and will be the salvation of souls.

After three hours of fascinating conversations and passing out tracts, we prayed in a circle together and headed home. As we walked we were approached by a man with whom I had spoken earlier along with two of his fellows. They had stated that they were from Montana, were Bible-believing, non-denominational Christians and told me of a men's weekend they were here to organize called "Tres Dias"(Three Days). I listened intently and politely exhorted them to the fellowship of the brotherhood. They mentioned the Vineyard and a couple of local pastors and despite my misgivings I was congenial and agreeable. Then when I spoke of what God was doing through us on the street they rejected it. They said that we should never purposely give anyone the "bad news" about the Gospel, but that God was love and that is what the sinner needs to hear. I pointed out that God does not love everyone the same and they seemed appalled. I stated Psalm 5:5 and Psalm 7:11. I then pointed out Romans 9 and spoke of Jacob and Esau. They became extremely agitated and said that God's hatred is based on the actions of the sinner and we should always exhort others to love. As I began to explain the Gospel, they said they had to go.

    So now, here was this lone man approaching me while his buddies climbed into their ride. He immediately confronted me and proceeded to inform me that my approach to him and his friends was wrong. Immediately, I was incensed as I had laboured intently to be compassionate to them despite my visceral, gut reactions to their words during our previous conversation. I had pulled punches with them. However, he said that I had single-handedly turned away himself and two other Christian men by my statements about God. He then asked me how many people had repented and turned to God by my witnessing.
    Now, I am writing about this because I responded out of anger. I handled this situation wrongly at this point. I have been in some very hostile situations witnessing on the street, but no one has ever gotten under my skin the way this man did. The best thing I said was to question him how it was that men responding to Christ was a determiner of the power of the Gospel. Please explain to me how experience trumps the Word of God?   However, he "got my goat" so to speak and instead of just allowing him to rant and then expositing Scripture to him, I allowed this fellow to make me mad. The conversation became  heated and at some point I had decided to just speak over him and so both of us were speaking at a higher decibel level. As he walked away, I felt justified based on my kid-glove treatment of them earlier to say a couple of things about the Vineyard and a pastor. This was extremely wrong of me in this context, no matter the validity of the crass statements I made.

  God is faithful to forgive and He always guides and teaches us through every trial. I am so thankful for a Gospel-loving church and doctrinally sound leaders whom God has used to counsel me through my walk. As we step out in obedience to God, He will always be transforming us to the likeness of His Son. Please pray for us that this would happen thoroughly and deeply within our hearts and spirits.

On a more exciting note, the Snoop Dog concert was perhaps one of the biggest evangelistic opportunities of the year and we were there to preach and proclaim the Kingdom of Christ our Lord. I started off preaching atop a milk crate as they all filed inside the Knitting Factory music venue. I preached John 1 and hammered home the Word becoming flesh. I also preached the Blood of Christ shed for sinners like you and like me. After they went inside, TJ, Chisum, Jesse, and I began to witness to those who were outside.

TJ has some words on what took place:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Snoop Dogg Evangelism



"Yes…there was a Snoop Dogg concert in Boise this last Friday. In an effort to engage many who would not otherwise step into a traditional religious context on Sunday morning, we headed down to the Knitting Factor. Jesse, Dan, Chisum, and I had the opportunity to speak to the young and old, a Hindu, some Catholics, the cultural Christians, a few Muslims, Atheist and skeptics, several LDS members, a few gang members, and several nationalities….anyway, you get the idea. I doubt Mr. Dogg had any idea he was going to be used as an evangelism tool, but that is what happened. We handed out several hundred tracts, had some very somber conversations concerning the Gospel and some not so somber ones. We had the opportunity to open air preach as many entered and left the concert. In the end, the Gospel was proclaimed to a lot of people, pray that some were provoked to obey the proclamation."
TJ O'Brien
obrien.tj@gmail.com

We were passing out sermon jams by Piper, Allsitair Begg, Paul Washer, and others all on one disc. We also had a number of discs containing reformed Christian hip-hop. These cd's were provided by Chisum and I believe they are extremely effective. We also had some great tracts from Piper and Mark Driscoll.

Many people we spoke with stated that they were Christians, but became convicted by sound Gospel-centered words.
The crowd was surprisingly docile. The local law enforcement were certainly prepared for a riot and they indeed made a few arrests. However, the general attitude was one of indifference and we experienced the protection of Christ.
 

When the concert began to let out TJ preached the Gospel. He got a few people gathered around him and he was engaging them with questions about their own perceived goodness. Awesome. Then I got up and preached my guts out, but my voice had begun to wane. Charles Spurgeon says to swallow a little olive oil before you go out so I think I will try that this week as we head to the BSU campus to preach and witness.

a wretch in His grace,
Dan

Gospel Call Update #7

  Well it's ten days late, however I must post the update from our New Year's Eve street preaching and evangelism. I am thoroughly enjoying this blog and I would love for more people to click the "Follow" button to the right and stay dialed in to the posts. There are two other contributors to this blog and I want everyone to know that this blog is for the Fame of His Name! This blog is for God's glory and not mine. This blog is for Truth and not opinion.
 
  Ok, so New Year's Eve in Boise, Idaho was right at about ten degrees Fahrenheit. Let's just say that I had my ski bibs on to go a' preachin'! We opted for 8th and Idaho streets again as that is the scene of a local gay bar. I know that the optimal setting is that many would gather under the proclamation of the Gospel. Many times on the street, you are only preaching to those who pass by; And that is fine as they do hear the Gospel, but it is so much better to have an attentive audience. So on a night as cold as it was December 31st we knew the best place was a busy intersection. The gay club I mentioned is called The Balcony. It is on the second level of a building and has a large balcony that wraps from one corner to the next. It is ideal because many gather outside on the balcony of The Balcony to smoke. Therefore, we have much opportunity for an audience. I need not mention that this particular audience is also extremely repulsed by the Gospel. Nevertheless, the ultimate reason we preach is that Christ is glorified and in doing so you never know who He may be working on.
 
  This was also an important night because it was Josh's first time street preaching. Josh is my good brother in Christ whom I have known for 5 years and he has recently been ordained at The Well where I attend the Body. It was very exciting and we arrived to find our friends already engaged in the loud proclamation of the Gospel using a small PA system that just hangs around the neck. The young man preaching I had yet to meet. His name was Jake and he and his wife are just out of college and have been traveling the country preaching! He was very good and clearly exposited Christ and Him crucified! Shawn Holes was present as well as his wife. Kevin and Lyza, Shawn's son-in-law and daughter, were there as well as my other brother in Christ, Chisum. 

  Shortly, we were engaged with several different people who were quite hostile. Two young men obviously   gay had passed us and then came storming back to the corner. Chisum and I cut them off before they could get to Jake who was preaching. It is important that the one preaching not be waylayed too long from his task to deliver the sermon. Many times, this is the only goal of a heckler. As we spoke with them, one man was extremely agitated and spoke through gritted teeth. I quickly asked him if he was a good person; he said yes. I pressed him with questions about righteousness and he stuttered out answers but kept trying to talk over me.
  He wanted nothing to do with any of us, only to proclaim his judgement that we were judging. I told him we only proclaimed God's judgement. He then got very close to me and exclaimed he was a marine and his partner was army. I asked him what that had to do with righteousness. He scoffed and they stomped away. Poor guys, so deceived.

  Then while Jake was preaching, a man came out of the Japanese restaurant from across the street. He was obviously one of the cooks and he walked very fast. He walked right up to Jake and asked him to shut up. Jake asked him if he had ever read the Bible. The man then slapped Jake across the face in an attempt to knock the microphone off his head. I couldn't believe it and walked briskly over to inform the man that he was going to face assault charges. The man said he had already called the police. I said good and told him not to move. He scoffed and walking back inside told me to go home to my mother, whatever that meant. Jake did not want to press charges and we just kept on evangelizing never once hearing from the police on this subject proving the man had lied.

Several other conversations took place with the general environment being very hostile. Out of all tracts offered we probably had about a 20% acceptance of them. This is far less than normal.  I spoke with a man who used the old argument of  "I'm spiritual, not religious". Josh had a conversation with a Jewish atheist who had been yelling at me while I preached. You can bet that was a fascinating talk! There was a young couple who were very focused on "setting us straight". They talked with almost all of us at length arguing that we had no idea what we were talking about, we were ignorant, and we were doing more harm to our cause than good.  They could not hear anything we said and they left mocking us. Another man spoke with me because he said he "got a kick out of listening to religious guys trying to explain the existence of God."  His girlfriend explained that she had been a Christian but now did not believe that the Bible is accurate and only wanted to be "kind" to people. I argued for Christ with them and also used the cosmological argument for the existence of God with the man, but they too had a spirit of mockery about them. In fact, as they left I told the woman without Christ she was hellbound and she threw her hands in the air and leapt while exclaiming she guessed she was "heading to hell!"

As I was preaching a police car pulled up. All the homosexuals on the balcony started cheering and saying, "Take 'em away!" The thing is, the man driving was Steve. You see, Steve goes to my church and he was just stopping to exhort us and encourage us. Praise God!! I have to say that the police force here in Boise have been extremely gracious to us in that they are actually upholding the law and protecting our right to free speech. In today's America with so many rogue police operations and abuse of power, I cannot say enough about the amazing freedom-mindedness of our Boise Police Department.

Josh got up to preach and it was awesome. He clearly exposited the Gospel to all kinds of people who mocked him as they walked by. One car of girls screamed at him not to judge. Another woman walking by yelled at him that tonight was not the night to be preaching! He just kept preaching like a real trooper and froze his toes half off!! LOL! It is a joy to suffer for Christ my brotha'!!

Later I actually had a young lesbian try to attack me, but her cousin held her back. Her cousin did let her go and the woman got in my face and I said to her that she must be saved to see the Kingdom of God. She stared at me for a moment and then stormed away visibly shaken.

Shawn and Chisum stood below the balcony and spoke with several homosexuals about truth and righteousness. The sodomites were very hostile and just yelled obscenities.

Shawn, Josh, and I both had more mic time and preached our guts out. It was as amazing as always to proclaim Christ and His coming! In fact, I can think of nothing better to do on the eve of a new year! We stood together as brothers and sisters in Christ boldly declaring that the Lord of the Universe is righteous and holy and just and good and loving. We proclaimed the reality of God and His direct involvement in His creation. We shouted from the "rooftops" the Good News.

Please pray for our ministry and for the Lord to send more workers to this ripe harvest in our city.