Regeneration and Conversion

[fralo4truth]

Hi friends, I am currently wrestling with an issue pertaining to regeneration and conversion. I'm sitting on the fence in this matter and wanted to get your thoughts.

Do you guys feel that regeneration and conversion are truly separate doctrines where the latter is the fruit of the former? Or, are they essentially the same doctrine? The only difference is that regeneration is the doctrine expressed from the objective divine side and conversion is the doctrine expressed from the subjective human side. Arguments for the former bring into consideration ordo salutis and the potential problems of having a regenerated unbeliever in an imaginable time gap between the two, yet is supported by the idea that it makes regeneration appear as truly a monergistic work. Arguments for the latter eliminate any possible time gap between regeneration and conversion, clearing up the potential issue of a regenerated unbeliever which causes us to shudder. And it's also a fact from scripture that certain doctrines in the bible are like two sides of the same coin: sovereignty/responsibility, preservation/perseverance, etc. The balance of truth it's called.

The only problem that I see in making regeneration and conversion simultaneous in order of time is that it seems (in my mind atleast) to make the new birth experience a synergistic work.

Thanks brethren, and am looking forward to your thoughts.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

I just watched a John Piper video where he described the new birth like a touch or penetration of Gospel/Holy Spirit power.

The work from without is God's. We are touched by the "spark" of God, and we are alive, then and there.

Conversion--repentance & faith--is just what a spiritually living person does.

Apostle John uses the "seeing" metaphor for faith, and its an excellent one. Seeing is what sighted people do. They just do it. God gives them light (can't see without it), he gives them the eye (can't see without it), he make the eye "alive" (can't see without life). And we "see." Its "passive," that's just the nature of it. Without God's work, sight/faith isn't there. With his work, and without our help, it is there.


We shouldn't try to drive a wedge between the logic of the Ordo, and the simultaneous workings of God's salvific calling. Let each explain what it was intended to explain.

If the "signs of life" take time to show in one person, more than another--the question is: why does God have to make us all into assembly-line productions? Simple answer: he doesn't. But new-life has some new-life effects. Instantly. Invariably. Inevitably.

 

[jwithnell]

Dealing with regeneration and faith the best explanation I've seen is that regeneration is first in a logical sense and cannot be be taken in a temporal sense.

 

[coramdeo]

I like all of the above answers

 

[dudley]

I would suggest that you read "Common Grace" by Louis Berkhof (1873 – 1957) He was a Reformed systematic theologian whose written works have been influential in seminaries and Bible colleges in the United States and Canada and with individual Christians in general throughout the 20th century.

Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

Rom. 8: 30



. . . He also justified. . .



the following is a quote from Louis Berkhof



Justification is a judicial act of God, in which He declares, on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that all the claims of the law are satisfied with respect to the sinner. It is unique in the application of the work of redemption in that it is a judicial act of God, a declaration respecting the sinner, and not an act or process of renewal, such as regeneration, conversion, and sanctification. While it has respect to the sinner, it does not change his inner life. It does not affect his condition, but his state, and in that respect differs from all the other principal parts of the order of salvation. It involves the forgiveness of sins, and restoration to divine favor.

Louis Berkhof



Calvin used the term "regeneration"to cover man's whole subjective renewal,
including conversion and sanctification.

According to what I have read and studied about Calvin's teaching on the subject I have come to believe that "Regeneration" is the spiritual change wrought in the heart of man by the Holy Spirit in which his/her inherently sinful nature is changed so that he/she can respond to God in Faith, and live in accordance with His Will (Matt. 19:28; John 3:3,5,7; Titus 3:5). It extends to the whole nature of man, altering his governing disposition, illuminating his mind, freeing his will, and renewing his nature.

I have written before that I felt I experienced a "true Protestant Conversion" as Calvin described when expressing his position. I believe the same a Reformed Protestant and a Presbyterian Calvinist.