More Ordo Salutis Problems

The following are some interesting thoughts on the "ordo salutis" controversy.

"Calvin said ". . . justifying grace is not separate from regeneration although these are distinct things." (Institutes, Bk. 4, chap. 2, sec. 2)"

"Further Observations on the Order of Justification and Regeneration"

"All those who stand in the tradition of the Reformation believe that justification and regeneration are closely related and that one cannot and will not be present without the other. However, there has been some sharp disagreement as to their logical order, if not their temporal order.

There is no question about Calvin's placing justification before regeneration in the order of logic (see Institutes, Bk. 3, chap. 11, secs. 6,11). G.C. Berkouwer also acknowledges this in his Faith and Justification, pages 29, 30.

The systematic Calvinists of the seventeenth century, however, reversed Calvin's order and put regeneration before justification. This was the result of moving the doctrine of an arbitrary predestination to the center and starting point of their theological thinking.

There are several grave difficulties with this order of salvation:

1. It reduces the great regenerating work of the Holy Spirit to a secret act of divine grace which is subconscious in whom it is inwrought. Wesley's insistence on a very conscious experience of renewal by the Holy Spirit helped to correct the arid intellectualism and incipient antinomianism in this idea of a secret, subconscious regeneration.

2. It tends to elevate regeneration over justification.

3. It turns Paul's doctrine of the justification of the ungodly (Rom. 4:5) into justification of the reborn. This is a Romanizing tendency and bears a remarkable resemblance to the decree of Trent which says that "if they [men] were not born again in Christ, they would never be justified" — "Decree Concerning Justification," chap. 3.4. It has regenerating grace creating immediately —i.e., apart from the means of grace, which is the preached Word of God. According to the words of Jesus in John 3, the uplifting of Christ is the means of the new birth. Peter declares that the new birth is accomplished by the Word of God (1 Peter 1:23). The Holy Spirit comes to men only in and with (but not apart from) the preaching of the gospel. What is the justification, therefore, for saying that the Holy Spirit regenerates men even before and quite apart from hearing the gospel?

5. The claim that men already possess eternal life before they are justified (see Clark's comment on John 5:24) turns the work of justification by faith into an empty formality. Clearly, if a man is unjustified (i.e., prior to his justification), he is condemned, and the wrath of God abides on him until the moment he is justified in the verdict of the Judge. Justification itself is the verdict of life (see Rom. 5:18). In his Apology of the Augsburg Confession Melanchthon is quite right when he keeps referring to justification as "justification unto life eternal." John 5:24 is not saying that a man has eternal life before he hears and believes but that, as a believer, he will not come into judgment (condemnation at the last day) because he has already, by faith, passed from death unto life. Just as there is no personal justification without faith, so there is no personal salvation and possession of eternal life without faith. And there is no faith without hearing the Word of God (Rom. 10:17).

Dr. Clark asks how it can be that dead men can hear the Word of God. But Jesus declares, "The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live" (John 5:25). True, our Lord is speaking in the context of the physical resurrection, but even this illustrates the resurrection to spiritual life by the Word of God. Calvinism is to be faulted when it proposes that God's grace imparts eternal life apart from the means of grace in the preaching of the gospel. For further discussion on this matter of regeneration and human freedom, see the article, "The Legal and Moral Aspects of Salvation" (Part 3), in this issue of Present Truth Magazine. —Ed.


http://www.presenttruthmag.com/archive/XXVII/27-3.htm

Well, did he not "hit the nail on the head"? Can we not say "amen"?