Forlines on Justification & Birth

Forlines wrote (emphasis mine):

"The second assumption of Calvinism (Hyper Calvinism - SG) is that total depravity precludes the response of faith from the sinner unless he is first regenerated by the Holy Spirit. As I pointed out earlier, the view that the nature of depravity requires that the sinner be regenerated before he or she can respond with faith, had its origins with Augustine."

"To place regeneration before faith, poses some serious problems for Calvinism (Hyper Calvinism - SG). This was dealt with in Chapter 13. I will restate this problem below. For a more thorough treatment please refer back to "An Inconsistency in Calvinism" (pp. 260-62)

Calvinism (Hyper SG) is faced with two important impossibilities. (1) It is impossible for a person to believe unless he or she is first regenerated. (2) It is impossible for sanctification to take place prior to justification. A Classical Calvinist (Hyper SG) will not argue against either of these statements. In Chapter 13, I gave support for these two assertions from Robert Haldane and Louis Berkhof. The Calvinistic credentials of these men are not in question.

In Classical Calvninism (Hyper SG), the order is regeneration, faith, justification, and sanctification. In placing regeneration before justification Calvinism (Hyper SG) has a problem. By anybody's definition, regeneration is a life-changing experience. Berkhof tells us that "regeneration is the beginning of sanctification." If regeneration is the beginning of sanctification, this means the Classical Calvinism (Hyper SG) has the process of sanctification beginning before justification occurs. This cannot be!

Calvinists have, by and large, adhered to the satisfaction view of atonement and justification. If a person is consistent in developing the implications of the satisfaction view of atonement, it is clear that God cannot perform the act of regeneration (an act of sanctification) in a person before he or she is justified. God can move in with his sanctifying grace only after the guilt problem is satisfied by justification. To think otherwise is to violate the law of non-contradiction. I realize that when we talk about the ordo salutis (order of salvation) we are talking about logical order instead of chronological order. But that logical order is inviolable!

Regeneration is not an act of God that prepares the way for redemption. It is a redemptive act. I commend Calvinists for upholding the satisfaction view of atonement and the imputation of the death and righteousness of Christ as the ground of justification. I believe they need to reexamine the question of whether the redemptive act of regeneration can be performed on a person before the death and righteousness of Christ is actually imputed to his account."

"For a person to be regenerated before he or she is justified contradicts the logical priority of justification to sanctification. To avoid this contradiction, a way must be found that will place justification before regeneration. I believe that in the influence and response model we can maintain a strong view of depravity and at the same time maintain the ordo salutis to be faith, justification, regeneration, and sanctification." (338, 339)

"Justification is by Christ alone (conditioned on) faith alone. This is pure and uncorrupted grace!" (341)

An Inconssstency In Calvinism

"In Calvinism (Hyper SG) it is impossible for a person to believe unless he or she is first regenerated. There is also another impossibility. It is impossible for sanctification to take place prior to justification. Let me repeat a quotation given from Robert Haldane in the previous chapter. He explains:

"So long as the sinner is under the guilt of sin God can have no friendly intercourse with him; for what communion hath light with darkness? But Christ having canceled his peoople's guilt, having redeemed them from the curse of the law, and invested them with the robe of righteousness, there is no longer any obstacle to their communion with God, or any barrier to the free ingress of sanctifying grace."

Following through with this reasoning, justification must be prior to regeneration. This is true since regeneration is the initial work of sanctification. In support of this conclusion, I will give again a quotation used in the previous chapter from Louis Berkhof. Berkhof tells us that "regeneration is the beginning of sanctification." He goes on to quote A. H. Strong with approbation. Strong says, "It (sanctification) is distinguished from regeneration as growth from birth, or as the strengthening of the holy disposition from the original impartation of it."

In his discussion on justification, Berkhof points out that there have been those who advocated the idea that the elect were justified from eternity. He would place antinomians and some Reformed theologians in this category. He goes on to give a thorough refutation of this view. He explains, "The elect are not personally justified in the Scriptural sense until they accept Christ by faith and thus appropriate His merits."

One of the arguments, according to Berkhof, that has been used in support of eternal justification is:

The sinner receives the initial grace of regeneration on the basis of the imputed righteousness of Christ. Consequently, the merits of Christ must have been imputed to him before his regeneration.

Berkhof's response is:

"But while this consideration leads to the conclusion that justification logically precedes regeneration, it does not prove the priority of justification in a temporal sense. The sinner can receive the grace of regeneration on the basis of a justification ideally existing in the counsel of God and certain to be realized in the life of the sinner."

Berkholf recognizes the problem of having regeneration prior to justification. He does not reject the conclusion that regeneration is dependent on justification. He recognizes that justification is logically prior to regeneration. But he says that "it does not prove the priority of justification in a temporal sense." His only answer is, "The sinner can receive the grace of regeneration on the basis of a justification ideally existing in the counsel of God and certain to be realized in the life of the sinner."

"If indeed it is true that regeneration is "the beginning of sanctification" (Berkhof, a major Calvinist theologian), and if indeed it is true that God cannot enter with His sanctifying grace until the guilt problem is solved by justification (Haldane, one whose Calvinistic credentials are not in question), Calvinism (Hyper Calvinism - SG) is in trouble with its view of having regeneration prior to justification.

Unless someone can come up with a better answer, the validity of Calvinism's (Hyper Calvinism - SG) insistence that regeneration precedes faith hangs on the fragile thread of the suggestion that Berkhof gave of "justification ideally existing in the counsel of God and certain to be realized in the life of the sinner." That fragile thread will not hold!"

"I have no quarrel with the idea that in some sense all of God's decisions are eternal. But His decisions are based on a prior knowledge of what He will do. He has not performed an act until He actually does it. I have no quarrel with the idea that whatever God knows He will do He will certainly do. However, such knowledge was a knowledge of what God would do. He knew from eternity who would believe and whom He would justify and when He would justify them. In both Calvinism (except in Hardshellism SG) and Arminianism, a person is not justified in the sight of God until he believes.

The Quest for Truth By F. Leroy Forlines, J. Matthew Pinson, Stephen M. Ashby

See here