This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob discuss Louis Berkhof’s little book, Summary of Christian Doctrine. We turn to chapter XIX, Calling and Regeneration. This week we discuss the doctrine of regeneration.

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

Theologians often speak of regeneration, the work of the Holy Spirit to bring someone to the new birth. But the Westminster Standards speak of effectual calling as the work of the Spirit to give people new hearts, enlightening their minds and renewing their wills. Are effectual calling and regeneration the same thing? If not, how do they relate? In this episode, we discuss the relationship between these two aspects of the ordo salutis.

Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 10: Of Effectual Calling

1. All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace. 2. This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.

Participants: Adam York, Camden Bucey, Glen Clary

Participants: Adam York, Camden Bucey, Deryck Barson

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carlton Wynne, Jim Cassidy, Scott R. Wright

One of the typical proof texts presented for the doctrine of regeneration is 2 Cor 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (ESV). While this passage has much to do with the transformation that happens in the life of the believer when his or her mind is enlightened and will renewed, this verse is often taken in an individualistic direction that misses the full weight of Paul’s message. There is also a broader, eschatological sense in which this verse must be understood, and Herman Ridderbos draws this sense out in his book Paul: An Outline of His Theology. He writes,

When he speaks here of “new creation,” this is not meant merely in an individual sense (“a new creature”), but one is to think of the new world of the re-creation that God has made to dawn in Christ, and in which everyone who is in Christ is included. This is also evident from the neuter plural that follows: “the old things have passed away, the new have come,” and from the full significance that must be ascribed here to “old” and “new.” It is a matter of two worlds, not only in a spiritual, but in a redemptive-historical, eschatological sense. The “old things” stand for the unredeemed world in its distress and sin, the “new things” for the time of salvation and the re-creation that have dawned with Christ’s resurrection. He who is in Christ, therefore, is new creation: he participates in, belongs to, this new world of God. [pp. 46-47]

When Paul says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,” we can also point and say “there is the new creation.” In being called out of darkness into the kingdom of God, believers are part of the new creation—God’s overarching plan of redemption that culminates in Christ’s return and the resurrection of believers unto glorified bodies. We should never forget the work of the Spirit in individual lives, but we ought also remember that each individual salvation account is part of a larger sweep of redemption. This communal and biblical-theological view of redemption is the explanatory context for the ordo salutis, the application of redemption to individual believers.

Dr. Lane G. Tipton, the Charles Krahe Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, teaches on regeneration in this special presentation from Alive with Christ: Saving Union with Christ. This series of addresses comes from the Fall Seminar on Reformed Theology, held on November 12 and 13th 2011 at Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Ringoes, NJ. This is the second installment of the series. The entire series is as follows:

1. A Biblical Overview: Dr Richard Gaffin
2. Regeneration: Dr Lane Tipton
3. The Good Work Begun: Dr Richard Gaffin
4. Sanctification: Dr Lane Tipton
5. Questions and Answers
6. The Gateway into Fellowship with the Triune God: Rev. Jeff Waddington (Sunday School)
7. The Gospel: Dr Lane Tipton (Sunday morning service)
8. Glorification: Rev. James Cassidy (Sunday evening service; ; sermon re-recorded in March 2021)

Participants: Lane G. Tipton