Peter
Masters, in discussing the predominant historical view within Reformed theology
that regeneration is not “all-at-once”
(as many, if not most, modern Calvinists accept) but instead is elongated (that is, a process), wrote:
The traditional and conventional view of regeneration
among Calvinists is more ‘elastic’ . . .we shall call it the ‘elongated’ view.
According to Louis Berkhof, this was the view of Calvin, who—‘spoke of regeneration
or the new birth in a rather broad sense’, and ‘used the term in a very
comprehensive sense as a designation of the whole process by which man is
renewed, including, besides the divine act which originates the new life, also
conversion (repentance and faith) and sanctification.’
Theologians holding the elongated view
usually divide regeneration into two main elements. Berkhof, for example,
employs well-used terms when he separates it into ‘begetting again’ and ‘the
new birth’. He then offers a similar distinction between its two parts—‘generation, or beginning of the new life,
and bearing or bringing forth’.
In other words, the first imparting of
spiritual life does not include the full bestowal of spiritual consciousness, and
all the graces. There is an initial regeneration,
usually regarded as instantaneous, and this gives rise to a birthing process,
in which that life is subsequently manifested outwardly.
The first part of regeneration is described
by Berkhof as a subconscious, secret, invisible work of God, by which the dead
sinner is restored to life, and becomes able to grasp the Word and willing to
respond to it. It is entirely a work of God, and the sinner is passive.
However, the whole of conversion is not accomplished at once. The ongoing
effect of regeneration involves the intelligent, conscious persuasion of the
convert, bringing him to full conviction and so to repentance and faith. Only
when these have occurred do the full benefits of regeneration come into view.
Berkhof calls this second phase the time when ‘the new life is brought forth
out of its secret depths’.
Calvinistic writers holding this elongated
view of regeneration often say that ‘regeneration issues in conversion’. In
other words, it is part of a process. Initial regeneration is like the head of
a comet, the fail of which extends across conversion. Initial regeneration does
not instantly reveal all the features of conversion, but it infallibly gives
rise to them. (Peter Masters, Physicians
of Souls: The Gospel Ministry [London: The Wakemen Trust, 2002], 98-99)
In a note
addressing someone who dies between these stages of regeneration, Masters
writes:
On this matter the question is sometimes
asked—‘What happens if a person dies after initial regeneration, but before the
stage of being awakened and convicted has led to repentance and faith’ The
answer is that God is the architect of every person’s salvation, and He would
certainly not forget the date planned for a person’s demise. If He intended to
take the soul of one of the elect, He would presumably complete the process
before the moment of death. (Ibid., 101)
Masters then
provides many examples of Reformed confessions and theologians, alongside
Berkhof, who explicated this “elongated” view of regeneration as opposed to the
view regeneration is “once-for-all” and not a process.
The Westminster and London Baptist
Confessions of Faith
The Westminster
and Baptist Confessions of Faith
both reflect an elongated view of regeneration in their virtually identical
tenth chapters—‘Effectual Calling’. They say that God effectually calls the
elect by ‘enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the
things of God, taking away their hearts of stone, and giving unto them a hart
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.’
The Confession
writers had in mind a process in which sinners, once enlightened, are drawn from rebellion to salvation
consciously, willingly and freely. They do not wake up, as it were, from a
general anaesthetic, and discover that they have a new life. The Lord wants converts
to experience the conscious repudiation of all that they previously believed
and did, and to run willingly to Christ. Regeneration does not eliminate the intellectual,
moral and spiritual crisis of conversion, but actually launches the sinner into
it. Initial regeneration brings to life a capacity to respond and to ‘embrace’
what the gospel call offers. (pp. 99-100; note the use of language borrowed
from Heb
6:4-6 here, showing that those who were “enlightened” were regenerated
believers!)
John Owen
Owen says that the inward, almighty, secret
act of the power of the Holy Ghost in regeneration produces the will for conversion, but in such a way
that the person acts entirely freely. He speaks of the ‘first act of conversion’
(regeneration) as opposed to a subsequent act, when God so interacts with the
sinner (through the preached Word) that conversion work is further carried on.
Owen insists that in regeneration God ‘works on the minds of men in and by
their own natural actings’. In other words, they do not just wake up and find
that they have a new life and outlook. They undergo a very conscious change of
mind as the result of regeneration, and this frequently occurs over time.
Owen shows that conviction of sin may be
entered into by degrees. He says that conviction may for a time be resisted,
and that while ‘conversion work’ is carried on there may be a very great conflict
fought out between the corrupt old nature and the new sense of conviction
(produced by regeneration). Owen is clear that the secret, regenerating work of
God does not instantaneously complete salvation. He provides space for a
conscious process of mental and moral conviction leading to repentance, faith,
and a consequent full realisation of spiritual life and peace. (Ibid., 101-2)
Thomas Goodwin
Goodwin left room for a period of developing
personal persuasion and conviction leading to faith and repentance. Some sample
sentences extracted from his directions for believing in Christ will illustrate
this (Works, volume VIII, pp. 572-4):
‘God does not always come with a predominant overpowering
when He draws the soul and believe. But he often sweetly insinuates Himself,
and gently slides into a man’ heart, and mingles His Spirit and power with
their spirit in compliance with the pace of the natural motions of their hearts
. . . The power of the Holy Ghost comes upon a man as the win, but not always
as a rushing mighty wind . . . but often like a still wind, in a still small
voice.’
Goodwin uses Hosea 11.1-4, in which Israel is pictured as an infant being taught
to walk by his nurse. He regarded this as a perfect picture of God’s way of
converting His elect, except that God (unlike the nurse) infuses strength into
His babes. He says:
‘Now a nurse does not seize and hurry the
child. A nurse does not come with a power above and behold the child’s,
removing it from one place to another, as she is easily able to do. First she
sets the child gently down, and then lets it try to feel its legs and stand
upon the ground. And then she lets is true to set one foot before the other.
Just as the nurse deal with a child, so God deals with His children in teaching
them to enter into His rest, and to believe.’ (Ibid., 102-3)
Thomas Goodwin
Thomas Goodwin provides a very elongated
definition of the word ‘draw’ used by the Lord Jesus Christ:
‘The drawing spoken of in John 6.44—“No man cometh unto me except
the Father draw him”—you may interpreted by Hosea
11.4—“I drew them with the cords of a man.” That is, I did not excessively
haul them, but just as one man would persuade another, so I insinuated My love
and My power to them.’ (Ibid., 103)
John Flavel
We turn to the teaching of John Flavel
(1630-91), who holds (in common with many Puritan) that God first prepares the
heart of a sinner by ‘works of preparation’, namely illumination, conviction
and compunction (pricking of conscience), and after these regenerates the
person. In this scheme of things, the Puritans differed from their Continental
counterparts, who placed events exactly the other way round, with regeneration
first. But despite the difference in order, both parties taught an elongated conversion
experience. Flavel’s period of preparation was very protracted, requiring the
agency of the preached Word over time. Observe the importance of this to him:
‘As to violence and compulsion it is none of
God’s way and method, it being both against the will of man, which cannot be
forced, and against the will of Jesus Christ, Who loves to reign over a willing
people (Psalm 110.3). It is not by
forced coaction. He draws with the bands of a man (Hosea 11.4), by way of rational conviction of the mind and
conscience, and effectual persuasion of the will.’
In the ordinary way (says Flavel) God performs
this work ‘gradually’. The sinner is gradually illuminated and convicted by the
Holy Spirit by the persuasion of preaching. Although he puts regeneration too
late in the process, Flavel speaks the language of elongated regeneration. Even
after regeneration he leaves space for further struggling and persuading. In a
typical sermon he gives ‘words of direction’ to those who have been made
willing to receive Christ (regenerated). He says that such people may still
continue in ‘a time of trouble, fear, and great temptation’, adding that ‘delays
here are full of danger’. So Flavel proceeds to give the regenerated seeker a
series of six directions to be certain that his repentance and faith is
complete and properly applied.
Flavel had two points of possible delay, during which persuasion would be instrumental,
one before and one after the moment of instant regeneration. No one could be
more elongate than that. This may all seem very cumbersome, but the point for
us I that no Puritan held the all-at-once view which has strangely become
orthodox (to many) in recent years. It is a novelty. (Ibid., 103-4)
Continental Reformed Theologians
The language of progress (or elongated
regeneration) is present in all the definitions of regeneration and conversion given
by the celebrated Continental reformers. How magnificently it was put by one
(Van Mastricht) who wrote:
‘The reformed hold the view that in the elect
(1) spiritual life is restored by regeneration; (2) this is stimulated and extended into action, so that the man grasps
God and the Mediator with rue faith and conceives a serious purpose of abandoning
sins and showing zeal for good works: this happens by conversion; finally (3)
good habits or virtues are infused into the converted man and his will, and
these are advanced to all kinds of good works of sanctification.’
Another Continental divine (Keckermann) also
speaks the language of progress, saying—‘At
the first moment of it [regeneration], man and his will act in a purely
passive state. Here we are speaking of
the first impulse and moment of conversion, or the first beginning of this
movement, in which acknowledging his sin man turns to God . . . Yet at the very
moment in which God effects in us the grace of conversion. He also bends man’s will to desire and seek for that grace, and so in
the progress of conversion the will co-operates with divine grace.’
Rote German theologian Henrich Heppe,
summarising the opinion of most Continental reformed writers, ‘The Holy Spirit
so works upon man as to esteem him a personal creature, and so does not regard
him as a clod or a stone, but He acts so that, enlightened by the Word, and
impelled by grace, man receives in conversion the will to convert to God, and
so his conversion takes the form of spontaneity.’ (Ibid., 105-6; Masters’
quotation are taken from Reformed
Dogmatics by Henrich Heppe [translated by G.T. Thompson], pages 510-539,
Wakeman Great Reprints, London, 2000)