The following is a portion of an article by Tim Challies.

“We will first define regeneration. J.I. Packer thoroughly defines regeneration as “…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 is an inner re-creating of fallen human nature by the gracious sovereign action of the Holy Spirit (John 3:5-8). This change is ascribed to the Holy Spirit. It originates not with man but with God (John 1:12, 13; 1 John 2:29; 5:1, 4). It extends to the whole nature of man, altering his governing disposition, illuminating his mind, freeing his will, and renewing his nature.” Regeneration, said simply, is the Spirit’s act whereby He gives to man a new nature which frees his will and gives him a disposition towards God. This definition is wholly Reformed, and thus wholly Biblical.

A survey of Christian doctrine would find three predominant views on when regeneration occurs.

The first is known as baptismal regeneration. The Roman Catholic tradition, as well as that held by Anglican, and Lutheran groups, believe that regeneration occurs at the moment of baptism. When a child is baptized, the Holy Spirit immediately regenerates that person. The Catholic Catechism typifies this view: “Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte ‘a new creature,’ an adopted son of God, who has become a ‘partaker of the divine nature,’ member of Christ and co-heir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit.” (Pg.354, #1265) This view has been deemed false by the vast majority of Protestants who believe it undermines what the Scriptures plainly teach.

The second view is that the Holy Spirit regenerates a person at a time of His choosing. I suppose we could call it monergistic regeneration to indicate that it depends solely on God. This regeneration does not depend on man or on any desire or decision on his part. The Spirit moves in the person, giving him a new nature and allowing him the capacity to express faith and a desire to know and trust God. This view is closely associated with Calvinism and the Reformed faith and its high view of God’s sovereignty.

The third view is the one we are concerned with and it emphasizes a decision, hence the term decisional regeneration. In this view man has been wooed by the Spirit to the point that is now able to have faith in God and he then expresses that faith in a decision to follow the Lord. When he makes this decision he is immediately regenerated. While the decision is internal, it is often expressed in a prayer, a physical action such as raising a hand or walking to an altar or even in something as simple as marking a decision card.”

Regeneration is the ‘new birth’ spoken of in Scripture, and the single, absolute necessity for a person to be able to see and enter the Kingdom of God. Just as an infant does not ‘decide’ to be born of flesh, the spiritually dead (everyone apart from Christ) are unable to ‘decide’ to be re-born – to be born of God. The very words of Jesus Christ in Scripture are clear:

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” – John 1:12-13

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ” – John 3:6-7

It’s not much of an intellectual challenge to read the descriptions of regeneration presented above, compare them with scripture, and determine which is biblically true. I’ll give you a hint – one is biblical and the other two are not. The two that are not are at best a form of synergism in which we are required to ‘help/cooperate’ with God.

So consider these things prayerfully and ask yourself, which form of regeneration describes how you think you were saved. My prayer this morning is that all of us who who claim Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord will have a biblical and richer understanding of ‘how’ God saves His People, and thus maintain in our hearts the high and lofty view of our God that He deserves and that Scripture teaches.

Your view of God will determine the entire character of your Christian walk.

Webster’s dictionary defines theology as “The science of God or of religion; the science which treats of the existence, character, and attributes of God, his laws and government, the doctrines we are to believe, and the duties we are to practice. . . the science of Christian faith and life.” Saint Augustine in the fifth-century defined theology as “Rational discussion respecting the deity.” A. H. Strong, the great twentieth century theologian said that theology is “the Science of God and of the relations between God and the universe.” Charles Ryrie, the popular dispensationalist theologian, says theology is “thinking about God and expressing those thoughts in some way.” (Basic Theology [Wheaton, IL: 1986], 9). Millard Erickson, a modern Baptist theologian says that theology is simply “the study or science of God.” (Christian Theology [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2001], 22).

Most simply put, theology is the study of God. It comes from the word theos which is Greek for “God,” and -ology which is from the Greek word logos meaning “word.” Most literally then the word theology means “words about God” or “the study of God.”

To say that theology is not important is saying that knowing God is not important. Jesus Christ disagrees with you.

“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” – John 17:3

How are we to ‘know’ God apart from studying Him, learning all we can from what He has revealed about Himself in scripture? How are we to have a proper understanding of God unless we study Him, his character and attributes? To say you love God yet have no desire to study Him, that theology is unimportant, is a self-contradiction. If you love God, it is God who has planted that love for Him in your heart. It is a spiritual impossibility to love God and NOT want to know Him more fully!

In the mid 1950’s A.W. Tozer wrote:

“The church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men.”

Sadly, that is probably truer today than in 1950, if such a thing is possible.

Monergism simply means that it is God who gives ears to hear and eyes to see. It is God alone who gives illumination and understanding of His word that we might believe; It is God who raises us from the dead, who circumcises the heart; unplugs our ears; It is God alone who can give us a new sense that we may, at last, have the moral capacity to behold His beauty and unsurpassed excellency. The apostle John recorded Jesus saying to Nicodemus that we naturally love darkness, hate the light and WILL NOT come into the light (John 3:19, 20). And since our hardened resistance to God is thus seated in our affections, only God, by His grace, can lovingly change, overcome and disarm our rebellious disposition. The natural man, apart from the quickening work of the Holy Spirit, will not come to Christ on his own since he is at enmity with God and cannot understand spiritual things. Shining a light into a blind man’s eyes will not enable his to see, since, as we all know, sight requires new eyes or some restoration of his visual faculty. Likewise, reading or hearing the word of God itself cannot elicit saving faith in the reader (or hearer) unless the Spirit first “germinates” the seed of the word in the heart, so to speak, which then infallibly gives rise to our faith and union with Christ. Like unto Lydia whom “the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul,” (Acts 16:14) He must also give all His people spiritual life and understanding if their hearts are to be open and thus turn (respond) to Christ in faith.

Since faith is infinitely beyond all the power of our unregenerated human nature, it is only God who can give the spiritual ears to hear and eyes to see the beauty of Christ in the gospel. God alone disarms the hostility of the sinner turning his heart of stone to a heart of flesh. It is God, the Holy Spirit, alone who gives illumination and understanding of His word that we might believe; It is God who raises us from the death of sin, who circumcises the heart; unplugs our ears; It is God alone who can give us a new sense, a spiritual capacity to behold the beauty and unsurpassed excellency of Jesus Christ. The apostle John recorded Jesus saying to Nicodemus that we naturally love darkness, hate the light and WILL NOT come into the light (John 3:19, 20). And since our hardened resistance to God is thus seated in our affections, only God, by His grace, can lovingly change, overcome and pacify our rebellious disposition. The natural man, apart from the quickening work of the Holy Spirit, will not come to Christ on his own since he is at enmity with God and cannot understand spiritual things (1 Cor 2:14). Shining a light into a blind man’s eyes will not enable him to see, because eyesight first requires a set of healthy eyes. Likewise, reading or hearing the word of God alone cannot elicit saving faith in the reader (1 Thess 1:4, 5) unless God plows up the fallow ground of our hearts and the Spirit “germinates” the seed of the word, opening our eyes to see Christ’s true beauty and excellency and uniting us to Him through a Spirit-wrought faith. So the problem of conversion is not with the Word or God’s Law but with man’s prideful heart. The humility required to submit to the gospel is, therefore, not prompted by man’s will but by God’s mercy (Rom 9:16) since no one can believe the gospel unless God grants it (John 6:63, 65). The Spirit must likewise give all His people spiritual life and understanding if their hearts are to be opened and thus respond to Christ in faith.
Definition
The Century Dictionary’s definition of monergism may be helpful:

“In theology, [monergism is] the doctrine that the Holy Spirit is the only efficient agent in regeneration [the new birth] – that the human will possesses no inclination to holiness until regenerated [born again], and therefore cannot cooperate in regeneration.”

Etymology
The word “monergism” consists of two main parts. The Greek prefix “mono” signifies “one”, “single”, or “alone” while the suffix “ergon” means “to work”. Taken together it means “the work of one”.

Very simply, then, monergism is the doctrine that our new birth (or “quickening”) is the work of God, the Holy Spirit alone, with no contribution of man, since the natural man, of himself, has no desire for God and cannot understand spiritual things (1 Cor 2:14, Rom 3:11,12; Rom 8:7; John 3:19, 20). Man remains resistant to all outward callings of the gospel until the Spirit comes to disarm us, call us inwardly and implant in us new holy affections for God. Our faith comes about only as the immediate result of the Spirit working faith in us in the hearing of the proclamation of the word. But just as God does not force us to see against our will when He gives us physical eyes, so God does not force us to believe against our will when giving us spiritual eyes. God gives the gift of sight and we willingly exercise it.

Application
Monergism strips us of all hope to ourselves, reveals our spiritual bankruptcy apart from Christ, and thus leads us to give all glory to God alone for our salvation. As long as we think we contributed something, even a little bit (like good intentions) then we still think deep down that God saves us for something good he sees in us over our neighbor. But this is clearly not the case. Only Jesus makes us to differ from anyone else. We are all sinners and can boast in nothing before God, including the desire for faith in Christ (Phil 1:29, Eph 2:8, 2 Tim 2:25). For why do we have faith and not our neighbor? Please consider that. Did we make better use of God’s grace than he did? Were we smarter? More sensitive? Do some naturally love God? The answer is ‘no’ to all of the above. It is God’s grace in Christ that makes us to differ from our neighbor and God’s grace alone that gave rise to our faith, not because we were better or had more insight. No other element but Jesus mercy alone.

When the Spirit enables us to see that we fail to live up to God’s holy law, man will utterly despair of himself. Then, as C.H. Spurgeon said:

“… the Holy Spirit comes and shows the sinner the cross of Christ, gives him eyes anointed with heavenly eye-salve, and says, “Look to yonder cross. That Man died to save sinners; you feel you are a sinner; He died to save you.” And then the Holy Spirit enables the heart to believe, and come to Christ.”

To conclude, “…no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’, except by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:3) . …who is the deposit guaranteeing what is to come (2 Corinthians 5:5). Thus it should become plain to us that not everyone receives this redemptive blessing from Christ. God bestows it mercifully on whom He will according to His sovereign good pleasure (Rom 9:15-18; Eph 1:4, 5). The rest will continue in their willful rebellion, making choices according to their natural desires and thus receive the wrath of God’s justice. That is why it is called “mercy” – not getting what we deserve. If God were obligated to give it to all men then, by definition, it would not longer be mercy. This should not surprise us … what should surprise us is God’s amazing love, that He would save a sinner like me at all.
End

“⁵Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?–unless indeed you fail to meet the test! ⁶I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. ⁷But we pray to God that you may not do wrong–not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed.” – 2 Corinthians 13:5-7 (ESV)

More often than not, we use these verses in reference to the salvation of the believer. In context, the Apostle is speaking to members of the church at Corinth and speaking primarily of sanctification. Verse 7 tells us this:

“⁷But we pray to God that you may not do wrong–not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed.”

That the verse begins with “But…” is significant because. Grammatically speaking, it means that the words that precede it in verses 6 & 7 are part of Paul’s complete thought, and the remainder of verse 7 completes the writer’s thought.

Clearly, the “test” spoken of refers to what a person “does’; how he/she behaves as a believer. Paul speaks of himself and his brothers in ministry having “met the test” and immediately speaks of the believers in Corinth “doing right”.

This does not mean we cannot use these passages in reference to salvation, only that they speak primarily to the subject of our ongoing sanctification in Christ Jesus. Surely salvation and sanctification are connected! What we ‘do’ reflects our salvation, but does not save us. Also, just because a person ‘does’ right, does not mean he/she has truly received Christ as Savior and Lord. People bound by false religion ‘do’ good works in the world’s eyes.

Paul’s focus here is that if we claim Christ, obedience to God and holy living become part of our lives. If If they are not evident in our lives, we have every cause to question whether or not we are truly “of the faith”.

If that is the case, we are right to ask the question, “Am I even saved?” The answer to that question begins with another question: “What was the gospel message in which I placed my trust?” Did I receive Christ in order to have my present life “fixed?”, or did I come to Christ with a heart of repentance and for the forgiveness of my sin, in order to receive eternal life instead of God’s holy and just wrath against my sin?”

Points to ponder for the new year.

That God draws men to Himself is without dispute. Who can argue with the very words of Christ in John 6:44?

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

The point of contention has always been whether or not a person is able to, in the end, resist God’s drawing power. There are those who maintain, quite adamantly at times, that Christ’s death merely made salvation ‘possible’ for those who, on their own, ‘accept the gift’. There are also those who maintain that Christ not only paid the price for our salvation, but actually secured the salvation of the those for whom He died, just as the angel announced to Joseph (Matthew 1:20 ,21).

God does not ‘force’ salvation on anyone, but He does draw them irresistibly to himself. You could say that God offers His elect an offer they won’t refuse. You could describe it using the four steps shown below. Certain passages of scripture are offered to whet your spiritual appetites and encourage further investigation of scripture into the matter.

Concerning one of His elect, chosen before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1 & 2):

1. God convicts him of sin, and he repents. (Acts 2:36-38)

2. God enlightens him by His Spirit, and He beholds the Christ in all His beauty of salvation. (John 6:45)

3. God allures and attracts, and he longs for the God of his salvation. (1 John 4:19)

4. God seals him, and he appropriates the Christ and all His benefits. (Ephesians 1:13)

Please note that it is God doing all these things, and not man. Especially note that there is a confrontation with sin (the human condition), in all it’s ugliness! It is precisely this initial step of drawing that is either omitted or perverted in much of today’s evangelism. We just don’t talk about it, or we speak of lightly, as if sin is just our little mistakes and boo-boos. We would rather just speak of how much God loves us, what wonderful plans He has for us, how much He wants to fix all of life’s problems, etc., that speak of the real issue. In other words, we would make Christ so appealing to the natural mind and flesh (which is in rebellion against God,) that we produce a host of false converts who merely think they are saved!

God is so gracious however, that when His elect sit among the non-seeking seekers’ (Romans 3:11), He will still convict, enlighten, attract, and seal, in spite of bad preaching!

What a mighty God we serve!

May God richly bless you throughout the new year!