1st Peter 1:23
Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.
Question: How is a person made “born again...through the...word of God”?
Answer: The implication of “through the word of God” implies believing in the word of God, and when a person hears and believes, the Holy Spirit makes him born again as an adopted child of God. Ephesians 1:13 states: “After listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation--having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.”
Question: How can this be reconciled with Calvinism, which teaches that certain people are preemptively made born again before they hear the word of God? John Calvin taught: “…those who believe are already born of God.” (John: Calvin, The Crossway Classic Commentaries, p.23, emphasis mine)
Calvinist, R.C. Sproul: “The Reformed view of predestination teaches that before a person can choose Christ his heart must be changed. He must be born again.” (Chosen By God, p.72, emphasis mine)
R.C. Sproul: “A cardinal point of Reformed theology is the maxim: ‘Regeneration precedes faith.’ Our nature is so corrupt, the power of sin so great, that unless God does a supernatural work in our souls we will never choose Christ.” (Chosen By God, pp.72-73, emphasis mine)
However, not all Calvinists agree. Even Charles Spurgeon was inconsistent on this:
Calvinist, Charles Spurgeon: “If I am to preach faith in Christ to a man who is regenerated, then the man, being regenerated, is saved already, and it is an unnecessary and ridiculous thing for me to preach Christ to him, and bid him to believe in order to be saved when he is saved already, being regenerate. But you will tell me that I ought to preach it only to those who repent of their sins. Very well; but since true repentance of sin is the work of the Spirit, any man who has repentance is most certainly saved, because evangelical repentance never can exist in an unrenewed soul. Where there is repentance there is faith already, for they never can be separated. So, then, I am only to preach faith to those who have it. Absurd, indeed! Is not this waiting till the man is cured and then bringing him the medicine? This is preaching Christ to the righteous and not to sinners.” (The Warrant of Faith, emphasis mine)
Calvinist, D. James Kennedy: “Our faith and our repentance are the work of God’s grace in our hearts. Our contribution is simply the sin for which Jesus Christ suffered and died. Would you be born anew? There has never been a person who sought for that who did not find it. Even the seeking is created by the Spirit of God. Would you know that new life? Are you tired of the emptiness and purposelessness of your life? Are you tired of the filthy rags of your own righteousness? Would you trust in someone else other than yourself? Then look to the cross of Christ. Place your trust in him. Ask him to come in and be born in you today. For Jesus came into the world from glory to give us second birth because we must--we MUST--be born again.” (Why I Believe, p.140, emphasis mine)
So even Calvinists themselves have disagreement over this issue. Nevertheless, Calvinists, including the aforementioned Spurgeon, did believe that some form of “regeneration” was necessary in order to enable a person to positively respond to the Gospel, and Arminians agree that some form of preceding grace is necessary, given the fallen nature of man, and hence the Arminian teaching on Prevenient Grace.
John Calvin: “Peter’s object is to teach us that we cannot be Christians without regeneration, for the Gospel is not preached only in order to be heard by us, but that it may radically reform our hearts as a seed of immortal life.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries: Hebrews and I and II Peter, p.252, emphasis mine)
But according to Calvinism, the Gospel cannot “radically reform” anyone unless he has already been radically reformed by pre-faith, preemptive regeneration and Irresistible Grace.
Unfortunately, Calvin agrees:
John Calvin: “The minister’s teaching and speaking does no good unless God adds his inward calling to it. ... Preaching alone is just a dead letter, and we must beware lest a false imagination, or the semblance of secret illumination, leads us away from the Word on which faith depends.” (Acts: Calvin, The Crossway Classic Commentaries, p.278, emphasis mine)
John Calvin: “Preaching only finds faith in people when God inwardly calls those he has chosen and draws to Christ those who were already his own (John 6:37).” (Acts: Calvin, Crossway Classic Commentaries, p.229, emphasis mine)
John Calvin: “In a word, Paul indicates that all clamorous sounding of the human voice will lack effect, unless the virtue of God works internally in the heart.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.104, emphasis mine)
John Calvin: “Now let Pighius asseverate that God wills all to be saved, when not even the external preaching of the doctrine, which is much inferior to the illumination of the Spirit, is made common to all.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.109, emphasis mine)
In other words, according to Calvin, the preaching of the Gospel is clanging symbols if the hearer is not preemptively made Born Again. Perhaps Calvin has forgotten that Hebrews 4:12 teaches that God’s Word is “living and active,” and dispenses “faith” in its hearers. (Romans 10:17) The Bible, God’s Word, has living properties, which is completely discounted by Calvin. Accordingly, then, the only thing that would be “living and active” would be the Regeneration that precedes it.
According to Calvinism, one is Born Again by Irresistible Grace and pre-faith Regeneration, even though the actual verse states that one is Born Again through faith in the “word of God.”
