 So we are, you're having another essentials class today. We've been in the lesson on salvation and we're gonna continue in that and in particular effectual calling, looking at chapter 10 of the 1689, which I trust you all have handy for Sunday school at Cornerstone. The focus is Romans 830. And those whom he predestined, he also called and those whom he called, he also justified and those whom he justified, he also glorified. So effectual calling, that's our focus. And part of it is, the reason to return to it is we sort of raised some questions last week and as I thought about those and just thought about the reality of this calling is this regeneration that the Christian experiences is no less momentous than your physical birth. The fact that you were created for this life and then recreated as it were to a spiritual life talked a little bit about that whether this is a conscious experience, this effectual calling. And we're gonna get into that, the work off in particular draws a distinction between regeneration as a secret act of God that happens in your subconscious as opposed to effectual calling which you experience consciously. Gonna consider whether that's a right way to look at it but in this effectual calling, just to give a quick review last week we dealt with some questions surrounding the effectual call. We considered, for example, God the Father's role in effectual calling. You think about some of the verses that speak to God the Father's function here in Romans 8.29 for whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. So who's doing the predestining there or predestinating as some say, God the Father predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. First Corinthians 1.9, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son. So again, it's in that God the Father is calling. Ephesians 1, 17 and 18, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the same. And then 2 Timothy 1.9, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. And so I made the point last week at least in my life as a Christian, I focused more on God the Son than on God the Father. It's just part of the way I think and function as a Christian. But these are helpful reminders to think about our intimate relationship with God the Father. We considered last week also God's sovereignty and salvation and how it's not a result of anything in men. And that was primarily from section two of chapter 10. So if you've got your 1689 chapter 10, section two, this effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, not on account of anything at all foreseen in man is not made because of any power or agency in the creature who is holy passive in the matter. Man is dead and sins and trespasses until quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit. By this he is enabled to answer the call and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed by it. This enabling power is no less power than that which raised up Christ from the dead. You look at the verses that are referenced in that section, 2 Timothy 1 9, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose. And Ephesians 2 8, for by grace you have been saved through faith and not that of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Man is holy passive in the matter. And 1 Corinthians 2 14, but the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. Man is dead and sins and trespasses comes straight from Ephesians 2 5. Even when we were dead and trespasses made alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved than the working of his power, Ephesians 1 19 and 20. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. So part of this whole discussion of the order of salvation and effectual calling in particular is to emphasize the sovereignty of God and salvation. This is not, this is not God responding to our repentance and faith by saving you. There are verses that kind of read that way though. I was reading one of the comment, an Armenian commentary by Erickson. And it's just kind of, you know, we're such a part of the reformed culture. That to see someone put it in writing and say, you know, you're regenerated by God after you repent and believe, it's just kind of stunning. You know, it is as, it's almost like the Catholic priest calling down God, you know, in the Eucharist and having him at your back and call. So that when you decide to repent and believe, he will respond. But take some verses taken, you know, on their own, apart from all of the rest of scripture, make it almost sound that way. Acts 1635, they said, believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. So it makes it sound like, you know, you believe and God saves you. Or Romans 10, 9, if you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. There is a sense in which we have been saved, are being saved and will be saved. But you can't take these verses alone and have a proper understanding of how God works in salvation. So last week, we also talked about, you know, if you believe that you can simply call on God at any point and that he will respond by saving you, can you actually be saved? And I know it's when I first began to understand the history and to reform theology and the sovereignty of God and salvation, I looked at this and I thought, well, how can anybody even be saved if they think that way? Of course, I had thought that way myself up until that point and so I too quickly forgot. But the reality is that they can arrive at the same place which is to trust in Christ alone for their salvation. So as Brian put it last week, you don't have to be a Calvinist saved. But another large category of the discussion last week was just how does this effectual call work? That's what I really wanna return to today. Now, how our understanding of this doctrine is developed over time and how it informs our evangelism and even our assurance. Some of the issues we raised last week, does regeneration occur before or after the effectual call or simultaneously? Does it occur apart from the preaching of the word? Does the preaching of the word itself affect regeneration? Does the spirit regenerate someone independent from the word of God? Our confession, if you look at this, even just the table of contents starting in chapter eight, it's, well, 10, effectual calling, justification, adoption, sanctification, saving faith, repentance and salvation, good works, perseverance, assurance. There is not a section titled Regeneration. And so if you look at the way that in chapter 10, the first section, it says those whom God has predestined to life, he has pleased and has appointed and accepted time to effectually call by his word and spirit. So those are together, his word and spirit. What we're gonna look at today is that in the development of the order of salvation and the history of the way this has been dealt with by theologians, they began to separate these things. They began to separate the working of the spirit from the word. And I think in the end what we should come to is a conclusion that those things should not be separated and that the way that our confession characterizes them is right. But let's look, so let's look at some of the verses that are cited in this first part of chapter 10. What is the basis for what we're, and some of these we've already talked about, so that section begins to those whom God has predestined to life, he has pleased and has appointed and accepted time to effectually call. Well, that gets back to Romans 830 itself. Those whom he predestined, he also called. But there were other verses that, well, and just that speak to this call itself. Second Peter 1-10, therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, or if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. First Corinthians 1-9, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 1-6, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. And 2 Timothy 1-8 and 9, therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. So he is pleased and has appointed an accepted time to effectually call Ephesians 1-10 and 11 is one of the verses cited in this section. It says that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him. In him also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. Those whom God has predestinated to life, he is pleased and has appointed an accepted time to effectually call and then by his word and spirit is the second phrase in this section. By his word and spirit out of that state of sin and death which they are in by nature to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ. And the verses cited our Ephesians 2, 1-6. You he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath just as the others. But God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Then the rest of that section he enlightens their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God. He takes away their heart of stone and gives them a heart of flesh. He renews their wills by his almighty power, causes them to desire and pursue that which is good if actually draws them to Jesus Christ yet in such a way that they come absolutely freely being made ruling by his grace. So the spirit and the word are together here but they began to be sort of pulled apart. We're gonna look at how that happened. There are a couple of books that give us a lot of the history of this development of the order of salvation. One is Sinclair Ferguson's The Holy Spirit. Another one that I don't have with me is Calvin and the Reform tradition. There's one that I have a Kindle book that I bought Michael Horton's Covenant in Salvation Union with Christ. And then there are a couple of essays written by Derek Brown that tied some of this history together so we're using material from those as well as referencing the systematic theologies of Birkhoff, Raymond, Robert Raymond and Grudem. So Ferguson gives us a little bit of the history of the thinking about how the doctrine of justification was a focus of the reformers. And it was that way because they were responding to what had been developed by Catholic by the Catholic church. And Ferguson describes the Catholic understanding of justification that had developed in the dark ages, I guess you would say, was that your justification was based on actually becoming righteous. You had to become, it wasn't that you were, as we understand it, accounted righteous, but that you had to work to become righteous. And that process was facilitated in some ways by participating in the sacraments. And so assurance was nearly, or it wasn't possible. You were a heretic if you believed that you could be assured of your salvation. But so Ferguson describes it this way. Medieval theology was largely committed to a process of justification and therefore placed great weight on the mode of preparation for grace. The process of prevenient grace moving the will to hate sin and desire justice or justification, the individual was disposed to receive habitual grace. Imperfect sorrow for sin, which lacked the qualities of perfected grief was compensated for by means of the sacrament of penance. And penance thus became a regular feature in the ongoing process toward justification. At the root of this lay the Augustinian notion that justification meant to be made righteous, not to be declared or counted or constituted righteous in God's sight. So this was where Luther's great, insight comes from Romans where he understands that this is not an actual righteousness, but an imputed righteousness, a righteousness that comes through faith. And so at the beginning of early in the reformation process, the issue principally is justification. How are we justified? And Ferguson's history includes as thus much of the reformation would lay special emphasis on the reversal of the medieval Orto Salutus, arguing that justification must be logically prior to sanctification and not confused with it. Speaking of Martin Luther, Ferguson said, he now saw that Paul spoke not about his working for the attainment of righteousness, but about God's provision of it in the gospel. A powerful rethinking took place in his understanding of the Orto Salutus, the Order of Salvation and the text that he had misinterpreted by means of his Roman Orto Salutus now instead became the open gate to paradise. That begins. So in response to this Roman Catholic, you've got to become righteous and hopefully maybe by the time you die, you'll be sanctified enough to enter into heaven, but you can never be sure of it. So Luther changes that whole thing and then Calvin builds on that. Calvin, in this history we're told, sought to frame the biblical doctrines of salvation in a way that highlighted the necessity of the joint work of the word and the spirit in applying the blessings of Christ's work to the individual instead of attributing those blessings to the sacraments of the church. So I'm sorry, I'm reading a good bit here, but stick with me. Ferguson continues, in the medieval church, the sacraments acted as milestones on the road to justification. Wherever Catholicism held its way, all the blessings of union with Christ were attributed to and mediated through instrumental causation of the sacramental system and especially the math and Eucharist. By contrast in the Reformation teaching, it was emphasized that the Holy Spirit brought the individual directly into fellowship with Christ, of which fellowship and sacraments were seen and sacraments were seen as signs and seals. So that's where this beginning of dealing with the order of salvation begins. And then over time becomes the sort of accepted order becomes effectual calling, then regeneration which gives rise to faith leading to justification and sanctification and finally glorification. And as I said last time, it's important not to think of these things as sequential in time but as logical progressions. And in fact, one of the dangers that Ferguson points to in his book is that you get so wrapped up in the order that you forget the point. And the point is union with Christ. But it's important to know that your justification doesn't result from your regeneration as opposed to regeneration coming in the process of justification. So there's a period of time where this is just sort of blurred, the relationship between effectual calling and regeneration and how these things happen and what order they happen in isn't really addressed very carefully. But it starts out, in part, the problem is definition of terms. So some theologians will speak about regeneration and they'll mean something completely different than another one. Calvin uses the term regeneration differently from the way that we understand it today. And Ferguson explains that. He says, particularly in the teaching of Calvin, the term regeneration was used to denote the renewal which the spirit affects throughout the whole course of the Christian life. For him, it describes the same reality denoted by conversion and repentance but viewed from a different perspective. So I'm not saying that Calvin's theology was wrong, but his use of the word regeneration was different than what we have today. And if you look, there's another book that Pastor Rick gave me that is too academic for me. Frankly, it's the Calvin and the reform tradition. But he goes into much more detail in the early formulations of the order of salvation and Pastor Rick was explaining to me that you can see other theologians who use this term to mean different things, regeneration. But then we get to the 1800s and you've got Charles Finney, among others, wandering with doing his tent revivals. And he's really, he's like anti-Calvinist, really. That he hates Calvinism. And I was reading some of what he wrote about Calvinism and it was just really bothered by the idea that anyone would need to sit around and wait until they were regenerated in order to repent and believe the gospel, which is not exactly how we understand salvation as Calvinists, but because of his sort of hatred, I guess you would say, for the doctrine, he preaches something completely different. He preaches that if you will repent and believe, then you will be regenerated. And so it is in the face of that growing, you know, doctrine, the popularity of that doctrine, you know, even today in this country is widespread and I'm sure it's fair to say there are more Armenians than Calvinists in this country. But in response to that, some of the theologians in the 1800s start writing and getting deeper into just how does regeneration work? When does it happen? And in an effort to emphasize the sovereignty of God and salvation, they begin to talk about what is referred to as an inner principle. And so there's one guy named Charles Hodge and this is how he starts describing regeneration. He says, this regeneration is physical rather than moral in nature, which simply meant that it was not something that was offered or presented to the will and understanding, but an effectual operation upon both upon both the will and the understanding that immediately imparted a new disposition or habitus. The point was to say that in regeneration, the spirit actually changes one's disposition so that the preaching of the gospel will be received rather than resisted. And so he begins to talk about this principle that the spirit of God implants in a person so that when they hear the gospel, they will respond. And that's really the beginning of the separation that even is evident in Birkhoff's systematic theology, Robert Raymond's systematic theology, and it's not quite as clear, but even it seems to be that way in Grutum's systematic theology where regeneration really happens before the effectual call. It's this principle that's implanted. And now they're still all trying to underscore the sovereignty of God and salvation, but Derek Brown in his essay about this issue and speaking of Hodge, he says, Hodge in his attempt to combat the idea that God grants regeneration upon one's acceptance of the gospel argues for the spirit's activity to occur apart from any mediation by the truth of the gospel. Thus, Hodge maintained that regeneration occurred subconsciously. Regeneration subjectively considered, and as he's quoting Hodge, or viewed as an effect or change wrought in the soul is not an act. It is not a new purpose created by God or formed by the sinner under his influence nor is it any conscious exercise of any kind. It is something which lies lower than consciousness. And in the end, what he's done is he's divorced regeneration from the word. Spirit is working independently and apart from the preaching of the word to cause someone to be able to respond to the word. And so, Brown continues, he says, Hodge's noble desire to preserve the doctrine of God's sovereignty and salvation may have unwittingly divorced the word and spirit in the application of the benefits of Christ's work to the believer. And he goes on to argue that this has born unwelcome and pastorally unhelpful fruit. So I'm gonna skip ahead a little bit. In the end, the division of these things could have the effect of causing the person who's considering whether they're regenerate, whether they're saved, to not look to Christ, but to look at whether this principle has been implanted in them. So maybe we'll return to that getting a couple of puzzled looks. So Hodge begins this thing. He separates regeneration from the effectual call and then Birkoff picks up the same idea. And so in Birkoff, Birkoff says that regeneration consists in the implanting of the principle of the new spiritual life in man and a radical change of the governing disposition of the soul, which under the influence of the Holy Spirit gives birth to a life that moves in a Godward direction. So this implanting of the principle of the new spiritual man, this regeneration is not necessarily connected to preaching the gospel with Birkoff or with Raymond. Raymond, so Birkoff's writing in the early 1900s, Raymond's writing in I think the 70s, Grudem is more recent. So Birkoff introduces this idea of the creative word. This is not the preached word. This is how Brown describes it. He says, Birkoff argues that regeneration falls prior to and should be considered distinct from the effectual call in the Ordo Salutis. According to Birkoff, the application of salvation comes to an individual first through the external call of the gospel, then by a creative word, not the word preached in the external call of the gospel, God generates new life, changing the interdisciplinary position of the soul, illuminating the mind, rousing feelings, renewing the will. This is regeneration and strictest sense. So the external call. So that's not necessarily the Birkoff distinguishes between external and effectual and the effectual call comes as an internal call through the external call. The point of Birkoff is that there's this separate creative word that works apart from the preaching of the gospel, which is not helpful. And in Brown's essay, he goes on to show how this idea is picked up by other theologians after Birkoff. So it goes hodge to Birkoff, to Raymond and to others. Birkoff desires to, he doesn't say that the preaching of the gospel is completely disconnected, but he calls it just instrumental. So in response to that line of thinking, Michael Horton has more recently written a book in which he proposes that this separation is wrong, that they should be, regeneration is a real thing. He's not saying that it doesn't happen, but that it is within and part of the effectual call, that these things are really synonymous. And that I believe is really the understanding that our confession represents. And my outline here, I've got too many notes. So Michael Horton argues, positing a distinction between regeneration and effectual calling also fixed a gap between the word of God and the spirit of God in the application of salvation to the individual. Although theologians like Birkoff wanted to retain the notion of God's powerful speaking in the work of regeneration, the creative word spoken by God and regeneration was not the word of the gospel, but a secret word spoken to the individual below the level of consciousness, enabling him to respond to the effectual call. Thus, although the spirit's work and regeneration was not strictly divorced from God's speaking activity, it appears that this speaking activity at the point of regeneration is not related to the external word of the gospel. And then what you have is the spirit is found working apart from the revealed word of the gospel. And I didn't read all of what B.B. Warfield said about this, but apparently he disagreed with this separation because he says the spirit's work and regeneration ends up being mediated by nothing. So Horton's argument is that we should understand the word's role in regeneration as providing not only the content of the gospel, but also the production of the desired effect of this content, namely the creation of new life which turns the individual to embrace the gospel. And if you look at James 1.18, let's start in 16. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Brought us forth by the word of truth. Look at 1 Peter 1.23. Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. I went back after reading Jared Brown's essay and the things in Ferguson's book and some of those, and I looked again at Burkhoff's arguments. And he addresses these two verses and argues that neither one proved conclusively that the word mediates regeneration. And he's got this, I think, sort of convoluted argument that these refer to actual birth, not regeneration. By arguing this way, Burkhoff is able to maintain the distinction between the spirit and planting a new principle and the word bringing about regeneration in a broader sense. The idea that 1 Peter 1.23 refers to the new birth here is favored by the fact that the readers are represented as having been born again out of a seed that was evidently already implanted in the soul. It is not necessary to identify the seed with the word. Well, of course it is. It is necessary to identify the seed with the word. And that is Derek Brown's point and Michael Horton's point. And so in the end, what we have is that God brings new life into existence not apart from His word, but by His word. And that this is, what is the sort of the fallout that we have from separating those things? But one is that forget, you get all wrapped up in these details and forget that the bigger picture is really union with Christ. But furthermore, maintaining this distinction between regeneration and effectual calling actually undermines a Christ-centered approach to the Ordo Salutis and in turn, weakens our doctrine of assurance and opens the door to other unhealthy tendencies in the Christian life. Instead of being encouraged to turn outward to the content of the effectual call, the incarnate word, in order to find assurance, individuals are summoned to seek the enabling power of a new inward principle in order to find assurance or even the warrant to believe the gospel. Although this may not have been the explicit teaching of reformed theologians who articulated a distinction between effectual calling and regeneration, it does seem like an inevitable implication. And Spurgeon addressed this issue, seems to have covered all the bases. He deals with it in a somewhat indirect way. Spurgeon encountered the problem of troubled sinners complaining about the warrant to believe in the gospel stating that unless they were sure of God's work in their life, they did not have the right to believe on Christ. And Ian Murray explains that a work of God in the heart is necessary in order that a sinner comes to faith, Spurgeon never doubted. On the contrary, he preached it clearly, but it is not with that work that the sinner is to be concerned. His attention is to be fixed on the warrant, on Christ. God has much to do in us, but requires nothing of us before we come to Christ. The way to faith and the warrant of faith are not the same things. Sinners says Owen are not directed first to secure their souls that they are born again and then afterwards to believe, but they are first to believe that the remission of sin has been tendered to them in the blood of Christ, nor is it the duty of men to question whether they have faith or not, but actually to believe and faith in its operations will evidence itself. So do you see then how this separation of these things, an idea that the spirit can somehow work apart from the word, shifts the focus, and ultimately affects assurance. It also, I think, informs the way that we evangelize. The gospel is the power of God's salvation. And it is a mystery. But we preach the gospel and we trust that the spirit of God is going to use that in those whom he wills. And we don't look to any other sort of secret working or the spirit working completely independently from the preaching of the gospel. We preach the gospel and it's the power of God's salvation. And he will effectually call some through it and regenerate them. So you may think, what in the world is Gardner off on this thing? When we go through this lesson in the essentials class, I mean, we go through effectual call in about five minutes. It's just sort of stated as fact. But it's worthy of much more careful thought and consideration and meditation. I've just really been struck in thinking about this, about just the enormity of the reality that God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, now focused this work in me and in you. And it's just an amazing thing to think about that we were predestined and called, justified, being sanctified, will be glorified through no merit of our own. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for these glorious truths and just the marvel of your work. And us, we are just sinners and we bring nothing to you except our praise and thanksgiving for we hope that as we think about these things, we will love you and glorify you all the more. In Jesus' name, amen.