Some have been wondering what I am up to in this recent jag about the absolute necessity of the new birth, and some are happily wondering if at last I have come to my senses and am returning to my evangelical roots. Well, I would be happy to return to them had I ever left them, but since I didn’t, I won’t.
In chapter three of “Reformed Is Not Enough, I went out of my way to make clear that I was, am, and continue to be, an old school historic evangelical.
“Simply put, the objectivity of the covenant does not mean that a man does not have to be born again” (p. 33).
“The corporate regeneration of the people of God in no way lessens the need for individuals to be born of the Spirit of God. How could a call for omelettes be taken as opposition to eggs?” (p. 35).
“First, the new birth is a reality. To be born again separates those who love darkness and those who love the light” (pp. 35-36).
“When the word regeneration is being used in this sense, we are talking about an invisible operation performed by the Spirit of God, who does what He does when and how it pleases Him. And when we are talking about what might be called this ‘effectual-call regeneration,’ we have to repudiate every form of baptismal or decisional regeneration” (p. 39).
“Many have been baptized and have not known the reality offered in that baptism. The problem is not that they have the baptism, but rather that they do not have the faith. For a man must be born again if he is to see the kingdom of heaven” (p. 40).
These commitments of mine continue down to the present. I have gone through enough theological paradigm shifts to know when it is happening. I used to be Arminian, and now am Calvinist. I used to be baptistic and now am paedobaptistic. I use to be premill and now am postmill. I have learned to recognize it when the scenery changes outside the car window. But I was brought up as a evangelical Christian, I am an evangelical now, and if the doctrine of perseverance is what I take it to be, I will die an evangelical. Bottom line, this means that I hold that a man must be born again, must be given a new heart, in order to see the kingdom of heaven. I don’t care how many chicken bones the priest threw into the air at his baptism. If he is not converted to God in His heart by the glorious gift of the Spirit, then he is going to Hell.
Having said this much, let me distance myself from a standard evangelical error at this point, a mistake that evangelicals have been prone to. On the strength of the bibical doctrine that the new birth is necessary for salvation, some have made the mistake of thinking that regeneration was relatively easy for them to see and identify. David Brainerd was kicked out of Yale for saying that a certain professor had no more grace than “this chair.” Gilbert Tennent, one of the Great Awakening’s sons of thunder, did a lot of damage for preaching on the dangers of an unconverted ministry — for which he later apologized.
Now the problem is this. In my last post on this subject, did I not say that a bunch of evangelicals and their ministers, needed to be born again? Yes, I did, and I stand by it. But how is that not trying to peer into hearts? How is that not the classic evangelical mistake, which is that of pronouncing on the eternal destinies of men who, unlike you, don’t wave their arms when they preach? After all, that is what Tony Campolo thinks an evangelical is.
Now I quite agree that we ought not question the salvation of orthodox Christians whose liturgies are different from ours, or who differ with us on less important doctrinal points, or whose style of preaching is not as full of vim and enthusiasm as we would like. The Spirit of God has done too many glorious things in too many different places, moving when, where and how He pleases, for us to lay down rules for Him, such that they would make Him into the Spirit of Sectarian Evangelicalism. I am a catholic evangelical. Which means what? It means non-sectarian. “And opposition to the mainstreaming of homosex is not sectarian,” he said mildly.
So this is why I said what I did about getting evangelicals saved — and it has nothing to do with trying to peer into hearts. Further, it is not a sectarian judgment — I have two thousand years of faithful churchmen behind me on this one. As it happens, I don’t have the zeitgeist of the eddykated North American church scene behind me though, which some want to represent as a problem. Evil fruit demonstrates the evil nature that produced the fruit. Regeneration cannot be understood apart from the doctrine of generation. And if a person is of their father the devil, that is their problem of generation, which can only be addressed by means of a glorious regeneration.
“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19-21).
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11).
“Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father” (1 Jn. 2:23).
So then, these earlier statements of mine are not a function of any ability I have to peer into hearts. They are a function of me having been taught how to read in the first grade.