Q30. How doth the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ?

A. The Spirit applieth to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.

One of the reasons we should speak of “regeneration” here is that the Catechism does not, but uses other language to trace out the same steps. Behind this, we might be interested to note that Calvin used the word “regeneration” in a much broader way than we might tend to in later Reformed circles. For instance, he speaks of,

“regeneration, the only aim of which is to form in us anew the image of God, which was sullied, and all but effaced by the transgression of Adam … This renewal, indeed, is not accomplished in a moment, a day, or a year, but by uninterrupted, sometimes even by slow progress …”1

In fact, the language of effectual calling heading this section typifies Reformed dogmatics in the Westminster tradition. Turretin, Dabney, and Bavinck all begin …  Hodge and Shedd dedicate their first chapters to regeneration.

Regeneration Produces a New Heart

“The great necessity for the effectual calling of man is in his original sin,”2 Dabney started. We saw from texts like 1 Corinthians 2:14 and John 6:44 that the natural man is incapable of possessing faith because he is incapable of seeing into the kingdom. In John 3:3 the imagery of “seeing” the kingdom is used in a way synonymous to that saving sight of the glory of Christ in 2 Corinthians 4:6 that “the god of this world” (v. 4) had blinded men from seeing. So natural man’s vision can no more see saving realities than a dead and buried man can see the world above the ground where his tomb lies. This backdrop is important as we come to the many intricacies of regeneration and calling, because when the question is who all acts in that action that is regeneration proper, the answer is all of God and none of man. 

What is regeneration? What does it do and to what? Hodge calls it “the subjective change wrought in the soul by the grace of God,”3 a “spiritual resurrection”4 and he notes how the terms “regeneration, renovation, conversion” are “often used interchangeably,”5 especially the case in the seventeenth century among the Reformed. It is crucial to note that different ways of using the term with respect to its scope are not the same as different ways of using the term with respect to its total nature. So the first thing to get about its nature is the ultimate causal element. Hodge well summarizes this:

“Regeneration is an act of God. It is not simply referred to Him as its giver, and, in that sense, its author, as He is the giver of faith and of repentance. It is not an act which, by argument and persuasion, or by moral power, He induces the sinner to perform. But it is an act of which He is the agent. It is God who regenerates. The soul is regenerated. In this sense, the soul is passive in regeneration, which (subjectively considered) is a change wrought in us, and not an act performed by us.”6

In biblical support of the broader use of the term, Shedd points to Ephesians 4:22-25, where putting on the new man is continuous and parallels Paul’s use of the word for renew (ἀνανεόω), a word used in other forms in Romans 12:2 and 2 Corinthians 4:16. In all three of these texts it is clearly speaking of the ongoing work of being made new, and even implies an imperative for the Christian to live that out. Nor is this a merely New Testament truth—“make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!” (Ezk. 18:1)

Turretin distinguishes between “habitual” and “actual” conversion.7 Of the first, Shedd says it is “the production of a habit or disposition in the soul,” whereas the second is “the acting out in faith and repentance of this implanted habit or disposition.”8 So the later Reformed authors worked with this division, yet began to call the former “regeneration” and the latter “conversion.” And that was already the case with Turretin: “The former is more properly called regeneration.”9 But both are important truths that go together, since the dead must be made alive and the various aspects of man must be restored to God’s perfected intention. Not surprisingly the earlier broader use of the term “regeneration” has made many in the Reformed tradition nervous since in the Roman use, as Shedd put things, it “confounds justification with sanctification.”10 However, the Apology for the Augsburg Confession and even language at the Synod of Dort used the more expansive language. More outside the margins, Hodge notes, was the Jewish usage which some early Christian writers did appropriate, namely, that one was said to be regenerated simply by “a change of his status from without to within the theocracy.”11

Realizing the different ways that the word was used is not for nothing. The example of its use as an external change, as that just mentioned among the early Church interacting with the Jews, becomes important in refuting the tiresome references to the Patristic writings that supposedly take a radically “different doctrine” on this or that issue than the Reformed.12 But logical precision is always required to avoid confusions, as Hodge explains,

“The questions whether man is active or passive in regeneration and whether regeneration is effected by the mediate or immediate influence of the Spirit must be answered in one way if regeneration includes conversion, and in another if it be taken in its restricted sense.”13

As there is an active and a passive, and a mediate and immediate, so there is an objective substance being regenerated and a subjective living of that substance. 

A word about what regeneration is not. Following from what we have seen about the loss of the image of God in original sin, so in the other direction—Regeneration is not “any change in the substance of the soul.”14 We will recall the classical distinction between substance and accidents. The substance of man, or his human nature, did not become merely animal nature or any other non-human form in the fall. Consequently, the new birth does not make a human of what was not, nor an angel of what was human. It does not make reason of what was not, nor trans-reason of what was merely reason. Regeneration is also not an act of the soul of man. It is not one ounce synergistic. The principle of life, once inhering in man, is man’s to live; but the cause of that life is wholly divine: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn. 3:6); “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all” (Jn. 6:63). 

This answer says BY WORKING FAITH IN US. But what does this mean? Critics of Calvinism assume that our doctrine is that “God does it all,” and so what need is there of faith? We are not helpful to anyone if we don’t point out: No, we do believe. God doesn’t believe for us. Nor does He shortcut belief. However, since our old nature cannot believe, God gives his elect a new heart that is capable of belief. This new heart is absolutely us believing!

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezk. 36:26).

The Hebrew for heart (לֵב) is of the whole soul, so that regeneration is not merely illumination of the mind, but produces renewal in the totality of the inner life of man. Now, as we will see when we get more into the nature of the call, while regeneration is of the totality of man’s inner life—not just the mind—there is nevertheless a normative priority of the mind in the means the Holy Spirit uses, and that is because there is that same priority of the mind in the substance of man to begin with. Reason has a priority in the soul of any being which is called “man” or “human nature.”

Regeneration Precedes Faith

Our first truth, that regeneration is prerequisite for faith, logically implies that regeneration precedes faith. 

“Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.  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.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit’” (Jn. 3:3-8).

This fulfilled not only the promise of Ezekiel 36, but earlier in that prophetic book it was said, “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them” (11:19-20). Notice the words “new spirit … heart of flesh … that they may walk.” It is only out of the new heart that spiritual exercises can emerge. It is also suggested in the vision of the Spirit giving life to the dry bones in Ezekiel 37, as well as the promise in Deuteronomy 30:6, “the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”

Now this is also clearly implied in that grace is said to be the cause of faith—“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). Faith is made a gift here. There is a subtle hint of the same in Romans 4:16— “That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring” We heard the word habitus that the classical theologians would use, in the context of salvation, as a gracious disposition of the soul; and of course there can be no gracious disposition unless the disposition itself is given immediately by God. So the Canons of Dort, refuting errors under the 3rd and 4th Point of Doctrine (Paragraph 6), is against those,

“Who teach: That is the true conversion of man no new qualities, powers, or gifts can be infused by God into the will, and that therefore faith, through which we are first converted and because of which we are called believers, is not a quality or gift infused by God but only an act of man, and that it cannot be said to be a gift, except in respect of the power to attain to this faith. 

Refutation: For thereby they contradict the Holy Scriptures, which declare that God infuses new qualities of faith, of obedience, and of the consciousness of His love into our hearts: ‘I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts’ (Jer 31:33). And: ‘For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring’ (Is. 44:3). And: ‘…God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us’ (Rom 5:5). This is also repugnant to the constant practice of the Church, which prays by the mouth of the prophet thus: ‘bring me back that I may be restored; (Jer 31:18).”15

So it is not merely the giving of a new heart as if that new heart were nothing but a blank slate. God infused that new heart with real spiritual affections and a gospel disposition. 

Notice that this truth—regeneration precedes faith—is true, whether one is using the word “regeneration” in its initial sense or in its continuous sense. It is a common mistake—whether by the Reformed out of fear, or the non-Reformed out of opportunism—to suppose that the use would change that question. 

Regeneration Unites Us to Christ

Notice about our answer that it says THEREBY UNITING US TO CHRIST. In other words, the act of regeneration “working faith in us” explains that personal experience. One verse that speaks of our union with Christ as being initiated at a point in our lives is where Paul says, “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9). As we mentioned last time, Paul also treats the link more broadly in terms of the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. However, that does not alter the fact that his working of faith in us is that initiation point in our experience:

“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Eph. 1:13).

As we are in him, so there is a right way to mean that he is “in” us—“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3:17). To be united to Christ’s Person is to be united to his work.

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out … And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:37, 39-40).

What might be easy to miss, since we are already up to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit’s application of redemption, are those words THE REDEMPTION PURCHASED BY CHRIST. Implicit in the Spirit’s work of working faith in us, is that that work was already guaranteed in the most powerful way—God Himself paid for it with the blood of His Son. The act of purchasing His own is an full accomplishment of the Son by the cross:

“Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant” (Heb. 9:15).

This death redeemed those people who were called in this way. 

So there is this other link between the Son’s work and the Spirit’s work, namely, that the Spirit is not working faith in the believer to believe a thing that is left unaccomplished! That faith unites us to Christ because Christ has already secured it. So Paul says, “For it has been granted to you that … you should … believe in him” (Phi. 1:29).

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1. Calvin, Institutes, III.3.9.

2. Dabney, Systematic Theology, 554.

3. Shedd has a list of eight characteristics of regeneration that are worth incorporating into any outline: Dogmatic Theology, 764-73.

4. Hodge, Systematic Theology, III:5.

5. Hodge, Systematic Theology, III:3.

6. Hodge, Systematic Theology, III:31.

7. Turretin, Institutes, II.14.4.13.

8. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 763.

9. Turretin, Institutes, II.14.4.13.

10. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 761.

11. Hodge, Systematic Theology, III:5.

12. Hodge seems to subtly suggest, without drawing it out, that “baptism, which was the rite of initiation, was called regeneration” (ST, III:5) following from this Jewish usage that had passed over into the church. If true, then perhaps a pattern can be established in the Patristics to show how language of “baptismal regeneration” is actually not talking about what later debates would have it answer to. 

13. Hodge, Systematic Theology, III:4.

14. Hodge, Systematic Theology, III:6.

15. Christian Truths Summarized: The Creeds and Reformed Confessions, 78.