Ordo Salutis (part 3)

Heavenly Father, thank you for this beautiful day and this beautiful weekend that you've given us. Thank you, Lord, that you've brought us to this place where we can learn about you, where we can sit under wise teaching from the likes of Pastor Mike and Pastor Steve.

I just pray, Father, that you would bless this Sunday school this morning, that you would watch over our conversation about Ordo Salutis, that you would help us all to learn from the scriptures that you have given to us.

In your name we pray. Amen. All right, so in the interest of time and progress,

I'm not going to review much this week. Those of you who were here last week can appreciate that,

I think. But before we got into the meat of what we were talking about last week, especially with predestination and election, we talked a little bit about the events of the

Ordo Salutis in terms of their timing, and in terms of the duration of those events.

If anybody doesn't have the handout, I did print out a bunch of them. They're over there on the table, so please help yourself to them.

If somebody wants to go pass them out, I don't know if anybody still needs one, but please feel free.

So we had some back and forth, and of course Ferdie's not here.

I was relying on Ferdie to be here and weigh in with his opinion, but he's not.

So Brian, I'm going to have to go with you. There was a lot of discussion about calling.

So we had worked through predestination and election, and we were talking about the call.

And a lot of the agreement and disagreement that we had came from an understanding of what that word meant, right?

So stepping back from the particulars of this list of the Ordo Salutis, there are two types of call.

There are two general terms that we would refer to when we look at the call in scripture.

What are those two terms? Right, exactly, exactly.

The general call and the effectual call. And some of the conversation that we had was basically around saying, well, when we look at the

Ordo Salutis, does the word calling there, does that refer to the general call or does that refer to the effectual call?

And so we had some different opinions about how long does that last? It fits in the same slot in the order, but is that something that's instantaneous, effectual call, or is that something that lasts for a long time?

And if you remember, one of the things that I had said that was really, really critical for our understanding is that this list is like a construct, right?

It informs our theology. It helps us to understand the order in which events happen in the life of the believer for them to be saved.

And so under that banner, it's helpful for us to really look at this and understand that maybe we can understand it to mean both.

And I think we'll get into that a little bit as well. So let's talk about first the general call.

Is this something that we see in scripture? Yes, there's lots of examples of this in scripture.

He taught Jesus would go and he would teach in the temple, right? We can look at passages like Matthew 22, 14, where he gives the parable of the wedding feast, and he ends it with, many are called, but few are chosen.

We can even look at things like Acts 13, where Paul is preaching at Antioch. And at the end, it says, when the

Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. And as many as who were appointed to eternal life believed.

Paul has preached to all of these people. Not all of them have responded with faith, general call.

And in our modern day, we can find the general call in lots of places. We can find it in church, right?

That would be kind of a classic place. If you're in a Christian home, your parents, friends and family, it's street preaching, certainly one of the ministries we have at BBC.

But when we look at these kinds of examples, this is something that's unique to the general call.

When we look at these kinds of examples, sermons, parents, friends, etc., what do they all have in common?

Within the context of the ordo salutis, and we look at the actions that are occurring in the ordo salutis, there's something unique about the general call that is different from everything else that's in that list.

What do all of these things need? What are the component parts that all of these things, that this general call needs that we might not necessarily see in something like predestination, glorification, etc.?

Right, so that's exactly it. So the general call for the preaching of the gospel message requires people, requires other people.

Okay, now, before you stone me, let me continue on. Right, this is the working out of the

Great Commission. That's exactly what this is. Matthew 28, 19, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. All of the things that result in the preaching of the gospel to others are manifestations of obedience to the

Great Commission, whether it's in the home, whether it's in the pulpit, whether it's on a street corner. These are all manifestations of the

Great Commission. Romans 10, Paul here, How then will they call upon him in whom they have not believed?

And how are they to believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.

But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?

So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

And that's why I think that this banner of calling in the order of Seleucus is so interesting, because if we look at it in the context of what this thing is, we go back to monogiesm.

I'm sorry, I like the Ligonier definition a little better here. The order of Seleucus is the order of salvation.

This focuses on the acts of God and the response of the individual in salvation.

So under that banner, if we understand calling that way, then the call in the order of Seleucus must refer to the effectual call.

And the reason why I say that is because it is it is only dealing with those who are elect to salvation.

This is the actions of God and the responses of the individual in salvation.

But, but God has ordained that the gospel is presented by his people.

That is, that's the general call. And he will, through the Holy Spirit, call us as believers internally, which is the effectual call.

However, so what that means is the general call, in a sense, prepares our heart for the supernatural work of the effectual call.

Not because God needs us, but because he has ordained it to be that way.

So when we look at this in this list that helps us to understand how our theology fits into the work of salvation that God has wrought, we can understand this to be the effectual call in the sense that this is describing the individual unto salvation.

But in order for it to affect us, the general call needs to have come first.

Does that make sense? Is that unclear to anybody? There are very few examples where that's not the case.

I think the classic one that you would look at would be Paul. Right, but for us in the modern day, our understanding of the working

God of salvation is yes, that the gospel is not some kind of be good because it's good to be good.

That's not the gospel. The gospel is Jesus Christ came and paid for your sins. And so that would be talking about the idea of the gospel preparing the heart.

I think it's hard with Paul because he was literally on his way to murder Christians before he was arrested functionally in his actions.

I don't know. I don't know if God used the preaching of Stephen to change the heart of Paul at that point or not.

Certainly, his actions would not suggest so. But you got something you want to add?

You see the eyes are going everywhere. No, no. OK, but yes, the prescription in Scripture is that the general call would precede the effectual call because that is not something that God needs, but something that God has ordained.

Now, that being said, Lewis Burkhoff in his systematic theology says essentially the same thing, but much better than than I could.

For a lot of reasons, he's a really smart guy. If we proceed on the assumption that the order of salutes deals with the effective application of the redemption wrought by Christ, we feel at once that the external calling by the word of God can, strictly speaking, hardly be called one of its stages.

As long as this calling does not, through the accompanying operation of the Holy Spirit, turn into an internal and effectual calling, it has only a preliminary and preparatory significance.

Right. So Burkhoff is clear in saying that there's no supernatural manifestation of the general call, but it is preparing the heart for God's work.

Several, several reformed theologians speak of it as a kind of common grace, since it does not flow from the eternal election and the saving grace of God, but rather from his common goodness.

And since, while it sometimes produces a certain illumination of the mind, it does not enrich the heart with the saving grace of God.

So this is for us, as we preach the gospel, a comfort, because it reminds us that it is not us who save, but it is

God who saves. And as long as we are faithful in the preaching of the word of God, God's will, well,

God's will will be done anyway. But that is the completion of our responsibility under the Great Commission.

He goes on, while all other movements of the Holy Spirit in the order of salutis terminate on the elect only, the external calling by the gospel has a wider bearing.

Wherever the gospel is preached, the call comes to the elect and the reprobate alike. It serves the purpose, not merely bringing the elect to faith and conversion, but also of revealing the great love of God to sinners in general.

By means of it, God maintains his claim on the obedience of all his rational creatures, restrains the manifestation of sin, and promotes civic righteousness, external morality, and even outward religious exercises.

So we can see a really good example. You know, sometimes we talk about like, oh, well, where can you see an example of the

Trinity in Scripture? And we look to Jesus' baptism, where Jesus is baptized, the Holy Spirit comes down, and then God the

Father speaks. And so you can see everything kind of compact. And there's a there's a passage that where we can see something like this with the both the effectual and the general call.

And that's in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, where it says, but we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved by God, beloved by the

Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.

To this, he called you, effectual call, through our gospel, general call, so that you may obtain the glory of our

Lord Jesus Christ. McNaughton, in his commentary on this passage, says, this powerful calling is the first initiatory act in the order salutis.

By it, we are summoned to faith in Christ and to repentance of our sins. So calling, being third in our list in the order salutis, the first two are clear actions of God, supernatural actions of God outside of time, predestination and election, election and predestination.

And then this is the first initiatory act. This would be the first act that we as humans would experience, would receive and then respond to.

I think we know the answer to this question, but I will ask it anyway. When the apostles traveled and taught and preached in the book of Acts, was their preaching the general call, these are the apostles we're talking about, or the effectual call?

It is still the general call. Would anybody like to read

Acts 16, starting in verse 13? We're looking at Lydia. The Lord opened her heart.

So this is interesting. Lydia is a worshiper of God, but then

Paul comes and Paul preaches to her. And what happens? The Lord opens her heart. And then what happens next?

What's the very next verse? The next five words. And after she was baptized. So there is a fundamental change that has happened in Lydia as a result of Paul's preaching that was performed by God, by the

Lord. Do you think there's people in Sunday morning worship that aren't saved? Sure.

That would be accurate. Yes. And I think that that is one of the things that as parents, we're preaching gospel to our kids, but we're intimately aware of the reality that until God saves our children, they're not saved.

But that doesn't prevent us from teaching them the right things to do, which includes worship on Sunday morning.

That's correct. Yep. The last thing she said was, so the preacher doesn't ever preach with the effectual call. It's always only the general call.

And that's true. Um, I think there's, there's some, um, phraseology that, that we would use that would refer to the spirit, empowering the words of the preacher.

Um, and I think there's some truth to that in the sense that God is using the words of the preacher to affect someone, but that's still

God is performing the work on the heart. It's, it's not proceeding from, it's not the, the power is not proceeding from whoever is preaching the message.

Grudem here says the gospel call is general and external and often rejected. While the effectual call is particular internal and always effective.

However, this is not to diminish the importance of the gospel call. It is the means God has appointed through which effective calling will come.

Without the gospel call, no one could respond and be saved. Romans 10, how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?

Therefore, it is important to understand exactly what the gospel call is.

Sure, please. The gospel is the most important thing is how I would put that. I would, you know, when, when

I was a young man, when I was in high school, the guy who first preached the gospel to me, a lot of our conversations were exactly that.

And that's not surprising for someone like me. I have a very analytical mind. So, you know, getting into these kind of evolution, creation debates and stuff like that.

Those are the things that really got my mind thinking about, you know, okay, well, if this is something that I could believe in, then where does it all start?

Where does it all come from? And that drove me to the gospel to really desire to understand the gospel.

And then from that, come back and say, well, Jesus affirmed the Old Testament. So in light of that, you know, it wasn't that my friend won his, you know, debate about creation and evolution.

But it stirred up in me a desire to learn more about God. Now, would I prescribe that as the method by which we preach the gospel?

No, I probably wouldn't do that. But if we only had one opportunity, if we're on an airplane, you know, from Boston to New York, we've got 20 minutes.

I'm going to say, don't get into a creation evolution debate. Just preach the gospel. Four W's, you know, who is

God? Who is man? Why did Jesus have to die? What should our response to that be? Don't forget the resurrection. I've been well -trained.

Now, does anybody want to add to that? Yeah, there's a lot of missionary groups that teach in what they refer to,

I think, as the chronological method, where they start in Genesis, and they work their way through the

Old Testament before they get to Jesus Christ coming and the actions of Christ on earth. And I have mixed feelings about that.

I mean, I think that that usually will work. And a lot of the times that'll get presented in a situation where there is basically no

Western influence with the people that they're preaching to, and they know that they're going to have a long period of time where they can teach these people.

And so it makes the presentation of Christ that much more dramatic when they see what Israel has done and how

God has delivered Israel over and over and over again. And to see the complete manifestation of that in Christ is a tremendous thing.

And it is a very dramatic thing, especially when you're talking about people who may or may not really have any context apart from the knowledge that human beings are sinful, because I do think that that is innate in all of us.

I think it makes the gospel presentation a lot more powerful. But the flip side to that is, well, what about the people that die while you're working your way through this six -month process of, you know, they haven't heard the gospel?

And so there's work to sort of have a partial gospel presentation along with the whole thing and then culminate in Christ.

And I still have mixed feelings about that. But certainly that is a way that some of these missionary groups have structured their teaching to present

Christ. Right, right. Absolutely true. I completely agree with that. Yeah, I'm going to say that I don't think you can make the case that God is indwelling the message of the messenger with supernatural power.

Yes. So certainly a gospel message that is being preached will have a different effect on the unregenerate and the regenerate, or the unregenerate and the soon -to -be regenerate.

Well, absolutely, that is absolutely true, because there is a specific individual internal effectual call that is authored by Christ, that is authored by God.

It is the message about Christ. It is, but it is

God that will call, will, you know, will apply the message, but it's not indwelling the messenger with any power.

It's God coming alongside with the message and working on the heart of the soon -to -be regenerate.

Does that, I don't know if that satisfies your question? Yeah, I think there is.

There is absolutely a supernatural effect on a person. So regeneration comes next, and it's literally my next bullet point.

So the call is sparking the response, the desire of the person to respond.

It is effectual. It is irresistible. So that's causing a response in the other person.

And yes, functionally simultaneously with that is God regenerating the heart. And that's kind of why last week

I went into this big long diatribe about how many of these things are instantaneous and happen at the same time, but this is how we logically understand them to take place.

And so, yes, the effectual call and regeneration are functionally simultaneous, but in a logical order, the effectual call would precede regeneration.

Now I've scrolled while I was talking. Because there were like six different questions in that one question, so I don't want to gloss over anything inadvertently.

Was there anything else in there? Okay. All right. Any other questions?

Are we okay? Yeah, and I think Burkhoff touches on that, and there's absolutely truth to that.

But the only caveat that I would add to that is that man is responsible whether they hear the gospel call or not.

And so it's like icing on the cake of responsibility. That's a bad cake, but, you know, it's more evidence, but it's not the deciding point, right?

Because we see from Romans 1 that man's responsibility is made clear through the clear reality of God's existence.

And so, yes, that's true. But if we're going to have an apologetic conversation about the tribe in Papua New Guinea who has never heard the gospel, then on the flip side, we're saying, well, if you preach the gospel to somebody, now they're more responsible.

How do you describe the responsibility of that tribe who has never heard the gospel if one of your points that you're hinging on for reprobation is that you did not respond to the gospel?

I guess so. I think that the, I mean, they're condemned to hell, which is, you know, pretty much not great.

You know, let's throw that out there. You know, but I think it would be similar to when we see in James that Christians can reap rewards for good works that are not salvific, right?

And so, too, the appointment unto salvation versus the condemnation is not, that decision is, that action is completely removed from the equation when you talk about degrees of condemnation.

I think that that is more of a Catholic doctrine. Right. But I just want to step away from the idea of like seven circles of hell where depending on which sin you've committed,

I don't know that there's this dramatic sliding scale, but certainly almost the flip side to that rewards in heaven thing, there are going to be greater penalties.

You were a prairie dog in your hand. Do you have anything? That's okay. Yes. Yep.

I just think that Dante's Inferno was so ingrained in, you know, sort of the, there's a word that I'm looking for, but the popular western culture that I just,

I don't want us to snap all the way to that when we talk about bad and more bad. All right.

So, effectual call has an immediate effect. Once the soul of the sinner is called,

God regenerates them. So we are now on point four. We have made it through a single point in one week and we move on to regeneration.

We see an example of this in first Peter chapter one, starting verse 22, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.

Since you have been born again, not a perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.

For all flesh is like grass and all its glory, like the flower of grass, the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the

Lord remains forever. And this word that is the living and abiding word of God is the good news that was preached to you.

So as the general call goes out and we hear it at the right time, God causes a change in our heart.

We respond to the effectual call and we are regenerated. We are completely changed what we used to hate.

We now love what we used to love. We now hate. Burkoff describes regeneration like this.

He says regeneration is that act of God by which the principle of the new life is implanted in man and the governing disposition of the soul is made holy.

Now that does not say the person is made holy, but the governing disposition of their soul is made holy.

He lists three key aspects. Regeneration consists in the implanting of the principle of the new spiritual life in man, a radical change of the governing disposition of the soul.

It is an instantaneous change of man's nature, affecting at once the whole man intellectually, emotionally and morally.

And this is interesting. It is in its most limited sense a change that occurs in the subconscious life.

It is a secret and inscrutable work of God that is never directly perceived by man.

That's an interesting thought and I definitely want to develop this, but I will say that that is really helpful for those who have grown up in the church who can't say this is the point at which

I was regenerated. Some there is a radical conversion experience and they can say this is clearly when God changed my heart.

For others, they can't say, you know, I was six,

I was 12, I don't really know. At some point it had, you know, there's it is something that is never directly, directly perceived by man.

So if we look at John three, this is Jesus talking about the new birth.

To Nicodemus. When he talks about being born again, this is this idea of regeneration.

Chapter three, verse one. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the

Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.

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 again if 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. 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 it 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. He says the same thing three times in verse three.

Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus is still clueless. So he says, unless one is born of the water and of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Then in verse six, that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.

These statements by Jesus reinforce over and over again just how important it is that there is a fundamental change in our nature before we can see or enter, as he describes it, the kingdom of God.

And it is something that happens to us. When we look at this metaphor, we see a baby being born.

This idea of a baby being born. There have been a lot of babies born at BBC lately, for which I am very thankful.

But it's not something that they do. It's something that happens to them. A mother gives birth to a child.

Similarly, our regeneration is not something we can cause or affect, but it is something that God does to us.

R .C. Sproul wrote a book called What Does It Mean to Be Born Again? And in it, it's really a breaking down of spiritual regeneration and working through what regeneration is and what regeneration isn't.

And he lists five truths about regeneration. He says, number one, regeneration is a mystery.

Number two, regeneration is the beginning. Number three, regeneration is a sovereign work of God.

Number four, regeneration is immediate. And number five, regeneration is permanent.

I list them all off because we'll talk about these a little bit and I'd like to solicit some group discussion, but we have like 10 minutes.

So we're probably not going to get through them all, but that's OK. So the first one in this five -point bullet point is regeneration is a mystery.

This goes back to what Burkhoff said. This is this idea that we cannot directly perceive this act of regeneration in our hearts.

OK, now, that's a little strange. So to understand that, we can look at what

Jesus says to Nicodemus. And he says, the wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

Right. We cannot see the wind. It is not a directly perceivable thing. We can see the effects of the wind, but we cannot see wind.

If there's particulate in the air, we can observe the movement of the particulate and say clearly the wind is blowing.

But the wind itself is this kind of invisible force. We can't see it, but we can see the responses to that.

And when there is a radical conversion, that is what we see. The way it's described is,

God has changed my heart. I was immediately repentant. I was immediately giving glory to God.

These are the reactions to regeneration, right? And so we can see those effects. But the actual regeneration act, as we see in John chapter three, is something that may or may not be specific, that cannot be specifically conceived or observed by man.

Questions? Yeah. No, that was a spiral. Well, I mean, Birkhoff talks about it being perceived by the subconscious.

Well, because his response is one of confusion and amazement. We see that in verses one to six.

So Nicodemus is saying, what? He starts by saying, whoa, we know that you've come from God, but what are you talking about, is basically what he's saying.

And so, yeah, he's marveling at the statements of Jesus. So this is getting ahead of myself a little bit,

I think. But when we look at things like perseverance of the faith, right, and we'll get to regeneration as permanent.

But when we look at the testimony of the believer, it's not, you know, what have you done?

But it is, what are you doing? Not what did you believe, but what do you believe? And that is really how we can look to regeneration and understand regeneration, because it is an effect of regeneration that we believe what we do now.

Was there, did I see a hand? No, okay. The second thing that Sproul says is that regeneration is the beginning, right?

And we see this kind of over and over again in John 3, this idea of birth. The Christian's new life is a result of his new birth, his fundamentally changed spirit.

God made us alive. We see Ephesians 2. He brought us out of death and into life. And the process by which he does that is regeneration.

That is the active event that God wrought in our life. I think

Charlie used the word quickening before. This is that idea. God regenerates our heart.

He quickens our heart. And what's important, and this sort of dovetails in with that effectual call, is that this is something that is only performable by God.

This is not, nobody can regenerate someone or self -regenerate unless you're

Doctor Who. No self -regeneration. I'm not supposed to make Star Trek jokes, but I can make

Doctor Who jokes, right? So, regeneration is a mystery.

Regeneration is the beginning. And I touched on this. Regeneration is a sovereign work of God.

In other words, God exercises both his power but also his authority over us in his time and in his way to bring about the regeneration of those who would believe.

So, we talked about, I don't remember what the word was that you used, but we talked about this idea of convincing people to believe.

That's not what God does. God doesn't stand over here and say, well, it's really nice over here.

We have cookies. We're going to invite you with a big hug. It's a good time. You're going to have a great life.

That is not what God does when he regenerates us.

It is God coming inside of us. The way Sproul puts it, he says, God invades the soul because there has to be a substantive change in the heart before we can come to Christ.

In order for us to desire the things of God, we have to be made alive. And to be made alive requires a sovereign act of God.

When we talk about sovereignty, we're talking about both power and authority. Fourth point, Sproul.

Regeneration is immediate. This is not the same thing as instantaneous.

They're similar but different. The way Sproul puts it, by saying this, by saying that regeneration is immediate, we communicate that regeneration is instantaneous.

It happens in an instant. But in this case, the meaning of the word immediate goes beyond time.

To say that regeneration is immediate also means that it occurs without means.

It occurs without an intervening medium. Also, it means that it's a binary thing.

Sproul uses the example of being pregnant. Either you are or you are not. There's no almost.

Either you're alive or you're dead. Much to the chagrin of the children in the church, either you are four or you are five.

And then he says, and this is important, it is not important to know when you were born again, but it is critically important to know that you are born again.

Anybody want to add anything? I'm plowing through these. We'll be good. And the fifth one is that regeneration is permanent.

And I talked about this a little bit. I mentioned Perseverance of the Saints. When the Holy Spirit quickens you, you know, we know from Scripture that there is nothing that can take us out of the

Father's hand. We are permanently regenerated, and that includes ourselves. And it's kind of hard because in our finite understanding of this, if someone falls away from the faith, our response to that is they were never truly regenerate.

Which sounds like revisionist history, but ultimately it's a function of the reality that, to use once again

Charlie's terms, we exist on a time -space continuum, space -time continuum, and we cannot understand the things of God.

And this is a, when we talk about regeneration being permanent, this is a truth that exists outside of time.

This is permanent. This is before the foundation of the world. Well, I guess regeneration is an act, but we are elect for the foundation of the world.

This is not something that can ever, ever, ever be changed. So this is sort of a turning point in our list because regeneration is the point at which the sinner becomes the saint.

And not next week, but the week after I will be back, and we will look at what comes next.

Once God has regenerated the heart, this is, you all have sheets in front of you, this is cheating. What is the immediate response of the new believer?

Faith and repentance, right? Some people would put both of those under the banner of conversion. So on September 11th, we will talk about faith and repentance, but we are out of time, so I will close us in prayer, and then we will be dismissed.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for providing these truths to us, for giving us the ability to study your word.

Thank you, Father, that the word is so available to us that we would almost take it for granted, but help us, oh

God, not to do so. Convict our hearts, Father, that you have called us to obey you by preaching your word.

Help us to be faithful to you. Help us to keep our eyes fixed on your son, Jesus Christ. Be with us,