In looking at the conviction of sin in terms of conversion, it might strike modern people as rather odd. But this is the position of the 1689 Confession, the Westminster Confession, and it was the position of the Puritans. It might seem to some that there is a conflict with the free offer of the Gospel, but that is not how the Confessions looked at it. Let me once again quote from Chapter 7 of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith.
“It pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace, wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved; and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life, his Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe.”
Q. 30. How does the Holy Spirit apply to us the redemption Christ bought? A. The Spirit applies to us the redemption Christ bought by producing faith in us and so uniting us to Christ in our effective calling.
Q. 31. What is effective calling? A. Effective calling is the work of God’s Spirit, Who convinces us that we are sinful and miserable, Who enlightens our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and Who renews our wills. This is how He persuades and makes us able to receive Jesus Christ, Who is freely offered to us in the gospel. (Westminster Shorter Catechism in Modern English)
Q. 72. What is justifying faith? A. Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness… (Westminster Larger Catechism)
The free offer is the proclamation of the Gospel to all men. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is to be proclaimed to all people. However, this does not mean we are to proclaim the Gospel as if it depended on man to comply with the demands of the Gospel. Men are born dead in sins and trespasses and they must be made willing and able to believe by the work of the Holy Spirit. B.B. Warfield wrote about the real or primary issue with Calvinism. It is not the doctrine of election in and of itself, but it is the effectual call. In other words, people can have some form of belief that they are Calvinists and believe in the doctrine of election, but the real issue is what they believe about irresistible grace. That is perhaps the main issue that separates Calvinism from Arminianism.
“Thus it comes about that the doctrine of monergistic regeneration-or as it was phrased by the older theologians, or “irresistible grace” or “effectual calling.”-is the hinge of the Calvinistic soteriology, and lies much more deeply embedded in the system than the doctrine of predestination itself which is popularly looked upon as its hall-mark. Indeed, the soteriological significance of predestination to the Calvinist consists in the safeguard it affords to monergistic regeneration-to purely supernatural salvation. What lies at the heart of his soteriology is the absolute exclusion of the creaturely element in the initiation of the saving process, that so the pure grace of God may be magnified. Only so could he express his sense of man’s complete dependence as sinner on the free mercy of a saving God; or extrude the evil leaven of Synergism (q.v.) by which, as he clearly sees, God is robbed of His glory and man is encouraged to think that he owes to some power, some act of choice, some initiative of his own, his participation in that salvation which is in reality all of grace. There is accordingly nothing against which Calvinism sets its face with more firmness than every form and degree of autosoterism. Above everything else, it is determined that God, in His Son Jesus Christ, acting through the Holy Spirit whom He has sent, shall be recognized as our veritable Saviour. To it sinful man stands in need not of inducements or assistance to save himself, but of actual saving; and Jesus Christ has come not to advise, urge, or induce, or aid him to save himself, but to save him. This is the root of Calvinistic soteriology; and it is because this deep sense of human helplessness and this profound consciousness of indebtedness for all that enters into salvation to the free grace of God is the root for its soteriology that to it the doctrine of election becomes the cor cordis of the Gospel. He who knows that it is God who has chosen him and not he who has chosen God, and that he owes his entire salvation in all its processes and in every one of its stages to the choice of God, would be an ingrate indeed if he gave not the glory of his salvation solely to the inexplicable elective love of God.” (Calvin and Calvinism, B.B. Warfield)
What you see lined up one after the other are Reformed Confessions and then the powerful point by Warfield that irresistible grace or the effectual call is really the true hall-mark of Calvinism. Monergistic regeneration is the real issue at hand. Monergism simply has the idea of one worker or a solo worker. Monergistic regeneration is when God is the sole worker in regenerating souls. A lot of non-Reformed thinking about irresistible grace and mondergistic regeneration can be hidden underneath a claim to believe in election. But far more serious than that, is the fact that if we are not clear to some degree on this we will leave those we evangelize trusting in themselves to some degree. The Westminster Larger Confession speaks of man “being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition.” Can a person really believe in Christ alone until a person sees that s/he has no ability in self and no one else does either to rescue him or her from that lost condition? Can a person truly understand the effectual call or irresistible grace unless s/he understands his or her own inability? Can salvation by grace alone be consistently proclaimed apart from teaching the inability of man to save himself or contribute to salvation anything at all?
As we have seen in previous newsletters, conviction of sin is not the work of man or something man must do himself in order to be saved. A true conviction of sin is the work of the Holy Spirit. A true conviction of sin is one of the steps of the Holy Spirit in the souls of those He is applying the redemption of Christ and Christ Himself in. The Spirit begins with a soul that is dead in sins and trespasses and works in it so that it will receive and partake of the life of God. That is eternal life. The soul that is dead in sins must see that it is dead in order to see what true life is and how that is to be sought. If men are not convicted of their sinful nature, then they will not be convicted of the true nature of sin. It is not just that the inability of the soul is a teaching that may or may not be taught, but it is what the nature of sin is. Jesus told us that the soul that everyone that commits sin is a slave to sin (John 8:34). Those words mean something and they get to the real heart of sin. As long as we withhold the information from people that they are in bondage to sin, they will not truly be convicted of sin as it is and of their lost condition. If they are not convicted of their truly lost and helpless condition, they will not understand the import of the Gospel of life. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is for dead sinners and it brings the life of God to and in the soul.
The Puritan John Flavel wrote a book entitled The Method of Grace. This series of articles has spoken about the methods and steps of the Holy Spirit. The two ideas are synonymous rather than contradictory. In the first section Flavel covers The Nature of the Spirit’s Application of Christ to Men. In this he deals with the effectual application of Christ to men, union with Christ, saving faith, and fellowship with God. In the second section he deals with the Subject Applied in a Solemn Invitation to Come to Christ, with Motives from His Titles and Benefits. In the third section, he gets to the subject we are dealing with. Remember that the title of the book is The Method of Grace. We are looking at how grace does the job of applying the redemption of Christ. The titles of the four chapters in this section are as follows: 1) Necessity of being slain by the law. 2) Necessity of being slain by the law,–Continued. 3) Necessity of being “taught of God.” 4) Necessity of being “taught of God,”-continued.
Here is one Puritan outlining the steps of the Holy Spirit of the method that God takes in His grace of applying salvation. This is in direct correlation with the Westminster Confession and the 1689 Baptist Confession. Flavel and the Confessions did not look at being slain by the law as anything but a necessity. Romans 7:9, the text that Flavel used, says this: “I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died.” Until we see the judgments of the Law weighing on our hearts and the Spirit brings this conviction to the depths of the soul, we will not die to self and the life of Christ is not in our souls. The Law brings us to the death of self and our own self-righteousness and all our efforts so that we will be like the tax collector who did nothing and trusted in nothing of self but was left with nothing but a cry to God for mercy (Lk 18:13). Until we feel the weight of the Law and its judgment on our souls and the death of our sinful natures, we will not know what it means to be weary and heavy laden. After all, it is only the weary and the heavy laden that Christ calls to Himself (Mat 11:25ff). Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but only the sinners (Mat 9:13). Until a person is broken from his own strength and his own righteousness, s/he will not look away from self to Christ for life. Until that death to self occurs, people look to themselves in some way rather than to Christ alone. Until we see ourselves as dead and helpless before God, we will not look to the Spirit to work monergistic regeneration in our souls.
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