Sword & Trowel 2015: Issue 1 


readers it was useless trying to per- suade them about salvation, they are urged to go and place themselves un- der preaching in the hope that God would suddenly regenerate them to instant conversion. Now this entirely passive view of


regeneration has become extremely popular among Calvinists today. It is not mainline Calvinism, but it is becoming so, and is destroying bibli- cal persuasive Gospel preaching. It says that you should state only the basic facts of redemption and leave every- thing to the Lord. But Paul was not wasting his time


nor were the other apostles when they preached persuasively, because they understood regeneration far better than we do. They knew, of course, that it came fi rst in the work of salvation, imparting life, opening the mind and heart, inclining the will, and convicting of sin, but they still persuaded sinners and remonstrated as though their words would be instrumental. We are often told that the reason


we must make a free offer of the Gospel, a universal tender of sal- vation, is that we do not know who the elect are. While this is perfectly true, it is not the chief reason for the preaching of the Gospel. We must proclaim the Gospel with persuasive reason- ing and urging because it is God’s will that the elect (once enabled by regenerating life) should be personally convinced


and persuaded in their conscious minds. It is not the way of God, as one described it, to just ‘zap’ people so that they are instantly and totally converted without any conscious, in- telligent involvement in the event. It is the will of God that people will be consciously awakened and convicted to experience a sincere desire for God’s mercy and a change of think- ing. They must see their need, and what Christ has done, and come (as the old confessions say) most freely and willingly to Jesus Christ. Cer- tainly they will only come because there has been an imparting of life by the Spirit’s regenerating power, yet the way of conversion is conscious and willing.


It is God’s way We are called to make a persuasive


presentation of the Gospel because it is God’s way of bringing the redeemed into his kingdom. When we are gathered into eternal glory, our cry of gratitude will be, ‘I was humbled to the dust; I felt my spir- itual emptiness and need; I saw my desperately sinful state; I grasped how evil and foolish I was; I saw the Christ of Calvary, and I came to him longingly, willingly and freely for salvation.’


It is the will of God that preachers, witnessing believers, and the printed


‘Physicians of Souls’ published by Wakeman Trust includes a chapter, ‘What Mental Model Should We Have for Conversion?’


page 10 Regeneration and Gospel Persuasion


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