J. L. Packer is a well known Calvinist writer and author and he believes that regeneration precedes faith and that it is not the same as conversion. However, like Berkhof, he confesses that this was not the original view of the first Calvinists and Reformers.
J. L. Packer wrote:
"The Reformers reaffirmed the substance of Augustine's doctrine of prevenient grace, and Reformed theology still maintains it. Calvin used the term "regeneration" to cover man's whole subjective renewal, including conversion and sanctification. Many seventeenth century Reformed theologians equated regeneration with effectual calling and conversion with regeneration (hence the systematic mistranslation of epistrepho, "turn," as a passive, "be converted," in the AV); later Reformed theology has defined regeneration more narrowly, as the implanting of the "seed" from which faith and repentance spring (I John 3:9) in the course of effectual calling." (As cited by me previously - here)
"The Reformers reaffirmed the substance of Augustine's doctrine of prevenient grace, and Reformed theology still maintains it. Calvin used the term "regeneration" to cover man's whole subjective renewal, including conversion and sanctification. Many seventeenth century Reformed theologians equated regeneration with effectual calling and conversion with regeneration (hence the systematic mistranslation of epistrepho, "turn," as a passive, "be converted," in the AV); later Reformed theology has defined regeneration more narrowly, as the implanting of the "seed" from which faith and repentance spring (I John 3:9) in the course of effectual calling." (As cited by me previously - here)
What "later Reformed theology" did when it redefined the term "regeneration" and made it something different from conversion was to create confusion which led to departures from orthodoxy, giving birth to Hyper Calvinism, Antinomianism, and Hardshellism.
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