Is all grace given to men irresistible, or never given in vain? If grace is irresistible in regeneration, as Calvinists teach, does this mean that grace before or after initial regeneration or rebirth is likewise irresistible? How does a belief in "common grace" relate to "irresistible grace"? How does "prevenient grace" relate to what may be called "preparatory" grace or "preparationism" as in Puritan theology? What about conviction of sin? Does it precede or follow the grace of the birth of the Spirit? If it precedes, is it then an example of prevenient grace? Is conviction of sin a gracious work of God that always brings salvation? What about the experience of sinners being "awakened"? Is it regeneration or a preparation for it? Are there means that God uses to bring about the new birth? If yes, are those means examples of prevenient grace? Is there any gracious work that God does in the hearts and minds of sinners prior to their salvation, or is regeneration the first work?
Is it true, as many claim, that a belief in prevenient grace is peculiar to Armianism? Or, are there Calvinists who believe in prevenient grace? Does the grace of faith precede regeneration? If so, is the giving of faith not an example of prevenient grace? Does divine giving of light precede giving life, or does illumination or enlightenment, or the giving of saving knowledge, precede salvation? If yes, is this illumination an example of prevenient grace? These are some of the questions we will address in this series, and is a subject I have been wanting to write for some time but have been busy with other topical series.
I will begin this series with a citation from the great theologian John Owen, a Calvinist. Owens wrote (emphasis mine).
"First, in reference to the work of regeneration itself, positively considered, we may observe that ordinarily there are certain previous and preparatory works, or workings in and upon the souls of men, that are antecedent and dispositive to regeneration. Yet regeneration does not consist in them, nor can it be educed out of them." (From Pneumatologia; "Works of the Holy Spirit Prepatory to Regeneration" as cited here)
This citation answers one of our questions. It shows that a belief in prevenient grace, what Owen calls "preparatory works," is not unique to John Wesley nor to Arminians. As we will see in this series, Owen is not alone, for there are other Calvinists who believe in some version of prevenient grace.
First, we need to define "prevenient grace." The word "prevenient" needs clarification first. It means what comes before, coming from Latin. Just as the word "convenient" means a "coming together," so prevenient means a coming before. It is similar, in the KJV or 1611 English, to the word "prevent," which in today's English means to keep something from happening, but in old English it meant to precede. So we read such texts as this: "I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried: I hoped in thy word." (Psa. 119: 47) The Psalmist is not saying, of course, that he kept the dawning of the morning from occurring, but that he got up before the dawn to cry to the Lord in prayer. We also read in the new testament where Jesus is said to have "prevented" the coming of Peter into the house, which means he went in before Peter. (Matt. 17: 25)
The great Calvinist theologian Charles Hodge in his Systematic Theology, volume II, Chapter 14, under "Vocation," and under "common grace," wrote (emphasis mine):
"Hence it is that the greatest of all gifts secured by the work of Christ, that without which salvation had been impossible, the Holy Ghost, in the influence which He exerts on the minds of men, has in all ages and in all parts of the Church been designated as divine grace. A work of grace is the work of the Holy Spirit; the means of grace, are the means by which, or in connection with which, the influence of the Spirit is conveyed or exercised. By common grace, therefore, is meant that influence of the Spirit, which in a greater or less measure, is granted to all who hear the truth. By sufficient grace is meant such kind and degree of the Spirit’s influence, as is sufficient to lead men to repentance, faith, and a holy life. By efficacious grace is meant such an influence of the Spirit as is certainly effectual in producing regeneration and conversion. By preventing grace is intended that operation of the Spirit on the mind which precedes and excites its efforts to return to God. By the gratia gratum faciens is meant the influence of the Spirit which renews or renders gracious. Cooperating grace is that influence of the Spirit which aids the people of God in all the exercises of the divine life. By habitual grace is meant the Holy Spirit as dwelling in believers; or, that permanent, immanent state of mind due to his abiding presence and power. Such is the established theological and Christian usage of this word. By grace, therefore, in this connection is meant the influence of the Spirit of God on the minds of men."
This again shows that some Calvinists do not reject either common grace or prevenient grace. He also rightly equates the work or influence of the Spirit with grace. He also connects any means that God uses to effect salvation as graces. He defines "prevenient grace" with "that operation of the Spirit on the mind which precedes and excites its efforts to return to God." He also says that such views of grace are "the established theological and Christian usage of" the word "grace." I agree with Owen and Hodge on this question. I get irritated when I hear people say, especially bible teachers who should know better, that Calvinists 1) believe that regeneration or rebirth precedes faith, and 2) deny prevenient grace and call such Arminianism. Neither is true. I have numerous articles in this blog that show that many great Calvinists, like John Calvin himself, believed that men were born again by faith and in prevenient grace.
Hodge wrote further:
"The Influences of the Spirit granted to all Man. That there is a divine influence of the Spirit granted to all men, is plain both from Scripture and from experience."
There are many bible texts which teach this truth and we will examine some of them in this series. Hodge gives several examples. In one example of them he wrote:
"The martyr Stephen (Acts vii. 51) tells the Jews, “As your fathers did...ye do always resist the ‘Holy Ghost,” as the prophet Isaiah lxiii. 10, said of the men of his generation, that they vexed God’s Holy Spirit. The Spirit, therefore, is represented as striving with the wicked, and with all men. They are charged with resisting, grieving, vexing, and quenching his operations."
If the Holy Spirit was active in urging and influencing those who rejected him, was this activity an act of grace? Was it not resisted? Was this influence of the Spirit upon the unregenerate not an example of prevenient grace?
J. L. Packer, well known theologian, 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." (See my previous posting for this citation here)
Both Arminians and Calvinists believe in such grace, although Hyper Calvinists and those who put regeneration before faith and evangelical conversion generally deny it. Notice how Packer admits that Augustine believed in prevenient grace. Packer also wrote (See here):
"Regeneration is the work of what Augustine called “prevenient” grace, the grace that precedes our outgoings of heart toward God."
But, this is where Packer and Hyper Calvinists get it wrong. Regeneration or being born of God is not to be equated with the workings of God that leads to it. Packer is implying that Augustine believed that there was no preceding grace or preceding work of the Spirit in a person prior to his rebirth. In this statement he makes Augustine to contradict himself. Why would he do this? Especially since he has already admitted that Augustine believed in prevenient grace? And admitted that "Reformed theology still maintains it"?
In "Prevenient Grace," a sermon by the famous Charles Haddon Spurgeon in 1865, we find that this great Calvinist likewise believed in prevenient grace. He said (emphasis mine):
"I selected this text, not so much for its own sake, as to give me an opportunity for saying a little this evening upon a doctrine not often touched upon, namely, that of PREVENIENT GRACE, or the grace which comas before regeneration and conversion. I think we sometimes overlook it. We do not attach enough importance to the grace of God in its dealings with men before he actually brings them to himself."
I agree with this observation of Spurgeon. Many Calvinists reject it outright because they think it is an Arminian tenet, and they do so without investigating the matter.
Spurgeon said further:
"Now, when I look at the life of a man, even before conversion, I think I can discover something of God’s moulding and fashioning in him even before regenerating grace comes into his heart. Let me give you an illustration of my course of thought. When God created man—we are told in the book of Genesis—he made him “out of the dust of the earth.” Mark him beneath his Maker’s hand, the framework of a man, the tabernacle for an immortal soul; a man made of clay, fully made, I suppose, and perfect in all respects excepting one, and that soon followed: for after God had formed him out of the dust, then he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Now it strikes me that during the early part of the history of the people whom God means to save, though they have not received into their hearts any spiritual life, nor experienced any of the work of regeneration, yet their life before conversion is really a working of them in the clay."
Those Calvinists, or Hyper Calvinists, who put regeneration or rebirth before faith and repentance, or before evangelical conversion, do not believe that there is any pre-regeneration gracious acts of the Spirit but have made "regeneration" to be "the first act of God" upon a sinner in effecting regeneration, and thus deny that there is any such pre-regeneration acts of grace. I wrote about this in this post (here). I showed that these Calvinists define regeneration as solely what God does to the exclusion of what God effects in so doing. In that post I wrote the following and cited the words of the great Calvinist theologian Archibald Alexander, from his work titled "A Practical View of Regeneration" (Published in The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, volume 8, 1836), in which I gave these introductory words and then gave what Alexander wrote (See here):
"Another error of those who separate regeneration from conversion, faith, and repentance, is to define "regeneration" simply as respects the "cause," whereas biblical "regeneration" includes both causes and effects, and primarily focuses upon the effect. On this point the great head of Princeton Seminary, Archibald Alexander wrote:
"Evangelical repentance, conversion and regeneration, are substantially the same. They all signify a thorough change of views, affections, purposes and conduct; and this change is every where declared to be essential to salvation."
"Curious inquiries respecting the way in which the word is instrumental in the production of this change are not for edification. Sometimes regeneration is considered distinctly from the acts and exercises of the mind which proceed from it, but in the Holy Scriptures the cause and effect are included; and we shall therefore treat the subject in this practical and popular form. The instrumentality of the word can never derogate from the efficient agency of the Spirit in this work. The Spirit operates by and through the word. The word derives all its power and penetrating energy from the Spirit. Without the omnipotence of God the word would be as inefficient as clay and spittle, to restore sight to the blind."
I then made these comments on these words of Alexander:
"Alexander pinpoints the error of those Hyper Calvinists who restrict the definition of regeneration to include only the "cause." He correctly states that the scriptures include what is effected in the definition. A man cannot then be said to have been "regenerated" who lacked the "effects," or constituent elements of regeneration. In other words, a man cannot be said to have been "saved" who lacks the "things which accompany salvation." Thus, to say a man is regenerated before he believes and repents is to define regeneration strictly by the cause to the exclusion of the effect."
Alexander also wrote:
"Ezekiel was commanded to prophesy over the dry bones in the valley of vision. Thus ministers are now sent to call upon those who are dead in trespasses and sins, to awake and arise from the dead, but none will obey their voice, unless a divine power accompanies their words...That the word of God is indeed the instrument or means of producing this change is evident from many plain testimonies of Scripture..."
I then made these observations on what Alexander said:
"Those Hyper Calvinists who limit their definition of the word "regeneration" to the cause of the change, to the exclusion of the effect, or actual change, greatly err. Alexander is correct to affirm that scripture defines the experience of regeneration in such a way as to include the effect, or to what is actually effected by the cause of regeneration."
As we will see, Spurgeon also spoke of the story of Ezekiel and the dry bones to illustrate how there are things that happen to a sinner before his being brought to life. This story was one of the means for me rejecting Hardshellism and Hyper Calvinism and the idea that God does not use the preaching of the gospel as a means in raising dead sinners to spiritual life. God used Ezekiel's prophesying to the dead bones to resurrect them.
Spurgeon said further:
"You would, perhaps, say that all I have talked about as yet has been providence rather than grace. Very likely, but I think that providence and grace are very near akin; at any rate if providence is the wheel, grace is the hand which turns and guides it. But I am now about to speak of GRACE PRECEDING CALLING IN ANOTHER SENSE."
Calvinists almost universally agree that the elect will be kept from dying until they have been effectually called and often use Jude 1: 1 to prove it, where Jude says "preserved in Jesus Christ and called." Would that preservation not be an act of grace?
Spurgeon said further:
"It strikes me that it is impossible to say, concerning the elect, when the grace of God begins to deal with them. You can tell when the quickening grace comes, but not when the grace itself comes."
There is certainly grace given to sinners before he saves them.
Spurgeon said further:
"I should say that there is what I cannot call by any other name than formative grace, exercised upon the vessels of mercy at their very birth. It seems to me to be no small mercy that some of us were born of such parents as we were, and that we were born where we were. Some of us began right, and were surrounded by many advantages. We were cradled upon the lap of piety, and dandled upon the knee of holiness."
These are providential means that prepare the way for a sinner's regeneration.
Spurgeon said further:
"This formative grace many of you, I have no doubt, can trace in the examples and influences which have followed you from the cradle through life. Why, what a blessing to have had such a Sunday-school teacher as some of you had! Other children went to schools, but they had not such a teacher, or such a class as yours. What a privilege to have had such a minister as some of you had, though perhaps he has fallen asleep now!...Furthermore, while there was this formative grace, there seems to me to have gone with it very much of preventive grace."
Again, all means that God may use in his providence to prepare a sinner for his salvation may be called examples of prevenient grace.
Spurgeon said further:
"Beloved, I have thanked God a thousand times in my life, that before my conversion, when I had ill desires I had no opportunities; and on the other hand, that when I had opportunities I had no desires; for when desires and opportunities come together like the flint and steel, they make the spark that kindles the fire, but neither the one nor the other, though they may both be dangerous, can bring about any very great amount of evil so long as they are kept apart. Let us, then, look back, and if this has been our experience bless the preventing grace of God."
I too have thanked God a thousand times also for things he did in my life prior to my being born of the Spirit, things which kept me from going over the abyss, from my heart being hardened by divine judgment, even from suicide.
Spurgeon said further:
"Again, there is another form of grace I must mention, namely, restraining grace. Here, you see, I am making a distinction. There are many who did go into sin; they were not wholly prevented from it, but they could go as far into it as they wanted to do...Oh! how often God has thrown a man on a sick bed to make him well!"
Indeed we see restraining grace at work in the lives of God's elect before he calls them.
Spurgeon said further:
"We shall get still further into the subject when we come to what Dr. John Owen calls the preparatory work of grace. Have you ever noticed that parable about the different sorts of ground, and the sower of the seeds? A sower went forth to sow, and some of the seed fell on stony ground; you can understand that, because all men have stones in their hearts. Some fell on the thorns and thistles; you can comprehend that, because men are so given to worldly care. Another part of the seed fell on the beaten path; you can understand that—men are so occupied with worldliness. But how about the “good ground”? “Good ground”! Is there such a thing as “good ground” by nature? One of the evangelists says that it was “honest and good ground.” Now, is there such a difference between hearts and hearts? Are not all men depraved by nature? Yes, he who doubts human depravity had better begin to study himself. Question: If all hearts are bad how are some hearts good? Reply: They are good comparatively; they are good in a certain sense. It is not meant in the parable that that good ground was so good that it ever would have produced a harvest without the sowing of the seed, but that it had been prepared by providential influences upon it to receive the seed, and in that sense it may be said to have been “good ground.”"
I have already cited from Owen and will yet cite him further in the next chapter. Hyper Calvinists who deny that the word of God is a means in effecting salvation, be it regeneration or rebirth, will argue that the heart being good and honest in the parable means that it was regenerated, and so they say regeneration precedes the sowing of the seed of the word of God and cannot therefore be a means in making the heart good. However, both Owen and Spurgeon are correct in declaring that this honest and good heart is what preceded salvation. That is clear in the parable, for the result of receiving the seed was salvation, so the heart being good and honest could not denote salvation. (See Luke 8: 12)
Spurgeon said further:
"Now let me show you how God’s grace does come to work on the human heart so as to make it good soil before the living seed is cast into it, so that before quickening grace really visits it the heart may be called a good heart, because it is prepared to receive that grace. I think this takes place thus: first of all, before quickening grace comes, God often gives an attentive ear, and makes a man willing to listen to the Word. Not only does he like to listen to it, but he wants to know the meaning of it; there is a little excitement in his mind to know what the gospel tidings really are. He is not saved as yet, but it is always a hopeful sign when a man is willing to listen to the truth, and is anxious to understand it. This is one thing which prevenient grace does in making the soil good. In Ezekiel’s vision, as you will recollect, before the breath came from the four winds the bones began to stir, and they came together bone to his bone. So, before the Spirit of God comes to a man in effectual calling, God’s grace often comes to make a stir in the man’s mind, so that he is no longer indifferent to the truth, but is anxious to understand what it means."
I agree completely. God certainly gave an "attentive ear" to Lydia before she heard and believed the gospel preached by Paul. The record is that "the Lord opened her heart so that she attended to the things spoken by Paul." (Acts 16: 14) I wrote on this text in this post (here). I showed that the Hyper Calvinist view that this opening of the heart was regeneration was false. They interpret the text in this way in order to prove their thesis that says 1) regeneration comes before faith and 2) the word of God is no means in effecting regeneration. In that post I also cited what Spurgeon said in his rejection of this view. I cite where Spurgeon said the following in preaching upon this text:
"We do not well if we forget the prevenient providences which work before our conversion, to bring us unto that spot where God was pleased to manifest himself unto us."
"Observe next, that in Lydia's case there was not only preventing providence, but there was also grace in a certain manner preparing the soul. The woman did not know the Saviour; she did not understand the things which make for her peace, yet she knew many truths which were excellent stepping-stones to a knowledge of Jesus."
"She worshipped God; worshipped him in sincerity; worshipped him looking for the coming of the Messiah, Israel's consolation; and so her mind was prepared for the reception of the gospel. Doubtless, dear friends, in many of us there was a preparation for Christ before Christ came to us in quickening grace."
"Still, dear friends, we ought to ascribe all this preparatory work to sovereign grace, for grace—free favour does much in which no grace of effectual salvation is perceptible. I mean that before grace renews the heart there is grace preparing us for grace; grace may be setting the mind in activity, clearing us from prejudice, ridding us of a thousand infidel and sceptical thoughts, and so raising a platform from which divine grace conducts us into the region of the new life. Such was the case of Lydia, such is the case of many; providence and grace co-work before the effectual time is come."
"Note again, for we will only hint at these things rather than dwell upon them, that it was assuredly a work of grace, for we are expressly told, “whose heart the Lord opened.” She did not open her own heart. Her prayers did not do it; Paul did not do it; the Lord himself must open the heart, to receive the things which make for our peace. To operate savingly upon human hearts belongs to God alone."
"...although the Lord opened the heart, Paul’s words were the instrument of her conversion. The heart may be opened, and willing to receive, but then if truth enter not, what would be the use of an open door? But God always takes care to open the heart at a time when the messenger of mercy shall be going by, that the heart may give him admittance." ("Lessons from Lydia’s Conversion" - here)
Spurgeon said further in his sermon on prevenient grace:
"The next mark of this gracious work is an ingenuousness of heart. Some persons will not hear you, or if they do they are always picking holes and finding fault, they are not honest and good ground. But there are others who say, “I will give the man a fair and an honest hearing; I will read the Bible; I will read it, too, honestly; I will really see whether it be the Word of God or not, I will come to it without any prejudices; or, if I have any prejudices I will throw them aside.” Now, all this is a blessed work of preparatory grace, making the heart ready to receive effectual calling."
I look back upon my own conversion and see how God had prepared me by prevenient grace prior to my actual conversion.
Spurgeon said further:
"Then, when this willingness and ingenuousness are attended with a tender conscience, as they are in some unconverted people, this is another great blessing. Some of you are not converted, but you would not do wrong; you are not saints, but you would not tell a lie for the world. I thank God that there are some of you so excellent in morals, that if you were proposed to us for Church-membership, we could not raise any objection to you on that ground, at any rate. You are as honest as the day is long: as for the things of God, you are outwardly as attentive to them, and as diligent in them, as the most earnest and indefatigable Christians. Now, this is because your conscience is tender. When you do wrong you cannot sleep at night; and you do not feel at all easy in being without a Saviour—I know some of you do not. You have not come to any decision; the grace of God has not really made you feel your thoroughly ruined state; still you are not quite easy...You know you have not believed in Jesus Christ, and the world keeps you back from doing so; but still there is a kind of twitching in your conscience; you do not know what it is, but there is a something got into you that makes you say at times, “O God, let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his;” yes, and you even go farther than this, and ask to live the righteous man’s life too. Now, remember, this will not save you: “Ye must be born again.” But for all this the Church of God should feel deeply grateful, for they have seen in themselves that this is often God’s preparatory work—clearing away the rubbish and rubble, and digging out the foundations, that Jesus Christ might be laid therein, the corner-stone of future hope and of future happiness."
Years ago when I was working with Bob L. Ross of Pilgrim Publications, and author of several scholarly books, we talked about regeneration in the context of the errors thereupon by Hardshells and Hyper Calvinists and I recall him saying about the "ordo salutis" that they place regeneration "too soon" in their paradigm. What we would call pre-regeneration workings of the Spirit they would call regeneration. This is evident when we discuss what is called "conviction of sin," an experience that occurs prior to conversion. Hardshells say that conviction of sin is evidence of regeneration while Arminians and many Calvinists say it is what precedes regeneration. In my series titled "The Hardshell Baptist Cult" I have some chapters on "Conviction of Sin." (See here, here, here)
Spurgeon said further:
"Another work of grace is the creation of dissatisfaction with their present state. How many men we have known who were consciously “without God and without hope in the world.” The apples of Sodom had turned to ashes and bitterness in their mouth, though at one time all was fair and sweet to their taste. The mirage of life with them has been dispelled, and instead of the green fields, and waving trees, and rippling waters, which their fevered imagination had conjured up in the desert, they can see now nought but the arid sand and wasteness of desolation, which appal their fainting spirits, and promise nothing; no, not even a grave to cover their whited bones, which shall remain a bleached memorial that “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Multitudes have been brought to see the deluge of sin which has covered even the high places of the earth, they find no rest for the sole of their foot, but as yet they know not of an ark, nor of a loving hand prepared to pull them in, as did Noah the dove in olden time. Look at the life of St. Augustine, how wearily he wanders hither and thither with a death thirst in his soul, that no fount of philosophy, or scholastic argument, or heretical teaching could ever assuage. He was aware of his unhappy estate, and turned his eye round the circle of the universe looking for peace, not fully conscious of what he wanted, though feeling an aching void the world could never fill. He had not found the centre, fixed and stedfast, around which all else revolved in ceaseless change. Now, all this appetite, this hunger and thirst, I look upon as not of the devil, nor of the human heart alone, it was of God. He strips us of all our earthly joy and peace, that, shivering in the cold blast, we might flee, when drawn by his Spirit, to the “Man who is as a hiding-place from the storm, a covert from the tempest, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”
This is what occurred to me before I was born of the Spirit. The Lord showed me the vanity of life, of my life, wherein I saw my future life as not worth living, as bringing forth more evils than good, and so death seemed like a good way to prevent it. The Lord also showed me that I was lost and condemned and that if I did kill myself that I would not be any better off, but in a far worse state. When I was thus made to see my lost condition by the working of God's grace, God was not lying to me, as the Hardshells who believe that conviction of sin is evidence of a saved state. If God was telling me that I was lost and yet I was not really lost, then that would make God a liar. I have written on this several times. See this post as an example. (here)
Is God showing kindness an act of grace? Is God being good to all also an example of his grace?
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