Prevenient Grace (3)

Is being convicted of sin and guilt evidence of a saved state, or a step towards it? The Hardshell Baptists teach that it is evidence of a prior regeneration, as do some other Hyper Calvinists. If it precedes being saved, then is it not an example of prevenient grace? If it follows regeneration, then this would make the Holy Spirit a liar if he is the one who is bringing the sinner to believe he is lost when he in actuality is not lost. Further, there are many sinners who know they are guilty and going to Hell and who do not believe in Jesus, and to affirm that they are saved is an absurdity, biblically speaking. I have heard many hardened criminals tell other criminals "see you in hell my friend." Is the knowledge that they are going to Hell evidence of salvation?

Conviction of Sin and Guilt

In the Christian hymn "Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy" there is a line that says "Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream; all the fitness He requireth is to feel your need of Him." This statement is based upon the teaching of Jesus as given in this instance.

"And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, "Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." (Luke 5: 30-32 nkjv)

Of course, there is no one who does not need repentance, but Jesus alludes to the Pharisees "who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others" (Luke 18: 9). They believed that they were not spiritually sick nor unrighteous. No one is effectually "called," brought to repentance, and healed of sin by the great physician who does not first call for Dr. Jesus, and no one will call upon him who has not first come to see that he needs such a physician to remedy his unrighteously sick and condemned condition. So, the only fitness or preceding grace needed for salvation is to feel your need for Christ and his salvation.

In the hymn "Paradox" by Joseph Hart (1712-1768), this fact is affirmed in the second line which says of lost sinners -- "Nor can he be expected to be perfectly saved till he finds himself utterly lost."

1 How strange is the course that a Christian must steer! How perplexed is the path he must tread! The hope of his happiness rises from fear, And his life he receives from the dead.

2 His fairest pretensions must wholly be waived, And his best resolutions be crossed; Nor can he expect to be perfectly saved, Till he finds himself utterly lost.

3 When all this is done, and his heart is assured Of the total remission of sins, When his pardon is signed and his peace is procured, From that moment his conflict begins.

In another hymn the same truth stated in these lines:

1 Come all ye mourning pilgrims,
Who feel your need of Christ,
Surrounded by temptation,
And by the world despis'd ;
Attend to what I tell you,
My exercise I'll show,
And then you may inform me
If it's been so with you.

2 Long time I liv'd in darkness,
Nor saw my dismal state,
And when I was awaken'd
I thought it was too late
A lost and helpless sinner
Myself I plainly saw,
Expos'd to God's displeasure,
Condemned by the law.

3 I thought the brute creation
Were better off than me
I spent my days in anguish,
No pleasure could I see,
Through deep distress and sorrow
My Saviour led me on,
Then show'd his love unto me
When all my hope was gone.

4 But when I was deliver'd,
I scarcely can believe
To think so vile a sinner
A pardon could receive.
And when the solemn praises
Were flowing from my tongue,
Yet fears were often rising,
That I might still be wrong.

5 But when these fears were banish'd,
My tears began to flow,
To think so vile a sinner
Should be beloved so.
I thought my trials over,
And all my troubles gone,
That peace and joy and pleasure
Would be my lot alone.

In the second stanza the state of conviction is well described and is the state of the sinner before he was delivered. He was in darkness and in a dismal state, but did not realize it, until he was "awakened." He at that point thought it was too late and saw further that he was a "lost and helpless sinner exposed to God's displeasure and condemned by his law." If however, this state of conviction was the result of the Holy Spirit opening his eyes to see himself as he really was, and was an evidence of his previous regeneration, then of course the Holy Spirit convicted him of a falsehood. So, it is evident that this conviction was an example of prevenient grace and was a pre-regeneration work of the Spirit. His awakening and sense of guilt and condemnation brought gloom and a sense of doom, but when he was delivered he was freed from this burden and found joy and began to praise God. This experience of going from sinking in despair to rejoicing in salvation is described by the Psalmist when he wrote:

"He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God..." (Psa. 40: 2-3 nasb 1995)

Sinking in the quicksand of despair is a figure of the sinner when he is under the conviction of the law and word of God and by the Holy Spirit and being pulled up and finding footing on a rock and putting a new song of praise in the mouth of the sinking one is a figure of being saved and converted. Conviction of sin brings deep sorrow, but salvation brings joy. So Paul described it when he wrote: "For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death." (II Cor. 7: 10 nkjv)

In John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" the antagonist "Christian" first experiences an Awakening (Conviction of Sin) before he is saved by entering the "Wicket Gate" (a figure of Christ the door) and comes to the cross by faith. Christian starts in the "City of Destruction" with a "heavy sack" (his burden of sin) and a deep awareness of impending judgment. This represents the Holy Spirit's conviction, breaking his apathy towards sin.

As we will see, the Puritans, like Owen, saw how God prepares the hearts of sinners prior to their being converted to Christ and saved. Theologians call this preparationism and some call it prevenient grace. They also spoke of how God uses the law to bring sinners to the knowledge that they are evil and condemned, and was like the plowing or breaking up of the soil of the heart, prior to the planting of the seed that brings a person to salvation. So Spurgeon, in preaching upon “Doth the plowman plow all day to sow?” (Isaiah 28:24) said:

"Jesus says to all of us, “Ye must be born again.” Unless God the Holy Spirit breaks up the heart with the plough of the law, and sows it with the seed of the gospel, not a single ear of holiness will any of us produce, even though we may be children of godly parents, and may be regarded as excellent moral people by those with whom we live...You cannot destroy weeds by exhortations, nor can you tear out the roots of sin from the soul by moral suasion; something sharper and more effectual must be brought to bear upon them. God must put his own right hand to the plough, or the hemlock of sin will never give place to the corn of holiness. Good is never spontaneous in unrenewed humanity, and evil is never cut up till the ploughshare of almighty grace is driven through it."

"So doth God plough the heart of man, and herein is his patience. The team was in the field in the case of some of us very early in the morning, for our first recollections have to do with conscience and the furrows of pain which it made in our youthful mind. When we were little children, we woke in the night under a sense of sin; our father’s teaching and our mother’s prayers made deep and painful impressions upon us, and though we did not then yield our hearts to God, we were greatly stirred, and all indifference to religion was made impossible. When we were boys at school, the reading of a chapter in the Word of God, or the death of a playmate, or an address at a Bible-class, or a solemn sermon, so affected us that we were uneasy for weeks. The strivings of the Spirit of God within urged us to think of higher and better things. Though we quenched ‘the Spirit, though we stifled conviction, yet we bore the marks of the ploughshare; furrows were made in the soul, and certain foul weeds of evil were cut up by the roots, although no seed of grace was as yet sown in our hearts." 

What Spurgeon describes in these words are what the Puritans and older Calvinists called being "awakened" and which is not to be confused with regeneration. That is what we saw described by the above writer of the hymn when he says he was "awakened" to see his lost condition. Many lost sinners have one or more such experiences, and with some it leads them to seek salvation, but with others they go back to sleep. Many young children when they first realize that they will die one day become aware of God and of their need for salvation. We will have more to say about this shortly. Spurgeon continued:

"Some have continued in this state for many years, ploughed, but not sown; but, blessed be God, it was not so with others of us; for we had not left boyhood before the good seed of the gospel fell upon our heart. Alas! there are many who do not thus yield to grace, and with them the ploughman ploughs all day to sow. I have seen the young man coming to London in his youth, yielding to its temptations, drinking in its poisoned sweets, violating his conscience, and yet continuing unhappy in it all, fearful, unrestful, stirred about even as the soil is agitated by the plough. In how many cases has this kind of work gone on for years, and all to no avail Ah! and I have known the man come to middle life, and still he has not received the good seed, neither has the ground of his hard heart bean thoroughly broken up. He has gone on in business without God: day after day he has risen and gone to bed again with no more religion than his horses, and yet all this while there have been ringing in his ears warnings of judgment to come, and chidings of conscience, so that he has not been at peace. After a powerful sermon he has not enjoyed his meals, or been able to sleep, for he has asked himself, “What shall I do in the end thereof?” The ploughman has ploughed all day, till the evening shadows have lengthened and the day has faded to a close. What a mercy it is when the furrows are at last made ready, and the good seed is cast in, to be received, nurtured, and multiplied a hundredfold."

Notice that Spurgeon calls this being awakened and convicted as an instance of prevenient grace and mercy. He also does not see conviction of sin and being awakened as regeneration but as a step towards it.

We see conviction or sin preceding salvation in the case of the converts made on the day of Pentecost by the preaching of Peter.

"Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call." And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation." Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them." (Acts 2: 37-42 nkjv)

This being "cut to the heart" or "pricked" (kjv) is the very conviction of sin we are talking about and is what precedes coming to repentance and receiving forgiveness of sins and receiving the Holy Spirit and spiritual life thereby. The sermon by Peter made them aware of their guilt in crucifying their own Messiah and they believed him and that knowledge led them to despair. That is why they asked - "what shall we do?" 

The Process of Conviction 

In Puritan Calvinism we have these preparations prior to being converted:

Awakening: The sinner is made aware of their danger. 

Examination: A close scrutiny of the heart, uncovering hidden "idolatry" and self-worship. 

Contrition: A deep sorrow, or "gift of tears," for sins committed. 

Repentance: A turning away from self-reliance to trust in Christ.

Salvation

Stephen Charnock (1628-1680) wrote the following in "Efficient of Regeneration" (read here):

"The soul must be beaten down by conviction before it be raised up by regeneration; There must be some apprehensions of the necessity of it. Yet sometimes the work of regeneration follows so close upon the heels of these precious preparations, that both must be acknowledged to be the work of one and the same hand. Paul on the sudden was struck down. and in a moment there is both an acknowledgement of the authority of Christ, and a submission to his will, when he said, 'Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?' Acts ix. 6. The preparation of the subject is necessary, but this preparation may be at the same time with the conveyance of the divine nature: as a warm seal may both prepare the hard wax, and convey the image to it, by one and the same touch."

Charnock also wrote:

"What has any man that he has not received? 1 Cor. iv. 7. The apostle excludes everything in us from the name of a donation to God. If there be no one thing but is received from God, then no preparation to grace but is received from him. The obligation then lies upon the receiver, not upon the donor. But may we not oblige God by the improvement of such a gift? The apostle includes everything, challenges him to name any one thing which was not received, which will contain improvements as well as preparations."

Awakening Before Quickening

I wrote a short series on "Awakened Sinners" (See here, here, here) which elaborates on how this experience precedes salvation and is a preceding grace and work of God. Here are some excerpts from those chapters. We have already cited Charnock on this point. 

In an Internet article titled "AWAKENING – BEFORE CONVERSION," by Dr. R. L. Hymers, Jr.

"Awakening is not conversion. Awakening prepares the heart for conversion. It comes before conversion.

Awakening is when you begin to think very seriously about the salvation of your soul. Here is what great Spurgeon said about awakening:

"Great numbers of persons have no concern about eternal things. They care more about their cats and dogs than about their souls. It is a great mercy to be made to think about ourselves, and how we stand before God and the eternal world. This is [very] often a sign that salvation is coming to us. By nature we do not like the anxiety which spiritual concern causes us, and we try, like sluggards, to sleep again. This is great foolishness; for it is at our great peril that we trifle when death is so near, and judgment is so sure… If we are sensible, we shall pray that our anxiety about our souls may never come to an end till we are really and truly saved…It would be an awful thing to go on dreaming down to hell, and there to lift up our eyes with a great gulf fixed between us and heaven. It will be equally terrible to be aroused to escape from the wrath to come, and then to shake off the warning influence, and go back to our insensibility. I notice that those who overcome their convictions and continue in their sins are not so easily moved the next time: every awakening which is thrown away leaves the soul more drowsy than before, and less likely to be again stirred to holy feeling. Therefore our heart should be greatly troubled at the thought of getting rid of its trouble in any other than the right way. One who had the gout was cured of it by a quack medicine, which drove the disease within, and the patient died. To be cured of a distress of mind by a false hope, would be a terrible business: the remedy would be worse than the disease. Better far that [your] tenderness of conscience should cause [you] long years of anguish than that we should lose it, and perish in the hardness of our hearts."  (C. H. Spurgeon Around the Wicket Gate)

These are the essentials of true awakening: you see that you are a lost sinner. You see that you deserve to be punished for your sins. You see that you are in great danger. You see that your sins must be punished – or God is not just. Those are the essentials of true awakening. Until a person feels these things, he is not going to be converted.

These examples show that it is not the length of the awakening that matters. Spurgeon said:

Awakening is not a thing to rest in, or to desire to have lengthened out month after month. If I [wake] up in a fright, and find my house on fire, I do not sit down at the edge of the bed, and say to myself, “I hope I am truly awakened!”… No, I want to escape from threatened death, so I [hurry] to the door or to the window, that I may get out, and…not perish where I am. It would be [no good] to be [awakened], and yet not escape from the danger. Remember, awakening is not salvation."

Said George Whitefield:

"Conviction will always precede spiritual conversion. You may be convicted without being converted, but you cannot be converted without being convicted." ("Repentance and Conversion" - SEE HERE)

Wrote Thomas Boston  (emphasis mine): (here)

"A person may have sharp soul-exercises and pangs, and yet die in the birth. Many "have been in pain," that have but, "as it were, brought forth wind." There may be sore pangs of conscience, which turn to nothing at last. Pharaoh and Simon Magus had such convictions, as made them to desire the prayers of others for them. Judas repented: and, under terrors of conscience, gave back his ill-gotten pieces of silver. All is not gold that glitters. Trees may blossom fairly in the spring, on which no fruit is to be found in the harvest: and some have sharp soul-exercises, which are nothing but foretastes of hell."

"Some have sharp convictions for a while: but these go off, and they become as careless about their salvation, and as profane as ever, and usually worse than ever; "their last state is worse than their first," Matt. 12:45. They get awakening grace—but not converting grace; and that goes off by degrees, as the light of the declining day, until it issues in midnight darkness."

He also wrote:

"There may be a wonderful moving of the affections in souls that are not at all touched with regenerating grace. When there is no grace, there may, notwithstanding, be a flood of tears, as in Esau, who "found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears," Heb. 12:17. There may be great flashes of joy; as in the hearers of the word, represented in the parable of the stony ground, who "with joy receive it," Matt. 13:20. There may be also great desires after good things, and great delight in them too; as in those hypocrites described in Isa. 58:2, "Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways – they take delight in approaching to God."

So, anyone, Calvinist or Arminian, who believes that conviction of sin and times when sinners are awakened by the word and Spirit of God are experiences that precede regeneration, and which often become means towards it, believe in prevenient grace.