Calvinism: Does Regeneration Precede Faith?

I. Introduction

The more I speak with Calvinists, the more I am convinced that they have no idea of what regeneration is. In short, to be regenerated means to be born again, to have become a partaker of the divine nature, to be united with Christ, crucified with Christ, and a new creation. These are the fundamentals of regeneration. And these are not just terms or concepts. Regeneration is an existential and ongoing experience of knowing and loving Christ, of being led, taught, and transformed by the Holy Spirit.

In the first video/article I discussed the Calvinist extreme view of the sovereignty of God as a false foundation. Please watch or read the video/articles in order, for if we do not understand the foundations of a system of theology, we won’t understand why the building is deformed. The article can be found on my website, https://stevecopland.com/, and the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Hza2L8mdY.

In this article I want to discuss the question, does regeneration precede, that is, come before faith? For Calvinists, this doctrine is grounded in their idea of total depravity which requires an in-depth study and will be the topic of the next video/article. Here, I want to show that Calvinists seem to have no idea of the difference between revelation and regeneration, and to believe that a person can be crucified with Christ even before Christ Himself was crucified, is utter stupidity.

II. No Person was Born Again under the Old Covenant!

Anyone who has listened to Calvinists will be aware that they use the term ‘dead in sin’ from Ephesians 2:1 as a foundational verse to support total depravity, an interpretation which is easily refuted. *1 MacArthur, in His Faith-Works (p62), states that:

Because of human depravity, there is nothing in a fallen, reprobate sinner that desires God or is capable of responding in faith.

Taking MacArthur’s definition, which is standard for Calvinists, this means that anyone who exercised faith in God, from Adam to the present day, was or is regenerated, and this is exactly what Calvinists teach across the board. For example, in an interview between Albert Mohler and Robert Godfrey of Ligonier Ministries, Godfrey claimed that God ‘regenerated people in the Old Testament just the same as in the New’, and Mohler replied that ‘every person listed in Hebrews 11 was born again by the Holy Spirit’. *2

According to this dogma, Abel was born again before he was murdered by Cain, Noah was born again, and Abraham, and every person who brought an offering to the Lord by faith under the law was born again, those who in faith brought their loved ones to Christ for healing were all born again, despite the fact that most from those crowds walked away, and Nicodemus, who testified that he knew Jesus was from God, was born again before Jesus told him he must be born again. Was the woman who reached out and touched the hem of Jesus’ cloak born again, or the Canaanite woman whose daughter was demon-possessed? All of these people exercised a measure of faith, but none were born again.

The same eleventh chapter of Hebrews quoted by these men states categorically, concerning the promised Holy Spirit that:

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what was promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

(Hebrews 11:39-40)

What was the ‘something better’ which was promised? *3 It was the new covenant, the indwelling Spirit, a new heart, and the power to live for God.

I will put a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to follow my laws.

(Ezekiel 28:26-28)

Hebrews chapters 8 to 10 explain the new covenant, showing that only through the sacrifice of Christ could any human being be declared perfect in God’s sight. This new covenant is summarized with:

For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First He says: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts and write them on their minds”. Then he adds, “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.

(Hebrews 10:14-17)

Under the old covenant, God dwelt in the Holy of Holies within the physical temple. Daily sacrifices were made to deal with atonement for sin. Under the new covenant, the veil of the Holy of Holies has been torn apart, Christ is the perfect and final sacrifice for sin, and born-again believers are the new temple, the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit could never take up permanent residence within a human being until a perfect sacrifice had been accomplished.

Was any person told they needed to be regenerated in the OT? Did God just forget to inform Moses? Can you find a command to be born again, or becoming a partaker of the divine nature anywhere in the Old Testament? The statements of Mohler and Godfrey, and every other Calvinist, are absolutely ignorant of what regeneration means.

Under the old covenant, only kings and prophets had the Holy Spirit upon them in order to serve God in various ways. But this was never a permanent indwelling of the Spirit. After his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, David cried out:

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

(Psalm 51:10-12)

Unlike a regenerate Christian, David had no conviction of the Holy Spirit to repent. He was happily living with his secret sin until the prophet Nathan confronted him (2 Samuel 12). Only then did he repent. A born-again Christian knows when they have grieved the Holy Spirit, for He convicts them from within, and they can have no peace until they confess and receive forgiveness. In his first letter, the apostle John *4 explains that a true Christian cannot continue in sin. Indeed, this is one of the main proofs that a person truly knows Christ. Please see my video and article entitled ‘Cannot Continue in Sin’. *5

Frankly speaking, anyone who believes that people in the OT were born again in the same way they are born again has never experienced being born again! Hence, I honestly wonder if, for the most part, ‘regenerate Calvinist’ is an oxymoron.

III. Regeneration or Revelation? Know the Difference!

What also becomes obvious is that Calvinists do not know the difference between revelation and regeneration. In his Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem makes the following statement:

It is true that the disciples were “born again” long before Pentecost…Certainly when Peter said to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt.16:16), it was evidence of some kind of regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in his heart.

(Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem, p769)

Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.’

Notice, please, that Jesus didn’t say, ‘Blessed are you Simon, for you have just received some kind of regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in your heart.’ Does Grudem understand the fundamental difference between revelation and regeneration? This is a classic example of eisegesis, that is, of reading into the text what you want it to say. Grudem is a die-hard Calvinist who believes that no person can receive any kind of revelation from God unless they are regenerated. But there is no such thing as a ‘kind of regeneration’; a person is either born again or not. As Jesus said, Simon received a revelation, not ‘some kind of regeneration.’

Simon was not regenerated, a fact made perfectly clear when, a few verses later, he had the audacity to rebuke Jesus after the Lord predicted His own death and resurrection. Jesus turned to Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan.’

But of course, like MacArthur, Piper, Sproul, and company, Grudem teaches that no person can exercise faith unless born again. Had Simon Peter ever exercised faith in Christ? Well, we are told two chapters earlier that Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water. Yes, he took his eyes off Jesus, and the Lord said, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ but still, he had exercised a measure of faith. So… according to this doctrine, if he exercised any faith, he was already regenerated. Makes one wonder just how many times Calvinists think Peter was regenerated before Pentecost.

And this is the same Peter who denied he even knew Christ three times, but after Pentecost, after he was truly born again and became a partaker of the divine nature, he preached boldly right up to his death by crucifixion in the Circus Maximus in Rome.

The Absurdity of the Doctrine

Also, consider this absurdity. As stated, Calvinists teach that a person must be regenerated before they can exercise any form of faith. Here is a person who never thought about seeking God, or reaching out to God, or going to a Bible study, or Church (all of that would require at least a desire for God, and MacArthur says that is impossible), but they just wake up one day regenerated. Yet, at this stage, they haven’t exercised any faith, and salvation is only by faith, so according to this back-to-front theology, they are born again but not yet saved.

So… presumably, they then begin to seek God, maybe go to church, and eventually repent, make a public confession, and get baptized. At that point, since they have now exercised faith, they are said to be saved. Did they get born again, again? What if they decided they didn’t want to repent? Up to this point, according to MacArthur, they haven’t even considered desiring God, so they obviously haven’t thought about repentance. Therefore, if they decide to not repent, confess, and be baptized, do they then become unregenerate again? Do they suddenly become un-crucified with Christ?

Even Spurgeon, whom Calvinists claim as one of their own, considered this doctrine absurd. In his words:

If I am to preach faith in Christ to a man who is regenerated, then the man, being regenerated, is saved already, and it is an unnecessary and ridiculous thing for me to preach Christ to him, and bid him to believe in order to be saved when he is saved already, being regenerate. Am I only to preach faith to those who have it? Absurd, indeed! Is not this waiting till the man is cured and then bringing him the medicine? This is preaching Christ to the righteous and not to sinners.

(C.H. Spurgeon, The Warrant of Faith, p3)

Contradictions in Practice

The absurdity of this doctrine was very apparent in an event John MacArthur spoke about in November 2020 when he baptized an individual (Carla) who had undergone a sex change through surgery. MacArthur claims that he had not interviewed this person personally prior to the baptism, but no doubt they had gone through the church’s normal preparation. MacArthur then tells us that Carla said publicly:

‘I want to testify of my faith in Christ and be baptized,’ and gave a brief testimony, and then I just baptized Carla. But I was deeply distressed, and I went out and I said to someone, ‘Make sure that person comes to my office immediately after getting dressed.’ …This person walked in and I said, *‘I’m disturbed…you came in from the women’s side and gave a feminine name, but I think you’re a man.’ …He’d had a recent sex change operation…I said, ‘You certainly don’t for a moment think the Lord Jesus Christ is going to accept you and sanctify your lifestyle as a man living as a woman.’

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv4QZGUWoIg, November 20, 2020)

In total contradiction to his own deformed theology, MacArthur told this person they are not accepted by Christ. Seriously, John? Carla testified of his/her faith and gave a brief testimony. According to you, that is impossible unless he/she is already regenerated, already born again. Are you saying that God made a mistake, or is your theology of regeneration preceding faith just deformed and back to front rubbish…it has to be one or the other.

It seems to me, that if one is a celebrity with thousands of people hanging on your every word, then you can utterly contradict yourself and your gullible followers won’t bat an eyelid. And no, I am not suggesting that this Carla was born again, but pointing out that you cannot teach that a person has to be regenerated before they can even desire God and then tell a person who has got to the stage of public confession and baptism that they are not regenerated. It is an utter contradiction.

And finally, as a little taste of what we will discuss in the next video refuting the Calvinist foundation of total depravity, consider this. The word regeneration means that something or someone was alive (generated), then died, and was made alive again, Re-generated.

But as we saw in the previous video, Calvin claimed that all children are dead in sin from the moment of conception having instantly inherited the sin and guilt of Adam. If this is true, this means that no person was ever spiritually alive to begin with, therefore, those who teach this doctrine should never use the term regeneration. You cannot be Regenerated if you have never been alive. Scripture absolutely contradicts the doctrine of total depravity.

IV. In Conclusion

The Calvinist claim that regeneration precedes faith is based on a false premise, that human beings are so utterly depraved that they can neither desire God nor exercise faith in any way. This claim is completely contradicted in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation and even undermines God’s sovereign plan set out in Acts 17:27 that human beings would ‘seek him, and perhaps reach out for him and find him’.

No person under the old covenant was ever invited to receive the indwelling Spirit of God, indeed God’s presence was within the man-made temple, not human beings as under the new covenant. Hebrews 11 gives a long list of people who lived under the old covenant, but none of them received the promised Holy Spirit, for that promise was for the new covenant which was inaugurated at Pentecost.

Calvinists seldom if ever speak of their ‘born again experience’, and this is not surprising as they have no idea what regeneration is other than an acceptance to a certain system of dogma, theirs. Knowing a list of cherry-picked verses does not equate to regeneration or a relationship with Jesus Christ. These same Calvinists also claim that ‘God does not speak to people today except through the Bible’, perhaps further evidence that none of them have ever experienced the leading, teaching, guiding, convicting, and joy of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Unfortunately, this leads me to conclude that ‘regenerate Calvinist’ may well be an oxymoron.

Steve Copland

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1. The doctrine of total depravity is refuted in my video/article entitled ‘Total Depravity: A Man-made Fantasy’. As usual, the video is a shortened version of the article. The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUjQp8UlrPc

2. https://www.ligonier.org/learn/qas/did-holy-spirit-regenerate-old-testament-saints/

3. Peter testified that God’s promise was fulfilled at Pentecost. Acts 2:33.

4. See 1st John 3:4-10.

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKi-w6Nl9Ns&t=1s