Refuting Calvinists: Were OT Saints ‘Born again’?
In this article I am going to address the Calvinist claim that the Old Testament saints were born again. I will be quoting from various videos made by R.C Sproul and others of Ligonier Ministries. I was intending to add their clips into the video version of this article but found they are under copyright, so I will simply quote them and leave a link at the end of the article. Furthermore, when I use the term Calvinist, I am specifically speaking of monergistic Calvinists such as Piper, Sproul, MacArthur and those of Ligonier Ministries.
So to begin with, what is meant by the term born again? This term is referred to as ‘regeneration’ meaning to be generated again, or made alive again. The basic idea is that when a person first willfully sins against God, they become ‘dead to God’ in the sense of being separated from His holiness. When that person is regenerated, they become alive again. Two examples of this teaching are in Luke 15 and Romans 7:9. In Luke 15, when the prodigal son returns home, the Father states twice that ‘my son was dead and is alive again’ and in Romans 7:9, Paul says ‘once I was alive, but when the law came sin sprang to life and I died’. The prodigal son was alive until he decided to take his inheritance and turn his back on his father, and Paul was alive until he became aware of the law of God, and then willfully broke that law.
Obviously then, those who teach that we inherit sin at conception do not believe in REgeneration at all, for the person conceived was never alive in the first place…they are conceived spiritually dead. But apart from this, what does the Bible teach about what it means to be regenerated, to be born again?
1. To become a partaker of the Divine Nature (Rom. 8:9-11). Peter states that God, ‘in his great mercy has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’ (1 Peter 1:3). New birth is always tied specifically to faith in the death and resurrection of Christ, without exception. The writer to the Hebrews discusses the difference between old and new covenants. Under the old covenant God’s holiness was hidden behind the veil and unapproachable because the ‘blood of bulls and goats could not make any person perfect’ for no animal can ever represent humanity. But Christ gave Himself as a perfect sacrifice for sin, the veil was torn from top to bottom and now, through His death and resurrection, those who trust in Christ by faith become the temple of God, the place where God dwells (1 Cor. 3:16). This was never possible under the old covenant.
2. United with Christ. Being united with Christ is the entire foundation of the blessings of the new covenant. Romans 6 gives us the theological foundations. The born again Christian is ‘baptized into Christ’s death’ (v3), ‘united with Him in His death’ and will be resurrected as Christ was resurrected (v5). We are to count ourselves ‘dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus’ (v11) and ‘set free from sin’ (v18). Furthermore, every blessing we receive is tied to our being united with Christ. We are ‘co-heirs’ with Christ (Rom 8:17), we are seated with Him in the heavenly realms (Eph.2:6) and all He accomplished is gifted to us through grace.
3. New Creations. 2 Cor. 5:17 states that we are ‘new creations, the old has gone, the new has come’. This means that ‘our old self was crucified with Christ’ (Rom.6:6) and it is no longer our ego which rules us, but Christ in us (Gal.2:20). Paul states that ‘we died and our lives are now hidden in Christ (Col.3:3). The old covenant foretold this, that God would give us a new heart and put a new spirit within us (Ezekiel 36:26).
4. Salvation is sealed and guaranteed. The indwelling Holy Spirit is given to us as a seal of our salvation, and a guarantee of our inheritance (Eph 1:13-14) by virtue of the fact that we are in Christ.
Bottom line: There could be absolutely no new birth, no indwelling divine nature, no new temple, no being in Christ, no new creations and no guarantee of salvation until Christ gave His life as a perfect substitute for sin and resurrected from the dead. The old covenant foretold and foreshadowed all of this, but as Hebrews 11 states regarding the Old Testament saints, ‘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).
So what do Calvinists teach in absolute contradiction to the Biblical witness?
Firstly, R.C Sproul in an interview states:
“You say that in the New Testament the work of the Holy Spirit is in regeneration by which he changes the disposition of our hearts and then dwells within us, never to depart, and he’s working within us to work out our sanctification and bring us into conformity to Christ.”
“Now in the Old Testament, you couldn’t be born again in the Old Testament apart from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit did his work of regeneration then as he does now, the work of the Holy Spirit indwelt people in the old covenant just as he does now. The work of the Holy Spirit worked for sanctification in the Old Testament just as he does now.”
For Sproul, there is absolutely no difference between the old and new covenants regarding the Holy Spirit and regeneration, indeed Calvinists teach that any person who exercised faith from Adam to Christ was born again. The obvious question for Calvinists is, ‘Why then did we need a new covenant?’ If people were born again, had the indwelling Spirit and were being sanctified in exactly the same way as in the new covenant, then they must have been producing the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, if ‘the work of the Holy Spirit indwelt people in the old covenant just as he does now’, as Sproul claims, this means that they were the temple of the Holy Spirit just as Christians are today.
Consider the absurdity of this idea. People who are the living temple of the Holy Spirit cannot enter the physical temple of God, indeed why build a temple at all? The physical temple shouted one specific fact. God is holy and unregenerate people cannot approach Him, His holy presence dwells behind the veil.
But Sproul wants us to believe that those who are the living temple of the Holy Spirit, who have the holy presence of God permanently indwelling them, cannot approach God’s presence? Someone should have explained to Sproul why the veil was torn from top to bottom at the moment of Jesus’ death.
Sproul then speaks about how the Spirit departed from King Saul. He explains that God also gave certain people a, ‘charismatic endowment of power given to enable people to do a particular task or office such as prophets, kings and Moses’. But on the Day of Pentecost, God gave everyone this special charismatic endowment.
The hypocrisy of this is incredible. Did Sproul just become a Pentecostal? Is he suggesting that at Pentecost every born again Christian became a prophet? Don’t Calvinists insist that the charismatic gifts of the Spirit ceased and don’t exist today? Are not Calvinists continually attacking Pentecostals and Charismatic for their language of ‘charismatic endowment of power’ and ‘anointing’?
Sproul explains that, “so, in the case of Saul, the spirit which departed from him was not the spirit of regeneration but is that anointing that God had given to him to fulfill his function as a king. That raises the question of whether Saul was ever a Christian. I don’t think he was.”
We should at least give Sproul credit for thinking that Saul was not a Christian as he definitely got that part right as there was no such thing as ‘Christian’ until after Pentecost. But what is Sproul suggesting here? That regeneration doesn’t give the believer the power to be sanctified or produce the fruit of the Spirit? He’s already stated that Saul had the Spirit upon him but was not regenerated and then that regenerated people had the Spirit within them, but had no anointing power.
But before critiquing Sproul further, let me introduce the second video in the description. The video is posted by Ligonier Ministries. A group of Calvinists sitting on stage and the question being answered is ‘Did the Old Testament believers possess the Holy Spirit’. Michael Horton speaks, tells us he’s just written a book on the Holy Spirit and goes on to say that King David was obviously born again which is evidenced that he was convicted by the Holy Spirit when he sinned.
Horton believes that a born again person can not only live in unrepentant adultery, but commit premeditated murder? David had no intentions of repenting and he carefully planned the murder of Uriah after getting the man’s wife pregnant. There is zero evidence that David was convicted by the Holy Spirit, but rather thought he was home free until Nathan the prophet confronted him.
And what does David say;
Create in me a pure heart, O God and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. (Psalm 51:10-11)
Where is the new creation? Does a man who is a new creation in Christ need God to create a new, pure heart. Ezekiel prophesied that in the future God would ‘give us a new heart and put a new spirit within us’, and this was about 400 years after David wrote these words. Ezekiel was foretelling the new covenant experience of new birth, yet David had no new heart.
And what of his spirit? Where is the man who is ‘dead to sin and alive to God’? According to Sproul David’s regeneration was the same as every Christian under the new covenant, he had the indwelling Spirit, quote, ‘never to depart’. I guess David didn’t get that memo for he had no assurance of salvation and believed God could take the Holy Spirit away from him and cast him from God’s presence. And he was correct, for the Holy Spirit was never within him, only upon Him.
Why do Calvinists teach this false doctrine. The answer is simple, namely because the foundation of their theology is utterly false and built on sand. Firstly, that all human beings are totally depraved from conception and can only choose to sin, can only hate God, can never seek, can never exercise faith in any way or desire God in any way until they are born again. This is the very heart of monergism, that the individual is walking around hating God like a diseased zombie until God decides to suddenly zap them and make them born again.
At that point they start seeking, repenting and exercising faith…but wait…if they are already born again, why did they need to seek, repent or exercise faith…are the born again not already in Christ, united with Christ and everything we said at the start of this video?
If you take this false doctrine into the Old Testament, then anyone who believes God or trusts Him in any way must also be born again. It doesn’t matter that the idea of new birth, or becoming a partaker of the divine nature, or being filled with the Holy Spirit, or producing the fruits of the Spirit are never mentioned anywhere to anyone in the Old Testament…no…you just twist it completely to try and make it fit your monergistic heresy.
On top of this, God only zaps those He has pre-determined to salvation. All are equally totally depraved and full of hate for God, but by some mystery known only to the Calvinist God, a few won the divine lottery and get zapped…no person has any choice in the matter. Furthermore, this is taken one step further by stating that no person can ever act outside of God’s sovereign will, therefore, every sin was willed by God, David’s adultery and murder were willed by God, his refusal to repent until Nathan confronted him was willed by God, etc. This is monergism, a doctrine which is the absolute antithesis of the Biblical witness, a doctrine which characterizes God as a malevolent tyrant playing games with mindless zombies.
But Sproul was at least correct about one thing; that the Holy Spirit was upon, but ONLY upon a tiny few, namely prophets and kings. You may find a verse which states that some prophet was filled with the Spirit and spoke, but this is a phrase simply meaning they were taken over by the Spirit in that moment and never that they had a permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
This Michael Horton also suggested that after His resurrection, when Jesus breathed on the disciples and said receive the Holy Spirit, that this was the same as happened at Pentecost. This is also a false teaching based on the assumption that they were already born again. Consider the following.
1. Throughout Jesus ministry He sent out the disciples to preach. He told them that the Spirit was ‘with them and would be in them’ (John 14:17). This was a clear distinction between the old and new covenants. The Spirit was with or upon them prior to Pentecost, and would be permanently within them after Pentecost. Jesus also told them that the Holy Spirit would not be sent until He returned to the Father (John 16:7). What then was the Holy Spirit being sent to achieve. It could not be to give them a power for ministry for they already had the Spirit with them for three years. No, the Holy Spirit was coming to inaugurate the new covenant, Christ in us.
2. When Jesus was arrested the disciples fled, Peter denied he knew the Lord three times. They were in hiding from the Jewish authorities, and when Mary Magdalene told them the Lord had risen, they refused to believe her. When He appeared to them, Jesus rebuked them for their unbelief (Mark 16:14). No person can be called regenerate who refused to believe in the resurrection of Christ.
3. It is not clear what happened when Jesus commanded the disciples to receive the Holy Spirit in John 20:22-23, however, Thomas was not among them and neither were the other 110 people who were in the upper room on Pentecost. Jesus had told them He would meet them at Galilee so they went home and went fishing. The next time Jesus appeared to them was at Galilee where He reinstated Peter. In Acts 1:14, Jesus commands the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit. The point is, that early in Jesus’ ministry, the disciples had already been given the power and authority to drive out demons, cure diseases and heal the sick (Matt 9:1-2). So, if they were already born again and anointed with power, what was the need for Pentecost at all?
4. Calvinists expect us to believe that the thousands of Jews who exercised faith in God in the Old Testament were united with Christ before Christ was ever united with humanity, were crucified with Christ before Christ was ever crucified, and that His disciples had the Spirit of Christ within them before the Lord had ascended to heaven, and were permanently filled with the Holy Spirit before the Spirit had been sent.
5. The Old Testament saints simply trusted God, they exercised faith based on the revelation they had received. None of them knew the name of Jesus Christ either before or after the Law of Moses was given. None were ever told they must be partakers of the divine nature for such a thing was impossible. They were declared righteous for one reason only, they trusted God.
6. Regeneration and justification are not the same thing. The word justification means to be declared not guilty, to be acquitted or vindicated. For example, Deuteronomy 25:1 states that God will justify the righteous and condemn the wicked. To be justified by God is a judicial statement, it is not a declaration of moral perfection. Paul, throughout his letters, emphasizes that justification is ALWAYS by faith for all people in all times. Noah was justified because he believed God would bring the flood and he obeyed and built the ark. Abraham was justified because he believed God’s promises regarding Isaac and the future. These men lived before any law was given.
Those under the law were never justified by simply carrying out the rituals and thinking that their actions made them righteous, but only if they trusted in God. When Paul states that no person is justified by keeping the Law, he means that we can never be justified by good works, but only by faith in the promises of God. One attitude points to self, and the other to God’s grace and promises.
Christians are also solely justified by faith in God’s promises regarding Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on our behalf. However, because our faith is in Christ as a perfect sacrifice for our sins and His promise to be united with Christ, our faith leads to regeneration, it leads not just to a judicial declaration of ‘not guilty’, but a declaration of moral perfection for ‘by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy’ (Hebrews 10:14).
In all of his writings, Paul never even for a moment hints at the possibility that any OT saint could be regenerated, for such a thing was entirely impossible.
7. Revelation and regeneration are not the same thing. Calvinist theologian Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology claims that:
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. (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p769)
“Some kind of regenerating work of the Holy Spirit”. Perhaps Mr Grudem should have read the next verse.
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’.
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’.
In Conclusion
John 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. Are we to believe that every Jew who refused to trust God on the banks of the Jordon, over a million adults, were all born again?
Of all those 20 years and older, only Joshua and Caleb entered the Promised Land, indeed God was so angry with the others He was going to destroy all of them. But according to Calvinists they must have all been born again. After all, they had exercised faith in killing the lamb and placing the blood on their doorposts at the time of Passover, they had exercised faith by walking through the Red Sea with a wall of water on either side, something that would have been rather terrifying. But when they saw the Nephilim their fear took over and they refused to trust the Lord. His response was;
11…“How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? 12 I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them…(Numbers 14:11-12)
Contrary to MacArthur’s statement, the Jews had ‘responded in faith’ right up to the point where they feared for their lives. Had they been born again according to Calvinists definitions, the outcome would have been very different.
None of them were partakers of the divine nature, none of them had been united with Christ, or crucified with Christ, none had been made new creations in Christ for none had ever heard of Christ and Christ had still not come into the world and offered a perfect sacrifice for sin.
No person under the old covenant was born again, no person was a temple of the Holy Spirit, but God’s presence dwelt in the physical temple, guarded behind the veil, holy and unapproachable. The veil, which was 10cm (4 inches) thick, was torn apart from top to bottom after Jesus gave His life for sin, opening a gate to union with Christ and the new covenant in His blood.
In my opinion, anyone who believes the OT saints were born again in the exact same way as they are, has never experienced being born again. They are basically testifying that they, like all those under the old covenant, were not born again.
God bless