July 25, 2006Spurgeon on the priority of regeneration to faith
Allow me to begin with a disclaimer: it is not my intent to become known for defending the priority of regeneration to faith. Although I have discussed this issue a couple of times on this blog, it is not a topic that often occupies my teaching ministry here at International Baptist College; the college (and the local church of which it is a ministry) is, on the whole, more moderately Calvinistic than I am, and I refuse to undermine legitimate biblical unity over an issue on which good men can reasonably differ. Frankly, so long as a person acknowledges that God initiates salvation (so that any man, if left unaided, would not seek God of his own volition), I am happy to call that person orthodox, even if I disagree with him on the particulars of soteriology.That being said, I am getting more than a little annoyed by the historical revisionism claiming that C. H. Spurgeon taught the priority of faith to regeneration. Without a doubt, the chief offenders in this regard are Bob Ross and "Charles" (a pen name) at the Calvinist Flyswatter (this post is especially relevant to the discussion of Spurgeon). The blog itself tends to focus on criticizing the resurgence of strong Calvinism within the Southern Baptist Convention. Unfortunately, both Mr. Ross and Charles (assuming that they are distinct; a recurring unsubstantiated rumor on the site is that they are actually the same person) exhibit a distinct lack of Christian charity and academic integrity in their manner of argumentation. Consider, for example, the extraordinarily petty post in which Charles uses Google Maps satellite imagery to mock the size of James White's church, or another post of questionable taste in which he hopes that Dr. Al Mohler's eye surgery would "awaken him to the many problems at Southern Seminary."
This particular article is not intended as a defense of the priority of regeneration; thus, I want to be perfectly clear that I will not entertain discussion about the theological issue itself in the comments. My sole concern in this article is the correct understanding of Spurgeon's position. Further, I am not by any means suggesting that Spurgeon is the final authority for faith and practice for Baptists, as though his position is semi-canonical and thus somehow normative. My point is simply that, in this debate as in all others, misrepresenting the views of historical believers is a compromise of integrity. My goal in this article is to demonstrate that Spurgeon's advocacy of regeneration before faith so pervades his preaching that anyone who attempts to claim otherwise is either misinformed (at best) or deceitful.
My research procedure is simple, and I hope that anyone who disagrees with me will check my work. If I am misunderstanding or misrepresenting Spurgeon, or taking his comments out of their proper context, I truly want to be corrected. In all sincerity, my goal is to be fair and accurate, and if I have to change my current position to meet these goals, I will be happy to do so. What I have done is run a Google search for all documents in which both the terms regeneration and faith occur in the collection of Spurgeon's sermons archived at spurgeon.org. This search returns a list of just over 100 sermons. While I have not read each one completely, I have attempted to, in the following quotations, provide an honest summary of Spurgeon's position as evidenced in his own preaching. I have read the relevant context of every occurrence of the term regeneration in these sermons.
That Spurgeon's sermons teach that regeneration precedes and gives rise to faith is impossible to deny. Throughout this article, I will include a number of quotations, some of which are quite lengthy, supporting my conclusion. To include every relevant quotations here would be a bit excessive. For those who wish to press this study further, I have compiled a list of quotations that runs over fifteen pages, single-spaced. That document can be found here.
Let me begin first with a couple of passages from Spurgeon that I think most clearly make my point. The first is from a sermon entitled Faith and Regeneration:
We must now pass on to show that wherever it [faith] exists it is the proof of regeneration. There never was a grain of such faith as this in the world, except in a regenerate soul, and there never will be while the world standeth. It is so according to the text, and if we had no other testimony this one passage would be quite enough to prove it. "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." "Ah!" I hear thee say, poor soul, "the new birth is a great mystery; I do not understand it; I am afraid I am not a partaker in it." You are born again if you believe that Jesus is the Christ, if you are relying upon a crucified Saviour you are assuredly begotten again unto a lively hope. Mystery or no mystery, the new birth is yours if you are a believer.This first quotation exemplifies a common theme in Spurgeon: he frequently appealed to a person's believing as evidence that he already had been regenerated. For instance, he says in another sermon:
If you can believe that our great Father desireth us to come to him—that he panteth for us—that he calleth us every day with the loud voice of his Son's wounds; if you can believe now that in Christ there is pardon for transgressions past, and cleansing for years to come; if you can trust him to save you, you have already the marks of regeneration.Further, there are other sermons in which Spurgeon simply declares that faith and repentance are products of regeneration:
When a man turns his eye to Jesus, and simply trusts him—for we adhere to that as being the vital matter—there is accompanying that act—nay, I must correct myself, there is as the cause of that act—a miraculous, supernatural power which in an instant changes a man, as completely as if it flung him back into nothingness and brought him forth into new life. If this be so, then believing in Christ is something very marvelous. Now, if you will turn to the third chapter of John's gospel, and also to his Epistles, you will see that faith is always linked with regeneration, or the new birth, which new birth is the work of the Spirit of God.In my opinion, most of the confusion that arises about Spurgeon's stance on this issue stems from his opposition to baptismal regeneration (a doctrine maintained by the Church of England). Spurgeon confronts that teaching in the harshest of terms (sometimes questioning the intelligence of anyone who might disagree with him). He finds it ludicrous and an attack on the power of the gospel to suggest that a person could be truly regenerated, and yet grow up to live a life of wanton debauchery, the debauchery arising because the allegedly regenerate man never exercised saving faith. Thus, Spurgeon is typically very careful to insist that regeneration happens through the use of means:
We feel persuaded that all of you are of one mind in this matter, that it is the absolute duty as well as the eminent privilege of the Church to proclaim the gospel to the world. We do not conceive that God will do his own work without instruments, but that, as he has always employed means in the work of the regeneration of this world, he will still continue to do the same, and that it becomes the Church to do its utmost to spread the truth wherever it can reach the ear of man.It is not difficult to see how passages like this result in some confusion. Given that Spurgeon believes that the Word of God is the means of regeneration, it seems quite logical to suggest that it is the hearer's belief in the Word that gives rise to his regeneration. However, this is reading into Spurgeon what he never intended. Rather, he argued that God has ordained means, but that it is the Spirit's work of regeneration that allows the hearer of the Word to accept and believe that Word, rather than the belief giving rise to the work of regeneration. If the Spirit must regenerate the unbeliever in order for the unbeliever to believe the Word, it is not surprising that Spurgeon ends one of his sermons by saying:
Now does anything else remain to the minister besides weeping and prayer? Yes, there is one thing else. God has given to his servants not the power of regeneration, but he has given them something akin to it. It is impossible for any man to regenerate his neighbour; and yet how are men born to God? Does not the apostle say of such an one that he was begotten by him in his bonds. Now the minister has a power given him of God, to be considered both the father and the mother of those born to God, for the apostle said he travailed in birth for souls till Christ was formed in them. What can we do then? We can now appeal to the Spirit. I know I have preached the gospel, that I have preached it earnestly; I challenge my Master to honour his own promise. He has said it shall not return unto me void, and it shall not. It is in his hands, not mine. I cannot compel you, but thou O Spirit of God who hast the key of the heart, thou canst compel. Did you ever notice in that chapter of the Revelation, where it says, "Behold I stand at the door and knock," a few verses before, the same person is described, as he who hath the key of David. So that if knocking will not avail, he has the key and can and will come in. Now if the knocking of an earnest minister prevail not with you this morning, there remains still that secret opening of the heart by the Spirit, so that you shall be compelled.This is strong language, and reading this, it is difficult to come to the conclusion that Spurgeon believed that the unbeliever needed to exercise faith in order to be regenerated. Rather, the opposite position seems quite necessary.
Again, for those wanting to interact with a heavier dose of Spurgeon, I would be happy for you to download my longer document of Spurgeon quotations relevant to this topic. At the end of that document, I have listed two quotations that seem to teach that faith precedes regeneration, and I have included my understanding of each of those passages.