Saved by Grace: The Holy Spirit's Work in Calling and Regeneration

by Herman Bavinck

Indeed, in dealing with the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of sinners, and in dealing with the means or instruments that the Spirit employs in order to accomplish His sovereign work, Reformed theologians have had to chart their way through a thicket of errors. On the one side is the error of undervaluing the use of means—of any kind—with the result that, in protecting God’s sovereignty in performing the work of salvation, Word and sacrament, and the church’s role in administering Word and sacrament, are denigrated and “the means of grace” becomes an empty phrase. On the other side is the error of overvaluing the use of means—the means of both Word and sacrament—with the result that divine agency in the work of salvation is transferred to means and the means of grace comes actually to denote the agents of grace.

Specifically, four issues were in dispute: (1) the debate between supralapsarianism versus infralapsarianism; (2) justification from eternity; (3) immediate regeneration; and (4) presupposed regeneration (vis-à-vis infant baptism).

Kuyper/Bavinck debate

The Conclusions of Utrecht acknowledge that infralapsarianism is the presentation that the Three Forms of Unity follow, though supralapsarianism was never condemned; yet the warning is offered that “such profound doctrines, which are far beyond the understanding of the common people, should be discussed as little as possible in the pulpit, and that one should adhere in the preaching of the Word and in catechetical instruction to the presentation offered in our Confessional Standards.”

As for justification from eternity, here Kuyper took up a clearly minority position within the history of Reformed theology. Here also is where his supralapsarianism had indeed “gone to seed” (something that can be traced in certain other Reformed supralapsarians as well). Simply stated, justification from eternity means that “the sinner’s justification need not wait until he is converted, nor until he has become conscious, nor even until he is born.”30

Suffice it to say that, for the Reformed, the ground for baptism (including infant baptism), in decreasing order of importance, is typically and principally (1) the command of Christ (Matt. 28:19, 20; Acts 16:15, 33; 18:8; 1 Cor. 1:16); (2) the divine promise of the covenant of grace (Gen. 17:7; Acts 2:39; 10:47); (3) the analogy derived from circumcision (Col. 2:12); (4) the fact that covenant infants belong to the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19:13; Luke 18:15); (5) the importance of the biblical affirmation that covenant children are holy (1 Cor. 7:14; Acts 10:47); (6) that no legitimate reason exists to prevent their baptism; and (8) that the church fathers confirm infant baptism.71

from Turretin

As for Bavinck, although he does not always mention Kuyper by name, he clearly opposed his predecessor’s doctrine of presupposed regeneration as the ground of baptism. The right to baptism, for both adults and children, is derived from the covenant of grace, to which they are parties. “Not regeneration, faith, or repentance, much less our assumptions pertaining to them, but only the covenant of grace” forms the ground for baptism. There is “no other, deeper, or more solid ground” for baptism.72 This does not preclude, however, that covenant infants can possess “the disposition (habitus) of faith.”

The Synod of Utrecht 1905 addressed this question in a manner that clearly mirrors Bavinck’s views. The Conclusions assert that the language of immediate regeneration can be used in a proper sense in order to distinguish the Reformed view from Roman Catholic and Lutheran errors, for the Word and sacraments do not themselves effect regeneration; that privilege and work is reserved to the almighty operations of the Holy Spirit. Nonetheless, “this regenerating operation of the Holy Spirit … should not be in such a way divorced from the preaching of the Word as if these two were separate from each other.” As for covenant infants who die at a tender age, Scripture and confession teach us not to doubt their salvation; however, the case of infants ought not to compromise the clear biblical affirmation that “the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, and that in the case of adults the regenerating operation of the Holy Spirit accompanies the preaching of the Gospel.”143

Calvin and other Reformers, as well as the Belgic Confession, present faith as preceding regeneration. However, the order was later reversed especially for two reasons: (a) the struggle against the Anabaptists, such that it became necessary in regard to little children to speak of the implanting of a first principle of life; and (b) the struggle against the Remonstrants, such that it became necessary to accent the total depravity —Page lv— of humans, which in turn required that God implant a first principle of life, wherein a person remains wholly passive.

Wide diversity obtained, thus, in the use of words whereby the initial beginning of the application of the benefits of salvation was identified. In terms of substance, there was nevertheless complete agreement. All of the Reformed confessed that the beginning could not rest with the human person, but only with God.

There is no state between death and life, between being unregenerate and being regenerate. The unregenerate person is a natural man who can do no spiritual good, who follows the things of the flesh and lives under the dominion of sin. The preparatory protocols leading to regeneration are actually not preparations unto, and even less a cause of, regeneration. For regeneration is a direct, almighty, and irresistible work of God under which a person remains entirely passive. If those so-called protocols and operations possess a spiritual character, they are a fruit and proof of regeneration; and if they do not possess that kind of character, then they remain natural, they belong at home under common grace, —Page 98— they neither lead to nor prepare for regeneration, and are not indissolubly connected to regeneration.

Predatory grace refuted

The Word may well be unable to bring forth grace; it is nevertheless a means the Holy Spirit uses to work faith and to strengthen faith within the human heart.

Grace does not destroy nature, but takes nature into its service and restores nature.

Therefore the explanation of the authorized Dutch annotations summarizes this holiness of the children of believers as being included in the outward covenant of God and having access to the signs and seals of God’s grace. This is how the text has been understood by Calvin and by most Reformed theologians. The children of believers are called holy, even as the children of the Jews were, because they are heirs of the covenant and are set apart from the impure seed of idolaters,1 or as Petrus van Mastricht formulated it: they are holy through a covenant holiness whereby in former times the entire people of the Jews were called holy, and now the children of believers are called holy, because they partake together with their parents of the same ecclesiastical privileges.2