The Secret Work of God Saving Souls

It's worth a deeper and broader investigation of the Scriptural data concerning God's secret work when converting souls to himself.  Here are a couple of questions for your consideration.

Does regeneration come first?

Those of us of "Calvinist" persuasion (a recent name for an understanding of Scripture that goes back through Aquinas and Augustine to the Apostles and Our Lord) sometimes speak of the "antecedent" work of the Spirit in preparing souls to receive the gospel.  Sometimes some of us (or even some of our confessional material?) speak of this "antecedent" work as "regeneration," meaning the spiritual bringing to life of the soul in such a way that it can be attracted to and receive the gospel.

It turns out that in Reformed academic theological circles that conceptions of the workings of the ordo salutis which involve events in sequence of time are held in serious question.  A brief consideration will show that there are still grounds for investigating the ordo to try to determine a more Scriptural statement of it.

Consider this:  Rom 4 clearly states that God justifies the ungodly.  But regenerate people, though sinners, are not "the ungodly."  Therefore, if God regenerates a man so that he may receive the gospel, then that man is made righteous enough to receive the gospel (by regeneration in the inner man) before he hears and exercises faith.  So, he's born again before he's justified.  But, the gospel isn't for saving those already born again.  The gospel is to bear them again itself.

In my opinion, therefore, it is better to say that the Spirit, when implementing union with Christ in a person's heart, simultaneously inhabits him, gives him new birth including faith (the first feeling of life), and brings him into union with Christ in "one fell swoop."  This view also tends to keep a realistic closeness between the preaching of an "efficacious" gospel and the fruits of it (conversion of hearers).

There have been times in the Reformed camp when regeneration and conversion have been envisioned as being separated by a considerable distance in time for some hearers.  This tends to separate the converting work of the Spirit from the administration of the gospel "sacrament," thus turning the "sacrament" of the gospel into an opportunity to show allegiance to Christ (unwitting Zwinglianism) rather than seeing that the "sacrament" of the gospel is a converting ordinance in itself.

When Christ is preached, and sinners are exhorted to believe, then some of them who hear do immediately obey, rising from spiritual death, just as Lazarus rose from physical death as an analogy.  Christ did not awaken Lazarus so that he could hear the words calling him out of the tomb.  Christ's call to come out of the tomb woke Lazarus from the dead!

Is the Gospel Offer well-meant to the non-elect?

Also consider this:  If the secret work of the Spirit in preparing souls for Christ were not a mystery, then one could say that the gospel offer to sinners was not sincere or well-meant on God's part, when it was addressed to the non-elect.  However, it's a trivial argument from Scripture to prove that God often offers a well-meant gospel to people who reject it.  Christ wept over Jerusalem.  In fact, unless a sinner sees the offer as well-meant, he cannot be saved.  He must accept it as well-meant.

Therefore, we must dig deeper.

All gospel offers from God are well-meant.  The particular, secret work of the Spirit on the elect is to make them willing.  To say just blatantly that God does not desire the spiritual rebirth of certain sinners who hear the gospel opens many questions.  A sinner must then say to himself, "I hear this gospel offer, but do I have grounds for accepting it?  Perhaps it is not meant for me."  This conundrum has been a real problem in certain epochs of Reformed history.  But, this will never do.  The first question a sinner asks when he hears the gospel must not be, "Is this for me?"

It is for him.

We know that it is at God's sovereign ordination and agency that the man believes.  But, how it works is a mystery.