Decisional Regeneration

16 Feb 2014 by Rev Dr Steven Kau –

I cannot imagine the Lord of Glory and all Creation, sitting on His throne in heaven, wringing His hands saying, “I hope that Suzy accepts me today!” “Oh, how I wish that Johnny would make a decision to believe in me!” This is the image that many imply in their approach to evangelism. What they fail to realize is that it is not God that needs our acceptance. The reverse is true; we are the ones that need His acceptance.

By making a brief review of the history of the Church during the past few centuries, we can see there have been some trends and shifts in Christian thinking. This is especially true in the realm of evangelism. Our evangelistic approach has gone from the open air, to tent revivals and in this past century, to crusades in large auditoriums, coliseums, and even stadiums.

During this time, a new movement has risen that has developed the predominant way of presenting the gospel; it is called evangelicalism. Almost all of the prominent speakers and theologians of the past 50 years have been from, or adopted most of evangelicalism’s views about salvation; in particular, the idea of “accepting Christ” and “making a decision” for Christ.

Most people have been taught to believe that this is the old time Gospel that has been preached for nearly 2000 years. If we are to take an unbiased view of doctrinal history, we would find that these terms are a very recent phenomena. Strangely, the way we present the invitation to the Gospel today seems to be absent from the majority of Church history and the Scriptures themselves! Is it possible that we have created a “new and different Gospel?” I believe we have.

I believe that our current methods have put us in danger of putting too much credit for salvation into the decision of man and not enough upon the grace and initiative of God.

Christian theologians throughout history have normally emphasized the inability of man concerning his ability to save himself and the necessity of the intervention of God in salvation. Because of man’s fallen nature, it is necessary that God must intervene by graciously giving man the ability to believe and to respond. Modern Evangelicalism has taken the attitude that man can respond at any time they wish by a mere act of man’s will.

This reduces the Gospel to a matter of a “decision” on the part of the individual, or a mere reciting of an incantation called the “Sinner’s Prayer.” The current method of receiving salvation that is used in modern evangelistic meetings and crusades, has substituted the conviction and witness of the Holy Spirit with group dynamics and professional salesmanship.

You may wonder why I would say such a critical thing. It is because those who have followed up with respondents a year later after their “decision” or “accepting the Lord” have found that the defection rate from Christianity among this group is a shocking 80-90%. The numbers touted to give legitimacy to these preachers and crusades sounds so impressive until we see they are creating more backsliders than believers. It should jolt us to see that more people were spiritually stillborn than born-again! This tragic rate of failure is due to the fact that many of these people were encouraged to respond to an altar call in respond to a “sales pitch” from man and not from a call of God through a conviction of their sin from the Holy Spirit. Manipulation and salesmanship may yield large numbers of people coming forward and affirmative answers on decision or prayer cards but it cannot do what really counts, that is, “convert” the soul to Christ. This is solely the domain of the Holy Spirit.

Nowhere does the Bible tell unbelievers to make a decision for Christ. All of the appeals like “Choose you this day whom ye will serve,” (Joshua 24:15) are addressed to those who were in the family of Israel already but were wavering on changing gods. “God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve other god’s.” (vs.16) We are told in John 1:12 and 13 that “…as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God,” and verse 13 clarifies that we do not give spiritual birth to ourselves but our ability to receive Him is based upon, “Which were born, not of blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man but of God.”

It is clear in Scripture that man on his own cannot and will not desire to be reconciled to God. Romans 4:11 tells us, “There is none that seek after God.” We have been so thoroughly corrupted through the fall of Adam that there is nothing within this infected nature of ours that will allow us to desire or seek a relationship with God. God must initiate the salvation process by reaching out to us first, convicting us, and convincing us of sin and of Jesus Christ. John 6:39 and 44 clearly states that “No man can come to me accept the Father which has sent Me draw him,” and we may add, “this spoke he of the Spirit.” The timing of His conviction is determined by His will and not upon the will of a human vehicle like a preacher or pastor.

If God were reaching out and convicting individuals 24 hours a day, we would not be told that “….there is none that seek after God.” If we all felt this calling and conviction every day of our lives, we would feel that it was a natural thing for man to seek God and to initiate his own salvation. If God were present in convicting power at every presentation of the Gospel, how do we explain that we do not witness the compliance and conversion for those who respond and see the remainder who are rebellious, standing there resisting, white knuckle and gripping the pews? By universal experience, we know that we are not overwrought with conviction every time we heard the Gospel message.

It is hard for us to understand why someone can hear the Gospel and not feel the least bit effected by it one time and when it is presented at another time, it strike conviction and is either accepted or knowingly rejected. At the times when there was no effect at all, we should realize that it is because it is not God’s will and timing for this person. To pressure for “decision” at this point is nothing less than man’s manipulation and is not to be confused with God’s conviction. We run the risk of destroying the respondent’s hopes if they are declared “saved” when all they do is respond by just mechanically reciting a “sinner’s prayer.” We can conclude this by saying that it is only if God is initiating salvation in an individual that they are called to respond and at that time are they free to accept or reject the gracious offer. The timing of when this offer happens is up to the will of God. We are fooling ourselves if we think that we have anything to do in determining when and where God is to be working in the lives of individuals.

Some may pose the question, “Then are you saying it was wrong for Peter to preach to the 3,000 on the day of Pentecost?” This is an overreaction to what has been said. I am not against large evangelistic efforts in any way. What I am against is a humanistic and not a Scriptural means of presenting the Gospel. On the day of Pentecost, we see that the Holy Spirit was at work in the individuals who cried out to Peter, “What shall we do?” Did he say, “Make a decision for Christ?” or “Accept Him right now?” No! Peter’s answer to them was to “repent!” The very thing that is hardly preached and insisted upon at these crusades!

One thing that is for sure, it is impossible for someone to “decide” whether to believe. Either they believe or they do not! If there is anything that an individual is called upon to decide, it is whether they will obey or disobey that which has been revealed to them as true. When one is confronted with the Gospel, along with clear conviction of the Spirit, they know they cannot help but believe it is true. In that moment, they are responsible to decide whether they will repent and obey the call of God, or to refuse to cast their trust upon Christ and choose hell. The Gospel calls those who believe to act upon this faith and repent. It is an issue of obedience and not just an assent to the fact that Jesus died for our sins. A.W. Tozer aptly said, “The whole ‘Accept Christ’ attitude is likely to be wrong, it make Him stand hat-in-hand awaiting our verdict on Him, instead of our kneeling with troubled hearts awaiting His verdict on us. It may even permit us to accept Christ by an impulse of mind or emotions, painlessly, at no loss to our ego and no inconvenience to our usual way of life.”

I know that all of what I have been saying is hard for many Christian workers to accept. We want to see people come to the truth and be saved. In our efforts, are we at times putting too much upon ourselves and not enough upon God? Why have we abandoned the Scriptural means of salvation in favor of overly simplistic and flawed models of presenting the Gospel, like “The Four Spiritual Law” and “Sinner’s Prayer.” All of them are fundamentally flawed in that each of them calls on us to “accept” or to “decide” upon Christ without ever calling the sinner to repentance. A mere acknowledgement that they are “sinners” seems sufficient for them. An acknowledgement of our sinful state is important but it is different than true repentance. One cannot come to Christ in hopes of His precious gift of life with the intent of remaining an enemy of God while refusing to let go of their sins.

The error that seems to be fueling this called Evangelicalism is that its approach is based upon the idea that salvation is a one-shot-of-faith-and-it–is-over theology. It makes salvation a crisis of deciding and accepting an immunization from hell and leaves off the process of obedience and a beginning of a new walk in Christ as optional for the believer. This is not honorable to God, nor is it Scriptural!

How can we know if someone is saved? The present approach is to get them to say a “Sinner’s Prayer” and we congratulate them that they are now “saved,” child of God and destined for heaven, regardless of how you feel. We tell them to believe God’s promised by faith and not what you feel inside! Is this biblical?

Whenever I share the Gospel with someone and he believes and desires to be saved, I will often lead him in a prayer, much like a sinner’s prayer. However, I always inform him that this prayer does not mean you are already saved. I tell them what I have done is to help them take step one on the road to eternal life. I am mindful that Jesus specifically said in Matthew 24:13 “But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” You don’t win a race just by starting well but you need to finish the race to be a winner. Paul himself rejoiced that he finished his race of life and that now he was confidence of receiving his eternal rewards.

We have no biblical authority to tell someone he is saved. God said, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” (Romans 8:16) “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” (Romans 8:14) Our part is to show an unbeliever HOW to be saved. Only the Holy Spirit can DECLARE that person is actually saved.

To compel someone to go against what they know is in their heart is mere humanistic psychology and wishful thinking. We are not doing God or these people any favors by making declaration of salvation when it is the role of the Spirit to validate and convert a soul. The Holy Spirit bears witness, not man, to son-ship and salvation of the individual. If the Holy Spirit is leading them, they will know it! The Scriptures promise it!

Decisional Regeneration is founded upon mysticism and humanism. It is humanistic in that it denies the corrupt nature of man and in essence, it makes man sovereign over God in salvation. It relies on mysticism in that it teaches that a recitation of an incantation or prayer magically guarantees the acceptance of God apart from any evidence coming from God!

Now I am thankful for the 10-20% of those that come forward in these crusades that actually do get saved. The expense involved in this evangelistic work is worth every cent because it results in saved souls. We however, cannot ignore the grave danger of jumping the gun and declaring the unregenerate to have been born-again when the witness of the Spirit has not been confirmed it to the individual.

When they try to walk the Christian walk without being born-again or having the power of the indwelling Spirit, they will utterly fail. By their experience they will be convinced that “Christianity” is a failure because it did not work for them! This will cause them to go through their lives seeking salvation elsewhere but not in Christ, because they will have been convinced from their experience that this “religion” does not work. By giving the unregenerate a false hope of assurance of salvation, we will have successfully inoculated them from Christ forever!

Who can rightfully declare that a person is saved? A preacher or a man or the Holy Spirit? When a person is genuinely born-again, they will know it. The Holy Spirit will dwell within them and be a witness to their hearts that they are a child of God. The fruit of that salvation must accompany any declaration of salvation. Because Decisional Regeneration generally ignores repentance from sin, it implies that one has salvation while they are still in willful rebellion against God. This is an impossibility.

“Whoever is born of God does not commit sin…” (1 John 3:9) It implies that sin is something alien to his life. It does not mean he will never sin but sin is not a way of life with him. There are some Christians who have embraced the teaching of “cheap grace” suggesting that it does not matter how many or how long a Christian continues to sin, he will never be lost. They believe we don’t have to worry about the sin question anymore because all our sins past, present and future have already been forgiven by Christ. They make Paul’s admonition in Titus 2:11-12 absolutely meaningless – “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in the present age.”

Saving faith must include a willingness to abandon any rebellion towards God. One cannot trust in faith that their sins deserve hell, while inwardly refusing to turn from that sin. One cannot be in rebellion and faith at the same time. While we can give people hope that they can be saved by faith, it is an error to declare them saved apart from the witness of the Spirit and the evidence of a changed life. When God regenerates a soul, the person is changed. It is inevitable. If one continues on unchanged, while declaring that they are “saved,” they are deluded and deceived. If you are indeed saved, the Holy Spirit will definitely change you from inside. The Spirit will witness to you that you are a child of God and He will give you victory over sin if you obey Him. Without this inner witness, one does not have the true evidence of salvation.