The State of the Elect Prior to Regeneration

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Were you lost, bound for absolutely certain condemnation and wrath, just prior to all that happening?

Indeed, I was, as are all before their re-birth (Eph. 2:1-5). I do know where you are headed here, and it would be more effective to just lay out your entire agenda than just resorting to playing twenty questions, as it were.

The elect are under the same condemnation until the application of Christ's person and work by virtue of the Holy Spirit's work, as shown from the summary of Scripture in the WCF:

WCF 11:4 God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect, (Gal. 3:8, 1 Pet. 1:2, 19-20, Rom. 8:30) and Christ did, in the fulness of time, die for their sins, and rise for their justification: (Gal. 4:4, 1 Tim. 2:6, Rom. 4:25) nevertheless, they are not justified, until the Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them (Col. 1:21-22, Gal. 2:16, Tit. 3:4-7).​

Much confusion by the anti-Calvinist arises on the matter of election. Until justified, the elect are under condemnation. In other words, there is a difference between saying that "election is salvation" (the anti-Calvinist's erroneous understanding) and "election is unto salvation" (the Calvinist's proper understanding). The historic Reformed position is that election is unto salvation. God decrees to save the elect in eternity, but their salvation is accomplished and applied in time, before which time (as Eph 2 makes clear) they are "by nature children of wrath, just as the others." This view stands in direct opposition to the Hyper-Calvinist's view of eternal justification.

As Calvin explains:

Spoiler

Therefore all of us, who have descended from impure seed, are born infected with the contagion of sin. In fact, before we saw the light of this life we were soiled and spotted in God´s sight.
- Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, ed. John T. McNeill and trans. Ford Lewis Battles, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, reprinted 1977), Book II.1.5, p. 248.

10. The Elect before their call. There is no "seed of election." The elect are gathered into Christ´s flock by a call not immediately at birth, and not all at the same time, but according as it pleases God to dispense his grace to them. But before they are gathered unto that supreme Shepherd, they wander scattered in the wilderness common to all; and they do not differ at all from others except that they are protected by God´s especial mercy from rushing headlong into the final ruin of death. If you look upon them, you will see Adam´s offspring, who savor of the common corruption of the mass. The fact that they are not carried to utter and even desperate impiety is not due to any innate goodness of theirs but because the eye of God watches over their safety and his hand is outstretched to them!

For those who imagine that some sort of seed of election was sown in them from birth itself, and that by its power they have always been inclined to piety and the fear of God, are not supported by Scriptural authority and are refuted by experience itself. They put forward a few examples by which to prove that the elect even before illumination were not strangers to religion: Paul lived a blameless life as a Pharisee [Philippians 3:5-6]; Cornelius, with alms and prayers, was acceptable to God [Acts 10:2], and the like, if any. As for Paul, we grant them their point; in Cornelius, we say they are deceived.

For it appears that he was then already enlightened and regenerated, so that he lacked nothing but a clear revelation of the gospel. But what will they wring out of these few examples? That all the elect are always endowed with the spirit of piety? No more than if someone by showing the uprightness of Aristides, Socrates, Xenocrates, Scipio, Curius, Camillus, and others infers from it that all who are forsaken in the darkness of idolatry were earnest seekers of holiness and purity. Indeed, Scripture openly disclaims them in more than one place.

This state before regeneration described by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians shows no grain of this seed. "You were dead," he says, "through the trespasses and sins in which you... walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the air, who is now at work in his disobedient sons. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of the flesh and of the mind. So we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest." [Ephesians 2:1-3, abbr.]

Again: "Remember that... you were once without hope, and lacking God in the world." [Ephesians 2:12]
Likewise: "You were once darkness but are now light in the Lord; walk as children of light." [Ephesians 5:8-9.]

But they would perhaps like this to be referred to ignorance of the true God in which, as they do not deny, the elect are held before they are called. Yet this would be shameless calumny, since he draws the inference that they ought no longer to lie [Ephesians 4:25] or steal [Ephesians 4:28]. But what answer will they make to the other passages? Such as that in the letter to the Corinthians, where, after declaring that "neither fornicators nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor the greedy, will inherit the Kingdom of God" [1 Corinthians 6:9-10], he immediately adds that they were guilty of those very transgressions before they knew Christ but are now washed with his blood and freed by the Spirit [1 Corinthians 9:11]. Likewise, another passage, in the letter to the Romans: "Just as you... yielded your members as slaves to impurity and to greater iniquity upon iniquity, so now yield your members in bondage to righteousness" [1 Corinthians 6:19, cf. Vg.]. "For what fruit did you get from those things at which you now rightly blush?" [1 Corinthians 6:21 p.].
- Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 2, ed. John T. McNeill and trans. Ford Lewis Battles, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, reprinted 1977), Book III.24.10, pp. 976-977.

The above is why Reformed theology and the doctrine of election is not a hindrance to evangelism, but rather a spur. In plain words: "you go fishin' where you know there are fish." The doctrine of election does not mean that men do not need the gospel, rather the doctrine of election is God's way of telling us that He has already paved the way for us to bring the gospel.

Also, before some objection about the impassibility of God is raised, the classic explanation is that God does not change His will, God wills the change. Accordingly, we see that God willed to change the status of elect sinners in relation to Himself; He did not change His will in relation to sinners.

It was the unchanging love of God towards the elect which appointed and provided the atonement as the means by which sinners would be reconciled to God. There is no change in God towards the elect; the elect are changed in relation to God.

When God views you "in Christ," all the Trinitarian divine love flows to you by virtue of your union with the Son. When God views you "in Adam," all the wrath of God against sin is directed toward you in rebellion, without any mitigation. The wrath of God due to his elect for their sin is poured out upon the Son in their place. Covenant and Election matter. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

However, if the atonement is universalized—as do those denying particular atonement—and made something less than definite, it is difficult to maintain the unchangeability of God. Here the atonement has come to be interpreted as something which has made sinners savable to God, and therefore the only logical conclusion from such a view is that God Himself must have undergone some kind of change as a result of this indefinite atonement.

AMR