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Herman Bavinck On Calling, Regeneration, and Preaching

"Bavinck also takes up a discussion of covenant adults and their spiritual state, and here Bavinck specifically takes up the work of preaching -- both preaching unto the last afar off and preaching to covenant members of the church. Whereas it is wrongheaded to treat covenant people as unbelievers, it is likewise wrongheaded to fail to call them to faith and repentance after the pattern of the Old Testament prophets, as well as John the Baptist and Jesus. Similarly, the apostolic letters refer to the covenant people as God's elect and members of Christ, yet the churches could be infected with hypocrites not yet detected and with various forms of error and unrighteousness that require continual calls to faith and repentance. Scripture teaches us to regard one another as God's people, but also to be aware that false brothers and sisters slip in as fakes, and they do not constitute the essence of the church.

This discussion clears the way for Bavinck to take up calling and regeneration in relation to the preaching of the gospel. Here Bavinck contrasts a Reformed understanding with a Methodistic approach. He also contrasts it with an approach which assumes that all in the church are saved and therefore they should only hear preaching that edifies -- that over against a preaching that also exposes sin, hypocrisy, and consequently, calls to faith and conversion. The ethical method of preaching inevitably leads to a dead orthodoxy, says Bavinck. He believes both forms of proclamation are necessary in the church; otherwise one-sidedness is the result -- the one-sidedness of presupposed regeneration and the one-sidedness of presupposed non-regeneration.
This is the answer to the second key question -- does the direct operation of the Holy Spirit exclude the use of means? Bavinck maintains that though the Spirit's work is internal and irresistible, the Reformed never called regeneration "immediate" in contrast with and to the exclusion of the Word as a means of grace, to which the Holy Spirit joins himself and makes effectual."
From J Mark Beach's introductory essay of Saved by Grace: The Holy Spirit's Work in Calling and Regeneration

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