The long and the short of my post will be as follows : Justification is ostensibly (so say the Calvinists) completely separate and different from regeneration (which occurs within man and changes man), yet, when faced with what Scripture teaches about regeneration, because God prevents them from understanding that the Scripture contradicts their position on the issue, they freely admit God changes man's status and saves him (therefore justifies him) specifically with what He does within man in regeneration (through what He does to change man).
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According to "Reformed" theology, regeneration and justification are two separate acts which can even be separated temporally (even by years)--"Man must be regenerated first in order to believe later on," they insist.
Justification, they say, happens not within the man but outside of man in the tribunal of God, does not change a man at all, is merely a forensic declaration about man, changes the person's status not the person, charges the sins of the believer to Christ and Christ's righteousness to the believer, and man's sins are removed and he becomes a child of God. Regeneration, on the other hand, they argue, happens within man and changes man.
Alister McGrath, "Justitia Dei" pp212-213
The following three features are characteristic of Protestant understanding of justification over the period of 1530 - 1730:
1. Justification is defined as the forensic declaration that believers are righteous, rather than the process by which they are made righteous, involving a change in their status rather than in their nature.
2. A deliberate and systematic distinction is made between justification (the external act by which God declares the sinner to be righteous) and sanctification or regeneration (the internal process of renewal within humans).
3. Justifying righteousness, or the formal cause of justification, is defined as the alien righteousness of Christ, external to humans and imputed to them, rather than a righteousness which is inherent to them, located within them, or which in any sense may be said to belong to them.
Erwin Lutzer, "How You Can Know You Will Spend Eternity With God" p74
Justification happens outside of us; it is God's declaration in heaven that we are as righteous as Christ. The new birth happens inside of us.
John MacArthur, "Justification by Faith" (video)
Justification is a forensic or purely legal term. It describes what God declares about the believer, not what He does to change the believer. In fact, justification effects no actual change whatsoever in the sinner's nature or character.
James White, "The God Who Justifies" p88, p94
When a man is justified, he himself is not changed (the change takes place in regeneration and sanctification).
...
Though he reborn and changed by the work of the Spirit in regeneration, and God continues the process of sanctification throughout his life, justification itself does not change the man.
This view is held to because they know if they admit the actual Scriptural view it changes everything :
James White, "The God Who Justifies" p116
...if that imputation involves a subjective change in the person... the entire gospel message takes on a completely different meaning and nature.
Well, bad news, guys : Scripture actually teaches regeneration and justification are one and the same. Good news for my view is that these very same men (who clearly are at odds with Scripture) unwittingly teach (while reading the Bible) what refutes their own error:
John Piper, "Through the Washing of Regeneration"
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. Salvation is the big overarching idea in this text (verse 5: "he saved us"). But the specific way he does it is regeneration.
Piper just taught that to be regenerated is to be justified (saved)--and by acknowledging that regeneration (what happens within man) saves man, changes his status, makes him right with God, etc, (because that's what the text he's quoting from plainly states) Piper contradicts Reformed theology on justification and proves it's inconsistent and false.
Thus, enough with all of this anti-Scriptural Calvinist nonsensical wrangling about regeneration needing to precede justification. Stick with Scripture instead.
Titus 3:5
"...He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness but according to his own mercy through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit."
Reject the clearly false teachings of Reformed theology (which ever ones are proven false--some of them are good). Instead, be consistent, be logical, be honest.
More comedy from ridiculous (worthy of ridicule) anti-Reformation "Reformed" "exponents" :
James White, "The God Who Justifies"
p57 : Here the apostle describes the desperate and hopeless condition of everyone, including Christians prior to the gracious act of regeneration (Ep 2:5). We all share this state: deadness in trespasses and sins, enslavement to the 'ruler of the kingdom of the air,' sonship to disobedience, servitude to the cravings and desires of the flesh...
p370 : This is the promise of the new birth as Jesus explained it to Nicodemus... and so the work of regeneration and renewal that makes salvation the present reality in the believer is just as fully divine and God-centered as all that has come before. Here Paul is describing the means by which He has saved.
p372 : God saves on the basis of His mercy, and he does so 'through' (dia) the work of the Spirit in regeneration and renewal...
He admits these passages are about regeneration--but I thought men were saved by justification not by regeneration.
James White, "The Potter's Freedom"
p252 : The elect, until they are regenerated, are fallen sons of Adam as are all others.
Oopsie! So sloppy. "Well, Poppie's a little sloppy." (A lot of people consider White to be a "Pop" in the faith.)
James White, "The Potter's Freedom"
p267 : There is an element of truth here in the sense that until the point of regeneration, the benefits of Christ's death are not applied to the elect."
So, the benefits of Christ's death (which, of course, involve pardoning man's sins and changing his status) are applied in regeneration. He admits without realizing that regeneration does what justification does.
R.C. Sproul, "Regeneration, A Sovereign Act"
(Ephesians 2) But what He is talking about is a divine and supernatural work by which a human being who by nature is a child of wrath is changed spiritually from a state of spiritual death and transformed into a state o spiritual life which the Apostle calls here quickening. Now both quickening and rebirth are what we consider under the topic of this word regeneration.
John MacArthur
Col 2:13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh He made you alive having forgiven you all your transgressions. Again the testimony of Scripture is that this is a work of God. Regeneration is recreation, new life, being born again.
Regeneration wipes out man's transgressions--therefore regeneration justifies.
