Bondage of the Will

Pastor Martin asks, what precisely does God do in a sinner when He regenerates him? Using an extended illustration of a hungry man eating through distorted tinted glasses that make steak look like mud and peas like pebbles, he shows that regeneration is a change in the whole man touching three faculties without creating any new ones. First, regeneration is an illumination of the mind, removing the blinding glasses the god of this world has put on the unbeliever (1 Corinthians 2:14, 2 Corinthians 4:4-6, Ephesians 4:17-18, Acts 26:18). Second, it is a redirection of the affections so that the regenerate loathes the sin he once loved and loves the God he once hated (Ezekiel 36:31, Deuteronomy 30:6, the Beatitudes). Third, it is a rectifying of the will so that the sinner, once unable because unwilling, comes freely to Christ (Ezekiel 36:27, John 6:44-45). He closes with the balancing formula: we owe our faith to our regeneration, but we know our regeneration only by our faith.