22 the New Birth and Saving Faith 1 John 5 1

Regeneration is the sovereign work of God by which a spiritually dead sinner is made alive in Christ, resulting in genuine saving faith. Does a sinner believe in Christ in order to be born again, or does he believe because God has first given him spiritual life? Which is the cart and which is the horse? This question takes us into one of the most important doctrines of Reformed study of the doctrine of salvation. Over the centuries theologians have debated the relationship between regeneration and faith in ordo salutis (that’s Latin for the order of salvation.