I’ve written a couple of posts in the past, busting common myths about what Reformed (“Calvinist”) Christians believe.  The purpose of these posts is not to convince you to believe like us; rather it is to clarify what we, in fact, believe, because there is a lot of misinformation/misinterpretation floating around.  So I’ve written about things like whether “saved” and “elect” are synonymous, and the common perception that Calvinists teach that people are, essentially, puppets.

Both of those are understandable misunderstandings.  (Doesn’t that sound like an oxymoron?!)  But here’s one I never thought I’d run up against: the idea that Calvinists teach that regenerate believers are still “dead in sin.”  I can only hope that this is an isolated perception, because I can emphatically state that neither I, nor anyone else I know, believes this.  But I read elsewhere today the following assertion:

New Calvinists continually proclaim that Christians are, present tense, “enemies of God,” “haters of God,” “dead in trespasses and sins,” etc. Calvinism rejects the new birth. I’m not saying they don’t use the term, “new birth,” I am saying Calvinism rejects the biblical new birth.

(Sorry, but I’m not even going to link back to that one; it’s such a mess.  If you really want to read it, you can Google it.)

Let me be very clear:

I believe that I was “dead in trespasses and sins,” but now am “alive in Christ.”  (Eph. 2:1, 4-5)

I believe that I was an “enemy of”/”hater of” God, but now am “adopted as a son.”  (Yes, son.  Sonship entails certain legal rights not bestowed on daughters at the time and in the place that was written.  Even “daughters” are “sons.”   Rom. 5:10; 8:14-15)

I believe that I was a “slave to sin,” but now am a “slave to righteousness.”  (Rom. 6:17-18)

I believe that I am a “new creation,” the old having “passed away.” (2 Cor. 5:17)

The New Testament makes it very, very clear that we “must be born again.” (Jn. 3:3-6)

To say that I don’t believe in the new birth is to grossly misunderstand my theology, because the new birth is at the very heart of it!

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Cor. 5:21)

and

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us…for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”  (Eph. 1:7; 2:8)

Those sum up the heart of my beliefs.  Yes, as a Calvinist.  (In fact, go ahead and re-read that whole passage of Ephesians, including the intervening verses.  That passage has Calvinism — or “Sovereigntism,” as we prefer to call it — written all over it.)

Whatever else you may think of me, may it never be said that I deny the regenerating work of Christ.