Some overdo the deadness. We are dead in trespasses and without regeneration we don’t listen. But don’t overdo it and spoil the justice of God. God is going to judge, and you mustn’t make God unfair. How can God judge one who does not know anything, who never heard, which is what would be the case if the unbeliever was capable of understanding nothing at all? Yes we are dead, and so we are prejudiced – but we are responsible, guilty, wilfully away from God. We are worse than people who have never known. Hebrews 6:4 tells us of people who seemed to believe, but it turns out they never did. They were enlightened, they understood, at times they felt, ‘I would like to go to heaven.’ They were partakers. They said, this is true, but they were never converted.
What is the function of preaching? People ask, ‘If we believe in election and God acts first in salvation, why do we bother to preach?’ Some answer, ‘Because we don’t know who the elect are.’ That is true, but it’s not an adequate answer; there are bigger reasons. 1. People are responsible and have to be warned. They need to be told they are sinners and are rejecting the way of salvation. There must be a ministry of warning: life to those who are saved, and death to those who are not saved. 2. The heart of God must be published even if the whole world rejects him. God has shown mercy and invited all to come, and they won’t respond. 3. People must consciously be persuaded. God does not want us to blink and it is all done. He wishes us to change our minds, to turn around, to repent and believe. Regeneration is the beginning of this work. We are lost; we need regeneration, but there is persuasion involved in bringing us to the new birth. You need to hear preaching with persuasion, because God wants you to be convinced; preaching is instrumental. Preachers reason with souls as if God could through them convince people. Regeneration comes first, but then God moves to convince. You come to be aware of your sin and you repent and put your faith in Christ. God brings us to a conscious spiritual birth. That is why preachers must preach the gospel. We persuade (2 Corinthians 5:11); we put before them the need of salvation. We are to preach as though God will use us to make them personally respond. We are ambassadors for God.
How can we treat unbelievers as responsible when they are incapable of responding because they are spiritually dead? We can be responsible for what we are unable to do, if the cause of our inability lies in us. A man born with paralysed legs is not responsible for being unable to walk, but if he deliberately damages his own legs he is responsible. We are born sinners, and so it might seem that we are more like the one born with paralysed legs, but we are responsible nevertheless. That is because of Adam’s sin which has been imputed to us all. In this case the sin which made us unable to obey was the sin of another, but it is imputed to us under the covenant of works, and that covenant arrangement is just. Furthermore we endorse our sinful state by sinning willingly from the earliest time we can make our own conscious decisions. We cannot say, I am excused from guilt because my sin comes from the sinful nature which I was created with. Sin always carries its own responsibility, its own guilt. Our sin does not result from our ignorance alone. The Scripture puts the emphasis on our wills: we will not come to Christ to have life.