As we have seen (here), it is apparent that Brother Garrett does not really teach "gospel regeneration" in the sense that the gospel is the efficient cause of regeneration. In this respect only the Campbellites teach "gospel regeneration" proper.
Brother Garrett's actual view is a semantic one in that he insists that the effectual call includes the context of gospel preaching so that repentance and faith are immediate evidences of the efficient cause of spiritual life, which is by the spirit of God alone. Only then is the effectual call complete, in Brother Garrett's view. In this respect, he is controverted by John 3:8 and John Gill, as Gill allows that regeneration may be defined more narrowly than this in his Body of Divinity.
One note here, it seems as if Brother Garrett is often supporting a view akin to the Campbellite view of gospel regeneration because he does not clearly establish the fact, so as not to be misunderstood, that the gospel is no means at all to the efficient act of quickening itself. Those that are dead cannot entertain any "means" of the gospel until after they're quickened, manifestly. But it often appears as if he conceals this or wishes to obscure this truth, that a means is pointless where there is no spiritual life, to appear as if he is promoting a non-Calvinistic view. Perhaps establishing this too clearly, though it is the absolute truth, would make him appear too much like a "hyper-Calvinist". But this glorifies God because He alone is the giver of life, and it debases man as the sinner he is. Man cannot "think" his way into spiritual life. He is a wretched sinner and alien from the Holiness of God - justly damned unless God commands the light out of darkness.
Leaving aside the scripturally valid separation of the effectual call from gospel belief, as can clearly be seen in John 3:8 and is inadvertently supported by the LCF, I would like to consider, what Brother Garrett takes to be, the strongest evidence in the N.T. for Brother Garrett's insistence that the effectual call should be understood in his broad application of including gospel belief.
In John 3:8, the words, "...so is every one that is born of the Spirit.", contains the verb, gegennēmenos, which is a perfect participle in the middle or passive voice. The sense of this phrase is, "so is everyone that has been born of the Spirit." The perfect tense of this verb is that the progress of birth has been completed and the results of the action are continuing on, in full effect. In other words, the progress of the action has reached its culmination and the finished results are now in existence. Unlike the English perfect, which indicates a completed past action, the Greek perfect tense indicates the continuation and present state of a completed past action, so one can understand why the phrase was translated as it was in the King James, but translating it as it is in the KJV somewhat obscures the past sense of the completed action.
Comparing this text with James 1:18, the word, "begat", in James 1:18, apekyēsen, is a literal medical or physical word that refers to being brought forth at the close of pregnancy, it does not and cannot refer to the initial spiritual conception of the spirit of God. Therefore, in James 1:18 the term "begat" must refer to the manifestation of having been born of God as in John 3:8 or by the Word of God Himself - Jesus Christ, as Beebe envisioned Christ leading His sheep spiritually and showing them the way in the gospel (John 10:27). In this way, the consistency of the word of truth being a means of revealing the quickened, should not be under valued. It is inconceivable that that which is born of God as in John 3:8 could fail to be "brought forth" by the gospel, at least to some degree.
The Apostle James, and the early Jewish disciples, were expressly begotten by the Spirit of God alone and expressly manifested as such by the gospel that they should be a firstfruit of God's new creatures. As John Gill himself entertains:
"...his new creatures, and so it has respect to such, as James, and others; who received the firstfruits of the Spirit, who first hoped and trusted in Christ, and were openly in him, and converted to him before others..."
Manifestly, the designation of "firstfruits" of new creatures establishes even more solidly that gospel conversion is further separable from being of God's "new creatures". They were not begotten of God and converted by the gospel that they might be a new creature, but a "firstfruit" of those born of God already.
2 Corinthians 5:17 states quite plainly, "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." It was hardly a peripheral view of Old Baptists contemporary with Gill, therefore, that the gospel converts preexisting new creatures, and not the rather that the gospel makes new creatures.
As Paul states, himself, using this same motif of "firstfruits", "And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption...(Romans 8:23)" Notice that Paul contrasts the firstfruits of the Spirit with the "creature" that will also be delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God (vs. 21). This glorious liberty is what the earnest expectation of the creature "waiteth" for in verse 19. The "perfect law of liberty" in James 1 is surely the gospel, and it must be so here, for it is only in the hope of the gospel that eternal life and redemption of the body (vs. 23) is with certainty testified to in the person of Christ.
Now, does anyone believe that Romans 8:21 proves that all of mankind will be redeemed? Or that they will all believe the gospel? Surely not. It is evident, therefore, that Paul refers to a subset of mankind, as in 2 Corinthians 5:17. The gospel is intended to those that have been raised to newness of life by the Spirit of God - to all new creatures who earnestly wait and expect good news of delivery from the apparent physical vanity of this life.
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