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it is impossible at any point to neatly distinguish that which is pure
gift from that which is conscious response on man‘s part.
Accordingly faith is necessarily evidential of the work of the Holy
Spirit. Without the Spirit, man could never respond to God being
dead in sin. Instead, faith is the fruit of the Holy Spirit‘s inner work
and not our work by which we receive the Holy Spirit. This leaves
man with only one proper response to God‘s wonderful work of
salvation: gratitude. For both the object of our faith, Jesus Christ,
and the ability to receive him by faith through regeneration by the
Holy Spirit are entirely gracious.
Nonetheless, conversion is not the end of the story in the life
of the believer but its beginning. Regeneration and conversion
begin the process of the return to God, but they are not its focus.
Rather, the concern of Calvin, and Reformed faith ever since, has
been to highlight the majesty and the praise of God. Unlike
Augustine who sought to find God in the recesses of his soul,
Calvin believed such myopic introspection the characteristic of
man‘s selfish indulgence. The work of the Spirit and the Word was
to direct the vision of the believer to contemplate the wonder and
majesty of God. Indeed, Reformed faith was to counteract anxious,
self-centered concern with personal salvation. as the quiet
confidence that has marked Reformed faith through the centuries as
a calm harbor amidst the turbulent sea of life.
Trust, Obedience and the Christian Life:
Thus, the story of new creation in Christ by the power of the
Holy Spirit directs us from the tragedy that was the fate of man to
the wonderful triumph that has been achieved and be fully realized
with the full establishment of God‘s Kingdom. Calvin‘s emphasis
on God‘s restoration of trust and obedience through Christ and the
power of the Holy Spirit has tremendous implications in terms of
the Christian life and the establishment of the church.