The Plan of Salvation
Douglas Wilson at Blog and Mablog (in response to all the hub-bub about you-know-who) has this to say about the absolute necessity of the need for new birth using B. B. Warfield’s The Plan of Salvation:
B.B. Warfield identifies the evangelical position as that which testifies to the saving grace of God as an immediate transaction between God and the saved soul. God can perform this stupendous work in the human soul apart from means, and He can do it in accordance with means. But when He uses means, He is doing so with sovereign authority over the means. He is not bound to them, He is not tethered. He uses them as He sees fit. There are those present who are just as baptized, and just as preached to, who are not converted. Why not? Because the effectual call did not summon them. This effectual call is the center of evangelicalism.
