Zanchi’s comments on the violent uprisings of fallen desire should be a great help to Christians who find themselves perplexed over how easily they can stumble into sin. How many believers have been completely overcome with guilt after giving in to sin, and upon becoming overwhelmed by their sin and the shame that follows, that they question how they could be believers to begin with if they could commit sin so easily? While he makes clear that no one is excused for their sin when these violent desires overwhelm us, the true believer is immediately led to repentance and turning away from sin, and this is a blessing of faith.

Sin is greatly confusing for believers. The apostle captures this in Romans 7 when he says “the things that I will not, these I do.” How could the apostle seem to speak in such a defeated manner with regard to sin in a believer who has been given the Spirit and the grace of repentance? And if such a double-minded “believer” could be conceived of in this life, is assurance of salvation possible?
To answer these questions, some have tried to explain Romans 7 as speaking of a man before conversion since a “defeatist” view of sin in the believer seems entirely out of accord with the New Testament teaching on regeneration and holiness. This answer would seem to take away any notion that a believer might so willingly enter into sin as a new creation.
Answers to this dilemma, however, have not always been helpful for Christians in their struggle against sin. There have been some who suggest that when the believer sins, God turns in anger against him and the impression is given that without the requisite degree of sanctification, salvation may absent or at worst, lost.
When John Owen wrote his famous treatise on The Mortification of Sin of the Life of Believers, he was pastorally concerned to help Christians with this dilemma. He began with a case of conscience:
Suppose a man to be a true believer, and yet finds in himself a powerful indwelling sin, leading him captive to the law of it, consuming his heart with trouble, perplexing his thoughts, weakening his soul as to the duties of communion with God, disquieting him as to peace, and perhaps defiling his conscience, and exposing him to hardening through the deceitfulness of sin—what shall he do?
Owen provides many helpful and practical ways for the believer to mortify sin in his life. But of first importance is to ask how the Scriptures help the believer to understand what is happening in his whole man with regard to his struggle against sin.
What believers need most in this struggle is to appreciate the way in which the Scriptures distinguish their struggle from that of unbelievers. When this is appreciated, a certain release is provided that untangles the believer from a servile fear of God toward a filial fear that actually promotes true assurance of faith and lasting mortification of sin.
Help From Girolamo Zanchi
In his great work Speculum Christianum or The Christian Survey of Conscience, Girolamo Zanchi addressed at length the Reformed view of Romans 7 as the regenerate man’s struggle against sin, a view he assures was held by all the learned divines. He makes a crucial distinction that in the regenerate is a double-man. The Christian, he says, has a fundamental quality that is different from that of the unbeliever. When a regenerate man sins, “he sins only in the flesh and not with the whole will and the whole heart.”
Zanchi claims to have been attacked by Roman writers and even some Protestant divines for this distinction, but he engages heavily with Bucer and many others to make his case. The believer does not sin “according to the spirit but according to the flesh and therefore not with full and plenary consent of will.” He makes a distinction between the outward and inward man.
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They came before not just Moses and Eleazar the prophet and priest of the people of God but all the chiefs of the clans as well. These were the men who led God’s people, acted as judges in arguments, and made judicial decisions. This was an auspicious group of people, and these women stepped up to the challenge of speaking before this governing body. These women spoke their mind before this court, and God would bless their courage.

Have you ever heard of the five daughters of Zelophehad? Perhaps I can jog your memory: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. No? Well, it’s probably not a surprise. These women are mentioned several times in the book of Numbers—not the most popular Old Testament book—and they just aren’t as famous as Mary and Martha in the New Testament. Yet, I find their story to be one that is an example of the traits of a Christian woman: The daughters of Zelophehad are courageous and bold, they desire the things of the Lord, and they are humble. We learn of their story in Numbers 27:

Then drew near the daughters of Zelophehad the son of Hepher, son of Gilead, son of Machir, son of Manasseh, from the clans of Manasseh the son of Joseph. The names of his daughters were: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. And they stood before Moses and before Eleazar the priest and before the chiefs and all the congregation, at the entrance of the tent of meeting, saying, “Our father died in the wilderness. He was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah, but died for his own sin. And he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to us a possession among our father’s brothers.” (Num. 27:1-4)

The daughters of Zelophehad courageously stood before the leaders of their people for a just request—to have an inheritance among God’s people.
First, I would like to highlight the courage these women demonstrated. The text states that the daughters of Zelophehad stood before the leaders of their people: they came before not just Moses and Eleazar the prophet and priest of the people of God but all the chiefs of the clans as well. These were the men who led God’s people, acted as judges in arguments, and made judicial decisions. This was an auspicious group of people, and these women stepped up to the challenge of speaking before this governing body.
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After removing the stone, Jesus called with new creation power, “Lazarus, come out.” The heart that stopped four days before pulsed with new life. Lazarus walked out of his grave. Lazarus’s resurrection and gives a picture of what it is like for God to resurrect people who are dead in their sins spiritually. God takes what is dead and morally repugnant from sin and makes it into something alive and beautiful.

Like any other six-year-old, I lived life to the fullest. I climbed the cherry trees, played on the playground with my sister, and built my Legos. One day, a sense of dread and sadness began clouding my carefree days. I didn’t know what was wrong. I explained how I felt to my mom. She gently said, “You need Jesus.” At that moment, something extraordinary happened. I believed in Jesus. I did not have all the theology worked out in that moment of newfound belief. But I knew I needed Jesus. Desperately.
There is nothing more beautiful in the world than a person trusting and clinging to God for grace. True belief is the result of God’s effectual calling. And this effectual call is the dawning of new creation life.
It is often thought that systematic theology is abstract and theoretical. This is far from the case. The great truths of theology help us make sense of everyday life. We experience the truths of theology in life. Theology is systematic because each doctrine is dynamically connected. Effectual calling is organically related to the Trinity, election, creation, the doctrine of sin, atonement, eschatology, and all the other doctrines. Two theological relationships that continue to capture my attention are effectual calling and the new creation.
God’s Call and New Creation
God’s work in the heart is nothing less than a new creation. If God doesn’t do this work, people hear of the death and resurrection of Jesus and respond with anything but saving faith. Apathy, curiosity, mockery, or hostility are common responses to the gospel. But a person will only respond in saving faith if God calls that person and opens the heart to believe.
Just as God spoke and created the universe and everything in it, God speaks to the human heart and creates something new (2 Cor. 4:4). The God who said, “Let there be light!” says, “Let there be faith!” While the gospel is preached or shared, God creates something new in the heart of the person who responds in saving faith.
In systematic theology, the effectual calling, this new creation call, is also known as new birth or regeneration. Jesus taught that people must be born again to believe the gospel with saving faith (John 3:3–8). The Holy Spirit was active in the creation of the world. He formed it, brought order from the chaos, and made it beautiful (Gen. 1:2). The Spirit is also active in the new creation of the believers. Through the power of the gospel, the Spirit causes them to be born again, bringing order to their chaotic and dead hearts and making them spiritually beautiful.
God will one day restore the cosmos and make all things new. This new creation call to the individual through the gospel is the downpayment of resurrection life that will one day overtake all creation.
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