Speratus,

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Three more questions: Will God cause all the steps to occur eventually? Does anything prior to and including forensic justification involve man's unforced cooperation? Is the righteousness of Christ imputed to the sinner by faith alone?

1) Yes, all of the points in the Ordo Salutis will occur eventually: "[For I am] confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6). God will not allow His elect to become reprobate after having been regenerated!

2) I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "forensic justification." But I don't think anything man does is "forced" upon him by God; i.e., nothing a man does is ever ultimately in opposition to his own will. His will is, however, in bondage to sin, unless he is regenerated by the Spirit, at which point his will is irreversibly altered to inherently desire the things of God (though, it is true, the sinful nature is not eradicated immediately and the will remains imperfect until glorification). To have one's will changed from the outside obviously cannot be either against or according to one's will, because one's will is destroyed and remade.

3) Yes, Christ's righteousness is imputed to the sinner by the grace of God through faith in Christ alone. A man does not receive righteousness by any other means---neither works of the law nor the sacrament of baptism. Now, I believe God can work through baptism to cause regeneration, but just as preaching the Word does not infallibly regenerate, neither does baptism, and so those baptized as infants should not be presumed regenerate.

Kyle

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified.