A very good post indeed...well thought out and rather compelling. However... :-)
If we accept that the NT defines regeneration as being born again or being born from above and conversion means faith + repentence, then your scenario would force the possibility of a born-again unbeliever.
If regeneration is receiving the new heart, being made alive from the dead, and we believe this life to be eternal life, and we insert a time lag to conversion, then we have an individual who has eternal life but yet has not been justified. If this is possible, then I dare say our terminology, and the terminology of orthodoxy is in serious jeopardy. Harley, am I missing something?
Yes, if that is how the NT defines regeneration. But it doesn't. You are hearing a warpped interpretation that salvation is faith + repentence. It isn't.
I posted the SAME exact situation about Cornelius (Acts 10-11) as Abraham on another thread. Their conversion and the timing parallels each others although the situations of course varies slightly. There is no difference. Like Lydia in Acts 16 God opened up her heart to hear the message. The view of man turning to God in faith and repentence doesn't fit any Biblical examples and that's not what the scriptures says if one were to carefully study the text. I like to think of the salvation experience of Abraham and Cornelius as the salvation experience in "slow motion".
As shocking as this may sound "man turning in faith + repentence" is NOT "orthodoxy". The early church fathers DID NOT believe this view and they went so far as to sharply condemned it at the Council of Orange as apostasy. I had to go back and read Augustine to discover all this. (I should have just read Calvin.)
Just as this article says and my example of Abraham, God redeems his chosen, protects them and draws them to Himself. Was Abraham "born again" in Gen 12 or Gen 15? Regeneration preceeds conversion. This was the historical perspective of the church and this is true orthodoxy.