Featured Jesus said, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me.” ~ John 12:32

But nobody who is born naturally has anything except enmity for Christ, whether they are those God foreknew as His people or the children of the devil.
Yes regeneration comes first as you must be born again before you enter the kingdom of God. God wont put new wine into old wine skins.

Example what Paul says about us believers before God saved us, that were like the others, but we were not the others.
Yet we did all the evil things the others did too and were by our fallen nature children of wrath just as the others.

Ephesians 2 New King James Version (NKJV)

1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,
3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

We were the foreknown as His people of God, so in a sense we were of God as God had chosen us in Christ from before the foundation, but it was not manifested as Christ in us until God chose to reveal His Son inside of us. God has given to us the understanding to know Christ because we are of God.

1 John 5:19 We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.

1 John 5:20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

 

There are only 2 minds, the carnal which is naturally born, of the flesh, and its dead and the spiritual which is supernaturally born, of the Spirit and its alive.
Flesh is flesh and spirit is Spirit, you must be born again.

Romans 8:6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Romans 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

I reject any idea that a born again person can be carnally minded as that means they will bear bad fruit, Persons born of God are spiritually alive and are joined as one spirit with God. People who reject this will tell you a born again person can lose their salvation, but good trees cannot bear bad fruit, and those who bear bad fruit or are fruitless are cut down and thrown into the fire of hell.

Another way of understanding this is that a bad tree cannot bear good fruit
And a good tree cannot bear bad fruit.

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

 

So you take that to be saved person born of God can lose their salvation?
People who do not abide in Christ are unbelievers and can do nothing.
Since they can do nothing, they can not know Christ and be saved either.

Christ is the only way to have life, if you dont abide in the vine, you not saved.
Christ also created all things, including unsaved people.
All the unsaved are not fruit bearing for God, so then they are fruitless even though Christ made them as their creator, and they are thrown into the fire.

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

 

You throw this out there as proof a saved person bearing good fruit can turn into a bad tree and bear bad fruit or be fruitless? So your going directly against what Christ said, your challenging Christ on His own words.

It obviously means what I said, Christ is the creator of all things and in Him all things consist. But if those things created don't abide in Christ, then they are fitted for destruction. It is not saying they were ever saved as sheep of Christ who don't abide in Christ and are fruitless, Jesus says the Father gave the sheep to Him and they will never perish.

.

 

It says this,
2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away;

It does not say this
2 Every branch that abides in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away;

If your born of God, then your are joined to the Lord as one spirit with Him, so you have the indwelling Holy Spirit and your abiding in Him and He is abiding in you.

Don't think the 'branch in Me' ever was a saved branch. If you go down that path, they you must logically think a saved person can lose their salvation. Maybe you like that idea but it goes against the scriptures.
The vine will not carry fruitless branches, the fruit we bear is ordained by God. So if someone is not bearing fruit to God then they are not of God and He removes them from the vine so they can not inherit eternal life. God wont tolerate apostates (fake believers or false brethren to be saved as part of the true vine.

John 15:16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain

 

Even the verse about faith saving us, is saying the faith is God's gift.
You can see the creative power of God at work in the individual's life. A baby does not choose to be born into a family.
First off, Paul says we are saved by grace,
In v8 he says that the faith is a gift not of yourselves lest anyone should boast.
If your faith was created in you by you, you would have grounds for boasting.
Then in v10, Paul says we are God's workmanship. The work of God is that you believe in Christ, again this is not ourselves.
Then Paul tells us the good works we will do, God has prepared for us beforehand to walk in them.
Again all of God, the grace, the faith, the works, all because of His love, His purposes, the mystery of His will.

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Regarding regeneration being first, I ask you, how can the carnal mind of the flesh nature overcome the enmity it has with God by itself?
It is impossible. It is all about being born again. See when people insist being born again comes after we believe they ignore the verse that says this
10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

And scripture testifies “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?. "
Such an untransformed nature will retain the enmity and not believe in Christ.

 

The enmity of the unbeliever. They hate Christ.

John 15:18[ The World’s Hatred ] “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.
John 7:7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil.

The unbelieving world also hates the church of believers.

John 15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

And those who hate Christ also hate God.

John 15:23 He who hates Me hates My Father also.

Enmity and its synonyms "hostility," animosity, and animus all indicate deep-seated dislike or ill will. Enmity (which derives from an Anglo-French word meaning "enemy") suggests true hatred, either overt or concealed. Hostility implies strong, open enmity that shows itself in attacks or aggression.

Romans 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

 

Consider it like this, a very committed Arminian minded person who furiously hates calvinism, full of enmity against it, suddenly embraces Calvinism with love, this would be most unnatural thing to see happen. I put it that direction as I dont see many calvinists having full on enmity with arminianism

IT would be much easier to see that happen, than for anyone to overcome their enmity with the true God and true Christ according to the scriptures

 

NO, not false because other verses tells us our faith is a gift.
See you disputing and denying something confirmed already.
This is grace that we are gifted our faith. It is though our faith, the faith which comes through Him.

Romans 12:3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.


Acts 3:16 And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know.
Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.

Hebrews 12
1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

See you consider our faith speculative, may or may not happen, which also means God can not know the future, if man has pure free will choices.

 

Genesis 1:1 (KJV)
Strong's G4102
πίστις pistis
FAITH here in Hebrews 12:2 means this....

conviction of the truth of anything, belief; in the NT of a conviction or belief respecting man's relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervour born of faith and joined with it

so then, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our belief = faith...

The scripture does not say 'of the faith', it says of OUR FAITH, and literally of OUR BELIEF.

But keep denying this if you want, its a free country.

 

Ligonier Ministries

Faith is a gift of the Lord to undeserving people, the outworking of God’s electing grace and the atonement of Jesus for His own.

Ephesians 2:8 confirms the truth that faith is ultimately a gift of God. “The gift of God” in the original Greek appears in the neuter grammatical form, which means that it refers back to both grace and faith earlier in the verse.

Grace and faith are divine gifts, and our Father does not give them to all people. Only this view of faith is consistent with the biblical teaching on the pervasiveness of our depravity and our desperate state apart from Christ.
Sinners are intellectually able to understand the basic content of the gospel, but they lack the moral ability to believe the gospel. That is, they are wholly unwilling to turn from their sin and rest in Christ alone until the Spirit changes their hearts and enables them to heed the preaching of the gospel of God (Acts 13:13–52).