-
Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
Born Anew?
- Thread starter Van
- Start date
Who suggested we were not spiritually dead? No one! So what is the purpose. To say you agree, when we were conceived, we were conceived in a spiritually dead sate? ThanksIf we were not spritually dead (Eph. 2:1 etc.), there would be no need for us to be born anew. Indeed, the term would be ridiculous.
I'm sorry. I interpreted the words,
as meaning "not spiritually dead." My mistake.
Silverhair
Well-Known Member
Amazing how blind some people are to the truth of God's word.
SG and Dave G have both missed what we are being told.
Joh 1:12 But to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God—
Joh 1:13 children born not of blood, nor of the desire or will of man, but born of God.
Notice the order stated here
1] the person received/believed in God
2] they were given right to become His children
Verse 13 is just telling us the means of our salvation
not of blood {through having Christian parents} by a natural birth
nor of the will of the flesh {can not save themselves} by the works of the flesh
or of the will of man {no man can save another person} no effort of man can save him
but of God. {Eph_2:8 By His grace because of their faith} salvation is all of God and none of man
So we see clearly that it only those that freely believe in God that will be saved by God.
The ultimate basis of why there came to saving faith in Jesus would be due to the very will of God
Verse 13 qualifies those who received Him in verse 12. Those who received Him were born of God. It’s the effect before the cause in your stance my friend. So yes they received Him and were given the right to become His children. No disagreement there from me. But the reason why they received Him was because they were born of Him first.
Silverhair
Well-Known Member
The will of God is that all should come to repentance.
1Ti 2:3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,
1Ti 2:4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Are you saying that all are saved or that God failed?
Silverhair
Well-Known Member
If they were already born of God then you have made verse 12 moot.
Joh 1:12 But to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God
It would have no meaning at all.
You are putting salvation before belief. That is putting the cart before the horse my friend.
Your view is not biblical.
Romans Chapter 9
18 | So then he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will be hardeneth. |
Reasoning from a human persective.
It stands to reason if that's the nature of God, He would pick who He wills to save from a burning building and leave the rest to perish.
...in the same vein as:
Acts Chapter 13
48 | And as the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of God: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. |
Not. Direct statement from scripture.
Romans Chapter 9
14 | What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. |
Well, K, let's don't go there, Ok.
Sovereign Grace as you understand it, turns the Lord God into something I can't recognize from Scripture.
Nothing new about your repulsion to it. Common 'reasoning from a human perspective'.
John Chapter 6
65 | And he said, For this cause have I said unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it be given unto him of the Father. |
66 | Upon this many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. |
Non-germane obfuscation!
When we were made alive we were no longer spiritually dead.
Very much germane. Either we were born spiritually dead - in which case we needed to be born of the Spirit - or we were born spiritually alive, in which case no new birth is necessary.
However, in John 3:7, our Lord tells Nicodemus, "Marvel not that I say unto thee, ye must be born again." "Thee" is singular. Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin. The Lord Jesus calles him, the teacher of Israel (v.10). He must have been steeped in the O.T. Scriptures. If ever someone could do without a new birth (or birth from above) it was Nicodemus. But it wasn't just Nicodemus who needed that new birth. "Ye" is plural. It's not just old Nic, who showed himself hopelessly at sea in the conversation (vs. 4, 9); everyone must be born again. Your uncle Dick, your auntie Sue, cousin Harry, the guy next door - everyone needs to be born anew. Why? Because without it, they will not so much a see the kingdom of God (v.3), much less enter it (v.5).
That is why Paul tells the Ephesian Christians, whom he describes in Eph. 1:1 as 'saints ..... and faithful in Christ Jesus' that they were originally 'dead in trespasses and sins (2:1) and, 'by nature children of wrath,' just like everybody else (2:3). So how were these people brought to spiritual life? Were they able to respond to the milk of the Gospel, and then did God decide whether their faith was 'righteous' or not? No! 'But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)....' (Eph. 2:4-5). Grace is the undeserved favour of God, and had we done any single thing to merit our salvation, it would have been works, not grace, and therefore a matter of debt (Romans 4:1-8).
Go back to John 6:44 for a better understanding of how man comes to Christ.
"No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day."
How does that draw take place, well, it's the hearing of Gospel that draws man to Christ.
Eph. 1:13
"In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
Particular Baptists of yesteryear who warned against these 'regeneration before faith' & 'born again before faith' & etc. contrivances:
Charles Spurgeon, "The Warrant of Faith"
"If I am to preach faith in Christ to a man who is regenerated, then the man, being regenerated, is already saved! It is unnecessary and ridiculous for me to preach Christ to him, and bid him to believe in order to be saved, when he is saved already, being regenerate!"
Abraham Booth, "Glad Tidings to Perishing Sinners":
"the page of inspiration does not warrant our supposing, that any one is born of God, before he believes in Jesus Christ....To contend, indeed, that regeneration must be prior to faith, and to justification, is like maintaining, That the eldest son of a nobleman must partake of the human nature, before he can have that filial relation to his father, which constitutes him an heir to the paternal estate, and entitles him to those honours which are hereditary in the family. For the human nature, derived from his parents, and the relation of a son, being completely of the same date; there is no such thing as priority, or posteriority, respecting them, either as to the order of time, or the order of nature. They are inseparable; nor can the one exist without the other---Thus it is, I conceive, with regards to regeneration, faith in Christ, and justification before God. For, to consider any man as born of God, but not as a child of God; as a child of God, but not believing in Jesus Christ; as believing in Jesus Christ, but not as justified; or as justified, but not as an heir of immortal felicity; is, either to the last degree absurd, or manifestly contrary to apostolic doctrine."
The 1689 London Baptist Assembly
"none can be said to be actually reconciled, justified, or adopted, until they are really implanted into Jesus Christ by faith; and so by virtue of this their union with him, have these fundamental benefits actually conveyed unto them. And this, we conceive, is fully evidenced, because the scripture attributes all these benefits to faith as the instrumental cause of them, Rom. iii. 25. v. 1, 11. Gal. iii. 26. And gives such representation of the state of the elect before faith, as is altogether inconsistent with an actual right in them. Eph. ii. 1, 2, 3, 12."
Charles Spurgeon, "The Warrant of Faith"
"If I am to preach faith in Christ to a man who is regenerated, then the man, being regenerated, is already saved! It is unnecessary and ridiculous for me to preach Christ to him, and bid him to believe in order to be saved, when he is saved already, being regenerate!"
Abraham Booth, "Glad Tidings to Perishing Sinners":
"the page of inspiration does not warrant our supposing, that any one is born of God, before he believes in Jesus Christ....To contend, indeed, that regeneration must be prior to faith, and to justification, is like maintaining, That the eldest son of a nobleman must partake of the human nature, before he can have that filial relation to his father, which constitutes him an heir to the paternal estate, and entitles him to those honours which are hereditary in the family. For the human nature, derived from his parents, and the relation of a son, being completely of the same date; there is no such thing as priority, or posteriority, respecting them, either as to the order of time, or the order of nature. They are inseparable; nor can the one exist without the other---Thus it is, I conceive, with regards to regeneration, faith in Christ, and justification before God. For, to consider any man as born of God, but not as a child of God; as a child of God, but not believing in Jesus Christ; as believing in Jesus Christ, but not as justified; or as justified, but not as an heir of immortal felicity; is, either to the last degree absurd, or manifestly contrary to apostolic doctrine."
The 1689 London Baptist Assembly
"none can be said to be actually reconciled, justified, or adopted, until they are really implanted into Jesus Christ by faith; and so by virtue of this their union with him, have these fundamental benefits actually conveyed unto them. And this, we conceive, is fully evidenced, because the scripture attributes all these benefits to faith as the instrumental cause of them, Rom. iii. 25. v. 1, 11. Gal. iii. 26. And gives such representation of the state of the elect before faith, as is altogether inconsistent with an actual right in them. Eph. ii. 1, 2, 3, 12."
In John 6:65, Christ is repeating what He said in 6:44 as in the past tense of having been drawn through the Gospel.
As in the Father has given it (the draw of the Gospel).