Regeneration, Prior to? IS? After "new birth"

Hi PS104:33;

You will notice that grace saves only through faith. In other words You don't get grace until you have faith.

It's obvious that you don't give God much credit for intelligence. Remember that we are judged by the same measure as we judge.
May Christ Shine His Light on us all;
Mike

 

Hi jeff;

Are you really going to try and correct the gramar of God's word with English. When Translators of all Bibles aren't even sure of the gramar they applied to their versions. I believe you'd be hard pressed to show us a text book of Original Greek from the same period as when the New Testament was written. Let alone a 2000 year old dictionary.
May Christ Shine His Light on us all;
Mike

 

ILUVLIGHT,
The grammer is there in all greek texts of the Scripture. I was not only referring to the English Texts ( which are reliable or we would not be using them as proof), but the Greek also. I am correcting nothing, this is where the text stands and we must interpret accuratelly based upon rules of grammer.

Wes, Outward
The word used in the text is not Salvation, but saved. This is a verb. Maybe refering to someother translations may help clear it up. Look at the NIV. The pronouns are directly linked to the Faith as being the gift, not our own. If we will not read the text for what it sais, and not paraphrase, then we can make it say anything.

 

I will be clear on one thing. I agree that the requirement for the grace is faith. Once again where does the faith come from. If we come up with it ourselves, it is a work. If God bestows it, it is a gift from Him.

 

What Scripture causes you to throw out the structure of this crucial passage? It does not go against Scripture, but agrees with it. There is nothing man can do to save himself, including mustering up faith.Faith is a thing, Grace is a thing. God bestows grace upon people. It is given. ( I Cor. 15:10; II Cor. 8:1)

Your discription of faith is not entirely biblical. We do not have a hope so, try it and see faith. We have a know so, in spite of what we see faith. Faith is believing what God sais to be true whether we see it or not. Your discription was I have faith just by saying " ok, we'll see". That is not biblical faith.

 

Hi Jeff;

I believe that Faith in God is a work of God but I do not see Eph 2:8 saying that it is a gift

Paul said;
Eph 1:12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ .
I believe in order to have faith we must first trust in the Word of Jesus Christ. We receive faith from hearing His word I sometimes read it out loud for the purpose of hearing it as well as reading it. I've found that strengthens what I read. In;
Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

This verse clearly states that believing is the work of God. You could call it a gift if you want to, but to me this is a work performed by God. You see faith depends upon you hearing the Word and trusting it. This comes about by conviction and convincing.
May Christ Shine His Light on us all;
Mike

 

I don't understand what all the arguing is about. Ephesians 2:1-10 makes it very clear that regeneration is the new birth and is solely the work of God [verses 5&6]; that faith itself is the gift of God [verse 8] and is subsequent to regeneration, not the cause of it or even a contributing factor.

Ephesians 2:1-10, NASB
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus,
7 in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in 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 as a result of works, that no one 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.

 

Wes,

It's ordo salutas not salutas ordo..

 

If it could be proven that regeneration preceded the human action of faith, then “Unconditional Election” would be true, but since we are justified by faith, rebirth [John 3:3]comes when faith has made contact with the living God.

The sovereign Lord of Heaven and earth does not make a forced entry in the sinner’s life, not unless you do not believe in Revelation 3:20.

 

Well, you obviously jumped in with both feed without reading my posts. Ephesians 2:8,9 do not say that faith is the gift of God! </font>[/QUOTE]I read your posts. You are just as entitled to be wrong as anyone else. Faith is a gift of God!

 

Libertine free will is nowhere taught in Scripture. To say that we believe that His entry is "forced" one must also assert that Lazarus resurrection was "forced" as well, Ray. Just a Jesus, when calling Lazarus out of the grave, did not ask for permission, so the dead sinner does not play a role in his spiritual resurrection nor make a contribution to God's spiritual work.

If you say that, you must also then agree that God is not truly willing that all persons be saved, because, by making your above statement, you have acknowledged that God values something MORE than the salvation of any individual, namely the protection of their "free will!" Congratulations Ray, you've just shown exactly how unloving Arminian theology is, because it implicitly must say that God values man's freedom more than man's life, rendering any assertion that God desires all men be saved as His highest value in the plan of salvation completely meaningless.

On the contrary, unconditional election may still be true, even if regeneration is through faith.

Fallacy of limited alternatives. For one thing, it can be argued there can be no faith without understanding. "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." There must be something to believe and one must understand in order to believe. John 3:3 works equally as well for regeneration preceding faith, particularly with 1 Corinthians 2:14 that very clearly says that natural man DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY to understand spiritual things. In other words, one can not believe what one does not understand. Without regeneration, there can be no understanding and thus no saving faith can be exercised. One must read regeneration THROUGH faith into the text to use John 3:3 in support of the doctrine, as well as beg the question of libertine free will.

Also, in Johanine theology seeing is always a prerequiste to believing, not a result of it, just as hearing is a prerequiste of believing in John 8:43. One must hear BEFORE, one is able to believe. One must be instructed and understand BEFORE one believes the instruction. One must be drawn prior to coming to Christ, etc. This is extremely consistent in John. One believes BECAUSE one sees. One sees BECAUSE one is born again. Regeneration, therefore, precedes faith.

"Without regeneration, the sinfulness of man keeps him away from God, causes him to set his affections upon self and his own pleasure, and to find gratification in things which are opposed to God and holiness. The regenerated heart has new affections and desires and is, therefore, fitted to seek after God and holiness." (Boyce's Abstract of Systematic Theology--Chapter 32)

In addition, it is logically self-defeating to assert synergism with regard to regeneration.

Let's suppose for a moment that your view of the new birth, namely regeneration through faith is correct Biblically. If that is so, then logic should support it, because God can not by nature do something illogical.


Is regeneration by faith logical? The answer must be no, because you run into one or more contradictions or self-defeating processes.


When we are talking about this issue, we are talking about becoming a new creation or a new birth. We know that there is a voluntary decision of some sort involved. On this we all agree. We will call this X.

Now, the desire and sequent decision to receive salvation must be either a. caused , b. uncaused, or c. self-caused. If it was uncaused, then it would simply exist the same way God exists. Uncaused things, however, strictly fall into the category reserved for the Ground of All Being, God Himself, because God is uncaused. We are caused to exist by God as a matter of creation. There was a time when we did not exist. Thus, this desire and subsequent decision has not always existed, simply because we have not always existed.

It may be self-caused. This view is true only if total depravity is also true, because the definition of self-causation is that a potentiality is actualizing itself. If that is so, then we have a problem, because then it is a self-created effect which is impossible. For, in order for something to create itself, it must exist prior to itself which violates the law of non-contradiction (since it would have to be and not be at the same time, in the same sense).

We are left with option a. This desire is caused.

Now, we have three options for causation:

a. intrinsic (from inside the individual)-intrinsic monergism
b. a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic causes (from both inside and outside the individual)-synergism
c. extrinsic (from outside the individual)-extrinsic monergism

If the ultimate cause for X is intrinsic, then it is accomplished through one or more of the following constitutive human faculties:

a. body (somatic causation),
b. mind (cognitive causation), or
c. spirit (pneumatic causation)

We must rule out a. body because somatic processes do not give rise to rational processes.

It might be b. mind. Biblically, salvation extends to the full range of human beings without respect to genetic content, congenital factors, or level of education. Christianity is not a faith for scholars only. Rather, Christ says, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden" (Mat 11:28). If this option is true however, we are saying that the believer that believes has a superior mind and is intellectually superior to the unbeliever. Intellect becomes a meritorious thing.

Murray writes of the third option : "From a Biblical viewpoint, the third option, namely, that X is ultimately caused by something in the person's spirit, or pneumatically, is equally as absurd as the second option. For, in this case, the inherently possessed spirit of the one that chooses X could be said to be superior, indeed more righteous, than the one that rejects salvation. Salvation is, of course, a most glorious and holy event. Thus, we would be forced to declare that those persons who incline themselves toward salvation, thereby acting as its final, inauguratory cause, possess a spirit that is intrinsically more righteous than the spirit possessed by those who reject salvation. Such an idea is perhaps even more preposterous than the previous one in light of what the Bible teaches us of the universal state of man's fallen spiritual condition in total separation from God (1 Cor. 2:14; Rom 3:23; 5:12; 6:20; Mk 7:21-23; Jer 17:9). Moreover, the spirit, its faculties, and capabilities are all endowed to humans by their Creator, and that with complete ontological equality (Gal 3:28; Acts 10:34)."

Additionally, Arminians all REJECT monergism completely, so we can rule out option A. Intrinisc monergism altogether with their permission. Arminians also rule out the third option, extrinsic monergism, as, in order for it to be true, the Reformed position must be true.

We are thus left with only one viable option. B. Synergism. Is it logical? The answer is NO.

Again, Murray: "we are concerned here with the simple causation of X, and thus, sufficient causal agency as opposed to becoming lost in a panoply of necessary conditions (NCs). If variables A, B, and C, are necessary causal factors, then each are necessary but not sufficient to bring about X, i.e., the desire and resultant decision to receive Christ in faith. And if they are not sufficient, then they are not ultimate. Only the final, decisive factor, D, can be counted as the ultimate cause of X. For it is not until this final factor comes to exert its force that the effect in question is actualized." In short, the ground of A is man's faith, not God's grace, no amount of "wooing," as many Arminians say is the final deciding factor.

Synergism, then, only backs up a step the original issue of how one ultimately arrives at X. The synergist argues that God, through prevenient grace, supplies the necessary conditions which form the backdrop for a Christly decision to be made, but that the final-and therefore sufficient-factor is left up to individual. God's grace is a necessary but not sufficient condition for one's salvation. God may graciously provide all manner of necessary conditions but the ultimate outcome hangs precariously in the anthropocentric balance of human decision.

If it is true, you MUST end up with dualism, because it is axiomatic that caused actualities only become potentialities (e.g. cease to exist) or are actualize other potentialities other than themselves. Dualism must be rejected, because X applies only to the self and not the creation of a self in addition to the one already in existence.

If you object that your Arminian position results in dualism, then I remind you that Arminian dispensationalists do, in fact, by equating the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and regeneration, assert that the "carnal mind" is, in fact, a distinct, separate NATURE in the individual. We have ONE nature, according to Scripture, with two volitional principles at work, we do NOT have two separate, distinct natures. Synergistic regeneration, in that view, results in two separate, equal, opposite natures, e.g. persons, in the one individual, which all other Christian traditions reject as the heresy of dualism, since one nature is evil/fallen, the other is regenerate/good. Essentially, this repeats the errors of Gnosticism and Nestorianism, though in the believer himself, not Christ.

You have to come back to some form of monergism in order for syngerism to work without ending up with the heresy of dualism. For, during this period of illumination, to what do we owe the decision to choose salvation in those who manifest it? Is the locus of their decision to be found in the body, mind, or spirit? Which of these faculties compels them over their neighbor (who receives the same illumination) to make the right decision? Intrinsic monergism is a premise that is illogical and, additionally, all monergistic forms are rejected by Arminians. Biblically, then, your view of X is always illogical. God is many things, but ILLOGICAL is not one of them, sir.

The only way around this is to posit extrinsic monergism, which says regeneration precedes faith. Only the Reformed position works both Biblically and logically.

The Greek construction of Eph.2:8,9 is such that both elements including in the preceding clause to "that," e.g. "For by grace you are saved through faith" are antedents to "the gift of God." Thus grace is the gift as is salvation via the agency of faith, In other words, saving faith, because it is an essential piece of salvation is the gift of God and purchased via the cross. Does Scripture support this? Yes, not only here, but in chapter 1 of the same epistle that states that ALL spiritual blessings come to us via Christ ALONE. The faith to believe comes from God, because faith is a spiritual blessing. Funny how "all" ceases to mean "all" when you get to "all spiritual blessings," but "all" always means "all" when it suits you all to assert it to satisfy your tradition with regard to the atonement's extent.

Grace is the gift, true, but there is very clearly no salvation without grace, and there is not salvation without faith. Salvation and grace are both gifts of God, and since there is no salvation apart from faith, we know there would be no faith apart from God, because the grace comes from Him not us, and the linguistic construction is such that there is no faith apart from grace, which comes from God alone.

This verse, instead of supporting your view, flatly denies it. I've seen multiple attempts that will say salvation is God's gift; grace is God's gift, and everybody tries to talk about the gift, so they all say "aha" the gift is grace. Yup, they're right, but the subject of the sentence isn't grace and it isn't really man, and it isn't faith, the subject is God way up in v.4, and the construction is such that there is no saving faith in us without God who gives the gift of grace, so that still makes saving faith the gift of God, because it flows from grace, because if it comes from us then it gives us something about which we can boast, because it is not from God Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. Salvation is not of us at all. It is by grace. It comes to us via faith. Faith is therefore, the gift of God as well. The entirety of salvation (grace and faith) is a gift of God, and not the result of anything man may do.