Why Do I Use Facebook?

Why do I use facebook?  Well, for me I sure "try" not to use it to post messages and musings about myself and others. No, there is nothing sinful if that is what you do. I am certainly sure that in the not so distant past and in the near future I will and have fallen victim to what I am "trying" to avoid.  Overuses of morally neutral items that most often slide in the direction of subtle and often blatant idolatry is something that as a  fallen  creature I will have to unfortunately deal with until my heavenly father calls me home, I'm sure. I primarily set out to use facebook kinda like a form of ministry tool. I don't know about you but some of the "friends" that the wife and I have on  our combined friend list are under the wrath of God and are lost. Some of those "friends" that profess Christ are actually following unbiblical doctrines or even maybe even false heretical doctrine. For me, the idea that we have a platform to promote the gospel, sound doctrine and a place to edify the saints as well as promote a Christian Worldview to those who are on our "friend" list is very appealing to me. For me  this is the most God honoring way to use this medium.

I have seen our use of facebook with this ministry mindset put in action successfully and effectively promoting the areas listed above. I find it difficult in the idea of separating and compartmentalising my media usage. Maybe a  John Piperism or a C.J. Mahaneyism would be useful here..."don't waste your media" is what I'm thinking. There are some really good discussion groups that tackle some important  issues facing us in this Christian Pilgrimage. 
Quite frankly I have been greatly edified in a place I least expected. I guess I am saying that you really can get meaningful spiritual content from Facebook. I have seen some really good articles posted there. I hope that never stops. What is also interesting to note is that the cults and false teachers see the value of this and other social media. Here is an article that was 
written by  a Mormon church elder encouraging members to promote their heresy via social media and Internet......http://lds.org/ensign/2008/07/sharing-the-gospel-using-the-internet?lang=eng.

here also......http://ldswhy.com/qa/how-can-i-share-the-gospel-using-facebook/

With Ecclesiastes 9:10 in mind, as you type your comments or update your status

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. ( ESV)

I leave you with the commentary of this verse by Matthew Henry

Whatsoever thy hand finds to do do it with thy might. Observe here, (1.) There is not only something to be had, but something to be done, in this life, and the chief good we are to enquire after is the good we should do, Ecclesiastes 2:3. This is the world of service; that to come is the world of recompense. This is the world of probation and preparation for eternity; we are here upon business, and upon our good behaviour. (2.) Opportunity is to direct and quicken duty. That is to be done which our hand finds to do, which occasion calls for; and an active hand will always find something to do that will turn to a good account. What must be done, of necessity, our hand will here find a price in it for the doing of, Proverbs 17:16. (3.) What good we have an opportunity of doing we must do while we have the opportunity, and do it with our might, with care, vigour, and resolution, whatever difficulties and discouragements we may meet with in it. Harvest-days are busy days; and we must make hay while the sun shines. Serving God and working out our salvation must be done with all that is within us, and
 all little enough. (4.) There is good reason why we should work the works of him that sent us while it is day, because the night comes, wherein no man can work, John 9:4. We must up and be doing now with all possible diligence, because our doing-time will be done shortly and we know not how soon. But this we know that, if the work of life be not done when our time is done, we are undone for ever: "There is no work to be done, nor device to do it, no knowledge for speculation, nor wisdom for practice, in the grave whither thou goest." We are all going towards the grave; every day brings us a step nearer to it; when we are in the grave it will be too late to mend the errors of life, too late to repent and make our peace with God, too late to lay up any thing in store for eternal life; it must be done now or never. The grave is a land of darkness and silence, and therefore there is no doing any thing for our souls there; it must be done now or never, John 12:35

What Is Mortification Of Sin?

An article from Banner of Truth 

Owen’s teaching is based on Romans 8:13: ‘If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live’, although he also alludes to the other New Testament reference to mortification, notably to Colossians 3:15, where the Apostle Paul exhorts his readers: ‘Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence and covetousness, which is idolatry’.

However, although the actual word ‘mortify’ appears only twice in the New Testament, ‘it gets right to the heart of the conflict in which the Christian is involved’, says Kenneth Prior, ‘and which is such an essential part of his sanctification’.²

Commenting on Romans 8:13, Dr. Lloyd-Jones described mortification as ‘Vital and crucial to the understanding of the New Testament doctrine of Sanctification’.³ Now that being so, the first question we need to ask is, ‘What is Mortification?’ So we begin with a definition.

‘To mortify,’ says Owen, ‘is to put to death or crucify any living thing or principle, to take away its strength, so that it cannot act according to its nature.’ Or again, ‘to mortify is to extinguish and destroy all that force and vigour of corrupted nature which inclines to earthly, carnal things, opposite unto that spiritual, heavenly life and its actings, which we have in and from Christ’ (Works, Vol. 3, p. 540).⁴ However, lest anyone should deduce from that the possibility of complete success in that activity in this world, Owen adds a vital qualification: ‘This word is used by our Apostle not absolutely to destroy and kill, so that that which is so mortified or killed should no more have any being, but that it should be rendered useless as unto what its strength and vigour would produce’ (3:540).

In other words, mortification, to Owen, is not eradication. It is the daily fighting against sin, and the weakening of it by the crucifying of the old nature through the power of the Holy Spirit. If Christ died for all our sins (6:41), he asks, ‘why dost thou not set thyself against them also?’ As Christians, we are committed to a lifelong battle against the world, the flesh and the devil. Mortification is our fight against the second of that trinity of evil. So to sum this point up in Owen’s own words,

To mortify a sin is not utterly to kill, root it out, and destroy it, that it should have no more hold at all nor residence in our hearts. It is true that this is that which is aimed at; but this is not in this life accomplished. There is no man that truly sets himself to mortify any sin, but he aims at, intends, desires its utter destruction, that it should leave neither root nor fruit in the heart of life. He would so kill it that it should never move nor stir any more, cry or call, seduce or tempt, to eternity. Its not-being is the thing aimed at. Now, though doubtless there may, by the Spirit and grace of Christ, a wonderful success and eminency of victory against any sin be attained, so that a man may have almost constant triumph over it, yet an utter killing and destroying of it, that it should not be, is not in this life to be expected’ (6:24-5).

Having defined his terms Owen proceeds in typical Puritan manner to summarise the teaching of Romans 8:13 in propositional form. ‘The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin’ (6:7). Now that is Owen’s fundamental assertion. Let us analyse this general statement and consider it, in Owen’s own words, under the form of several particular principles. First of all, we have:

A LIFE-LONG STRUGGLE

Though delivered from the guilt and dominion of sin, no Christian, whatever spiritual experiences he may have enjoyed, or however advanced in the Christian life he may be, is freed from the duty and necessity of mortification. And the cause of this continual warfare is found in the remaining presence of sin in the Christian. ‘Indwelling sin always abides while we are in the world,’ says Owen; ‘therefore it is always to be mortified’ (6:10). ‘This duty being always incumbent on us argues undeniably the abiding in us of a principle of sin whilst we are in the flesh.’ He quotes Galatians 5:17: ‘For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.’ Or again, ‘By the entrance of grace into the soul, (sin) loseth its dominion, but not its being; its rule, but not its life’ (3:545). In other words, our first need as Christians is to know ourselves. ‘It is because so many of us think of self-examination as old-fashioned and morbid,’ says Dr. Packer, 'that we are hardly aware of indwelling sin at all’⁵. There are two schools of thought, still popular in some evangelical circles, which because they go astray over this basic assumption, end up by denying that mortification is a constant necessity, although they deny it for different reasons.

The first is what we can describe as the Perfectionist teaching, which tells us that as the result of an experience which is open to all Christians, sin can be totally eradicated from our nature in this life. Now this teaching is usually explained in terms of baptism of the Spirit subsequent to conversion, by which the Christian is entirely cleansed from sin. But altogether apart from any other texts, Romans 8:13 is sufficient to demonstrate the utter falsity of such a view. Owen refers to ‘the vain, foolish and ignorant disputes of men about perfect keeping of the commands of God, and being wholly and perfectly dead to sin’ (6:10). So Perfectionism was not unknown in Owen’s day, as it certainly is not in ours.

The second school of thought to which Owen’s teaching has special relevance is that which teaches the principle of counteraction. The second view rejects the Perfectionist claim completely, that sin can be entirely eradicated in the Christian. Instead, it teaches that by a second experience of surrender, we can attain to a position in which there is no more struggle or tension involved, a state in which even the desire to sin is no longer troublesome. Now this experience has been variously described as ‘the deeper life’, ‘the higher life’ or ‘the victorious life’, and it received its classic expression in the platform of the famous Keswick Convention. The idea is this, that as we cease from struggling against sin, and abide in Christ by faith, he will obtain the victory for us, so that all we have to do is to ‘Let go and let God’ as it is claimed. A famous American holiness teacher named Charles Trumbull put it like this in his book, The Life that Wins(published round about 1910): ‘I have learned that as I trust Christ for surrender, there need be no fighting against sin, but complete freedom from the power, and even the desire of sin.’

Sin is there, but dormant, kept in a state of suspended animation. That is the theory here taught. What does Owen say to that? ‘When sin lets us alone, we may let sin alone; but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be the most quiet . . . so ought our contrivance against it be vigorous at all times, even when there is least suspicion’ (6:11). So, according to Owen, the sinful nature which remains in us will constantly endeavour to express itself through the medium of the body and its faculties; hence the need of mortification. ‘Sin aims at the utmost’ he warns. ‘Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could. You know what it did to David.’ In Owen’s view, the clear assumption underlying Romans 8:13 is that although the believer must not, and need not fall into acts of sin, he will be plagued by desires to sin. Not only so, but so long as we are in the body, these desires are more or less permanently active, as the traitor within the very walls of ‘mansoul’ itself, to borrow from John Bunyan’s imagery in The Holy War.

The poet Dante put it another way. Turning his face and feet towards the sunlit mount of holiness, he saw ‘a leopard supple, lithe, exceeding fleet, whose skin full many a dusky spot did stain; nor did she from my face retreat, nay hindered so my journey on the way, that many a time I backward turned my feet’. The leopard was indwelling sin. Some years ago, a friend of the writer was present at a conference in which Dr. Cornelius Van Til of Westminster Theological Seminary was taking part. Van Til was already in his seventies and in the question-and-answer session, someone asked him, ‘Dr. Van Til, isn’t there a sense in which as you get older, sins that once bothered you no longer do so?’ Van Til, his finger shaking, answered the question energetically: ‘Young man, that is incipient perfectionism. The greatest battles I have now are the sins of my youth!’

However, before we are exhorted to set about the work of mortification, or indeed to do anything, we need to grasp that the only way by which sin can be scripturally mortified is by the presence and the power of the indwelling Spirit of God. Having considered Owen’s basic assumption, we move on to our second principle:

THE AGENCY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Paul says, ‘If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.’ To put it in Owen’s own words, ‘the foundation of all mortification of sin is from the inhabitation of the Spirit within us’ (3:549) . . . ‘and by no other power is it to be brought about’ (6:7). He says, ‘The Holy Spirit is the author of the work in us, so that although it is our duty, it is his grace and strength whereby it is performed’ (3:547). This he does by ‘implanting in our minds and all their faculties a contrary habit and principle . . . [contrary to sin that is], namely a principle of spiritual life and holiness, bringing forth the fruits thereof’ (3:551) – and by those ‘supplies and assistances of grace which he continually communicates unto us’ (3:553).

Because mortification is carried out by means of the Spirit, this is a work of which the unbeliever is totally incapable. ‘An unregenerate man may do something like it,’ says Owen, ‘but the work itself, so as it may be acceptable to God, he can never perform.’

Negatively then, true mortification can never be accomplished by the imposition of human rules and regulations. How is it accomplished? Positively, the Holy Spirit enables us to mortify sin by creating and sustaining our union and communion with Christ, by applying his fulness to us, and not only strengthening us to resist temptation but causing our hearts to abound in grace and in those fruits of the Spirit which are contrary to the flesh.

Yet the Holy Spirit is not given apart from the means of grace. Rather, he is communicated through the means of grace. And therefore, says Owen, it is required of us that we look for supplies of grace ‘in all those ways and means whereby they are communicated; for although the Lord Christ giveth them freely and bountifully, yet our diligence in duty will give the measure in receiving them’ (3:554). And by duty, Owen refers to ‘prayer, mediation, reading, hearing of the Word, and other ordinances of divine worship’ (3:554). However, he mentions prayer particularly. 'It doth itself mightily prevail unto the weakening and destruction of sin.’ Or again: ‘the soul of a believer is never raised unto a higher delight in holiness, nor is more conformed to it than in prayer’ (3:560). That is where we start, says Owen, in effect; with the realisation that the Holy Spirit is in us as believers. In other words, we must know our resources, we must begin from a position of strength by realising what is already true of us as Christians.

However, the Spirit’s method is not to work mortification in us so as to bypass our activity but rather to enlist it. We are not spectators in the work but participants. This brings us to the third principle:

THE BELIEVER’S ACTIVITY

Mortification is a work in which the believer is fully taken up and involved. ‘If ye through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body,’ says Paul. There the Apostle brings together in a beautiful fusion the relationship between our activity and the Spirit’s power. Owen says that the Spirit ‘works upon our understanding, will, conscience and affections, but agreeably to their nature; he works in us, and with us, not against us or without us’ (6:20). He quotes Philippians 2:12-13: ‘Work out your own salvation . . . for it is God that worketh in you.’ The Spirit does not mortify sin for you, says Paul. You do the mortifying, but by the means of the Spirit’s enabling. Both of those false systems of holiness teaching to which we referred teach the exact opposite. They say we are passive in this work. One example drawn from the book So Great Salvation by Dr. Stephen Barabbus and written about 1950 will help us. It is accepted as the standard work on the historic Keswick teaching. With reference to our text, Romans 8:13, Barabbus makes this comment: ‘Deliverance is not attained by struggle and painful effort, by earnest resolution and self-denial.’ Instead, he says, the Christian is to ‘hand over the fleshy deeds of the body to the Spirit for mortification. He is then to stand in faith – it is the Spirit’s responsibility to do the rest.’

But according to John Owen, that is precisely what the text does not teach. The fact that God is working in you by his Spirit does not mean that you do not need to do anything. The truth is, it means just the opposite!

Now let us expand this point a little and let Owen speak for himself on the necessity of activity on our part. ‘In whomsoever the death of Christ is not the death of sins, he shall die in his sin’ (3:560). Or even more sternly, '[God] will deliver none from destruction that continue in sin’ (6:34). ‘The contest is for our lives,’ he says. He tells us why. Taking up Paul’s statement that if we ‘mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live’, Owen points out that mortification is urged on us as a condition of life. This is not because our activity provides the grounds of our salvation. Owen steers well clear of justification by works. It is because ‘God hath appointed this means for the attaining [of] that end which he hath freely promised.’ The relationship between our activity in mortification, and the attainment of life, is not a relationship of ‘cause and effect’ but of ‘means and ends’ (6:6). It is the way to ‘life’, spiritual well-being in this world, and eternal life in the world to come. ‘He who does not kill sin in his way,’ says Owen, ‘takes no steps towards his journey’s end’ (6:14). Therefore, if we would travel so as to arrive, we must mortify sin.

This is a vital issue confronting us, because Owen’s teaching at this point has come under attack from certain quarters as legalism, a form of salvation by works. For instance, Dr. R. T. Kendall committed himself to the following statement in his book Once Saved Always Saved: ‘I state categorically that a person who is saved will go to heaven when he dies no matter what work, or lack of work may accompany such faith. In other words, no matter what sin (or absence of Christian obedience) may accompany such faith’ (p. 43). Thus Dr. Kendall is teaching ‘once saved always saved’ no matter what you do, or how you live. But the question is, What do we mean by ‘Saved’? ‘Once saved, always saved.’ Certainly, so long as we remember that salvation is not a point only, but a line. Consequently, salvation to John Owen and the New Testament is never confined to deliverance from the penalty of sin – it always includes deliverance from the power of sin. It is as dangerous to rest on a justification unattended with holiness as it is to rest on a justification that has works for its basis (see W. S. Plumer on Romans 8). In other words, ‘once saved, always saved’, irrespective of mortification, is a contradiction in terms, because it sets up an impossible combination of things. The mortification of sin is an essential and an integral ingredient in the Christian life, and as such, is essential to salvation. It is not just an optional extra.

Not only is mortification a necessity: it is a continual necessity. As Owen points out, the verb in Romans 8:13 is in the present tense: ‘If ye keep on mortifying, ye shall live.’ Just as the principle of indwelling sin is a constant problem to the believer, so the putting to death of that principle is likewise always incumbent upon him. So there are no holidays in the spiritual realm for Owen. ‘Be always at it,’ he urges us. ‘Cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you’ (6:9). ‘He who ceases from this duty lets go all endeavours after holiness’ (3:541). And he adds: ‘Sin will not die, unless it be constantly weakened. Spare it, and it will heal its wounds and recover its strength. We must continually watch against the operation of this principle of sin; in our duties, in our calling, in conversation, in retirement, in our straits, in our enjoyments and in all that we do. If we are negligent on any occasion, we shall suffer by it; every mistake, every neglect is perilous.’

It comes to this, then, that mortification of sin is never an easy undertaking. Owen is realistic about this: ‘Men look upon it as an easy task, and as that which will be carried on with a little diligence. But is it for nothing that the Holy Spirit expresses it by “mortification” or “killing”? (3:541). We might add, ‘Is it for nothing that our Lord himself likened it to cutting off a hand, or gouging out an eye’ (Matt. 5:19-20). Carnal self does not want to die. And it will do all it can to stay alive. Nevertheless, die it must. ‘Unmortified sin will weaken the soul,’ says Owen, ‘divert it from close communion with God, fill the mind with thoughts of sin and hinder in spiritual duties, so that the saint will lose his comfort and assurance’ (6:22). In other words, happiness and holiness are inseparably joined together by God. And few things give more encouragement to the Christian than increasing victory over sins which once had victory over him.

It comes to this, that we are not passive in holiness, but active. ‘Holiness by faith in Jesus, not by effort in my own’ may sound very spiritual, but the trouble is, it is not scriptural. Mortification therefore is not the consecrating act of a moment but the persevering activity of a lifetime. May God help us all to realise that.

The fourth and last principle is this:

WHAT MORTIFICATION INVOLVES

We can divide this up under two aspects, negative and positive. Negatively, mortification means a refusal to allow sin to gain a foothold in our life by denying sinful self the sustenance it craves for. And in that connection Owen gives us nine preparatory directions. Here are some of the most significant of them:

(1) Aim for a clear sense of the guilt, danger and evil of sin, lest you grow ‘sermon-proof and sickness proof’ (6:52);

(2) Pray for a strong desire to be delivered from sin’s present power. ‘Assure thyself,’ says Owen, ‘that unless thou longest for deliverance, thou shalt not have it’ (6:60);

(3) Seek to recognise the things which are an occasion of sin to you and avoid them. ‘He that dares to dally with sin,’ he says, ‘will dare to sin’ (6:62). ‘Rise mightily against the first actings of sin’ (6:62).

These are some of the negatives. But Owen is insistent that this is never enough. So we turn briefly to the positive aspects. Here the essence of wisdom, according to Owen, is ‘the weakening of the flesh by the growth of positive graces’. ‘Let men take never so much pains to mortify, crucify, or subdue their sins,’ he says, ‘unless they endeavour in the first place to weaken and impair its strength by the increase of grace, they will labour in the fire, where their work will be consumed’ (3:543). Again: ‘the more vigorous the principle of holiness in us, the more weak, infirm and dying will be that of sin’. ‘The more we abound in the “fruits of the Spirit”, the less we shall be concerned in the work of the flesh’ (3:552). As the Christian walks in the Spirit, he is kept from fulfilling the lust of the flesh (Gal. 5:17). Thomas Chalmers described this as ‘the explusive power of a new affection’.

Owen did not leave it there. Pastoral concern led him to consider how we may discern success in the work of mortification. Here he is particularly helpful. ‘We cannot test our mortification by such things as natural temper gives no vigour to. One man may be troubled by anger and passion as much during one day, as another all his life, by reason of constitution, yet the former may have done more to mortify sin than the latter. But if we try ourselves by self-denial, envy or some other spiritual sin, we will have a better view of ourselves’ (6:25). In other words, if you happen to be equable and even-tempered by disposition, the fact that you have not lost your temper for a long time is no proof at all of progress in mortification. Test yourself rather against those sins to which you are temperamentally and constitutionally inclined, he says.

This is a vital subject and one of great relevance at the present time. ‘The evident importance of the subject,’ says Dr. Packer, ‘makes the long-standing neglect of it among Christians appear both sad and odd.’⁶ The truth is that the subject we have been considering is much more closely linked to the present depressed state of evangelicalism than is generally realised. One contemporary writer put it like this:

It seems to us that possibly the most important current controversy in the church concerns the nature of true Christian experience. False or superficial teaching has given rise to the exaltation of a certain type of alleged experience as being the most desirable for all Christians . . . Because it begins at the wrong place, much current discussion on Christian experience is man-centred, concerning itself with our 'happiness' or 'power', rather than with moral conformity to God.⁷

In view of the emergence of the Charismatic movement, that danger exists today with a new urgency. Whether or not some of the charismata were temporary is beside the point here. The point is that according to the New Testament, there is no necessary connection between gifts and holiness. As our Lord made clear in those awesome words toward the close of the Sermon on the Mount, it is not those who prophesy or who cast out demons, or who perform miracles who will enter the kingdom of heaven but only those who ‘do the will of the Father who is in heaven’ (Matt. 7:21).

Doing the will of God from the heart is therefore the immediate goal of all true Christian piety. To promote that great and glorious end was the purpose John Owen saw in his own ministry. He put it like this in a rare autobiographical comment in the preface to the treatise we have been considering. With this we may fitly leave the subject:

I hope I may own in sincerity, that my heart’s desire unto God, and the chief design of my life in the station wherein the good providence of God hath placed me, are, that mortification and universal holiness may be promoted in my own and in the hearts and ways of others, to the glory of God; that so the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be adorned in all things (6:4).

Notes:


1. This article originally formed part of a paper delivered to the 1985 Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches Study Conference. It also appeared inThe Banner of Truth magazine in June and July 1990 (issues 321 & 322). Notes 3 and 4 added.

2. K. F. W. Prior, The Way of Holiness (IVF, 1967), p. 114.

3. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Exposition of Romans Chapter 8.5-17: The Sons of God (Banner of Truth, 1974). This point is emphasised by Lloyd-Jones several times throughout Chapters 8-11.

4. References to Owen's Works are to the 16-volume Goold edition reprinted by Banner of Truth 1965-1968, in particular to Volume 3, The Holy Spirit and Volume 6, Temptation and Sin. References will be shown by the Volume Number:Page Number, for example 6:20 = Volume 6, page 20.

5. God’s Words, p. 182.

6. ibid., p. 181.

7. I. H. Murray in The Banner of Truth magazine, issue 253, October 1984, p. 6.

The Nature of a Christian Man: In Union With Chist

Is the believer in Christ a sinner or a saint? Does grace make him more and more righteous, less and less sinful? Are the good works of a Spirit-filled man still defiled with human imperfection and sin?
Rome and the Reformers were agreed that man was born with a corrupt, sinful nature, although the Reformation did have a much clearer view of the radical nature of human corruption.


The medieval church thought of grace as being infused to change and transform the sinful nature of man. By this transforming change within him, the believer was said to be made just in God's sight. Then, as he received more and more grace, the believer was said to become less and less sinful and at the same time more and more just in the sight of God. Good works were done in the believer by the indwelling of Christ and, because of this, were thought to be entirely pleasing and acceptable to God. 


Rome held out to men the possibility of becoming pure and sinless "Saints" (ontological perfection), and those who attained this perfection reached "Sainthood" and were qualified to enter heaven at the hour of death. Those who did not become perfect and absolutely sinless in the flesh would need to go to purgatory after death and thus be made completely just and qualified to enter heaven.
On the other hand, the Reformers said that God justifies the ungodly who believe on Christ (Rom. 4: 5), and that God covers the sinner with the mantle of Christ's righteousness. Therefore the believer is accepted as just and righteous, not because of grace or righteousness poured into him, but because of the righteousness placed upon Him by the imputation of Christ's sinless life. There is no such thing as the believer becoming more and more just, said the Reformers, for he is fully just before God. There are no degrees of righteousness with God. Either a man is fully righteous with Him or not righteous at all. Man is either accepted fully or not at all. Thus the relative stance of Romanism was utterly rejected.


Furthermore, said the Protestants, grace does not change the sinful nature of the believer. The sinful nature is so desperately wicked that it cannot be reformed by all efforts with or without grace. This nature will always be sinful as long as life shall last, and whether a man is a Christian or not makes no change in the "sinful flesh." But, said the Reformers, the Holy Spirit brings to the justified sinner a new nature, even a new man which is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:24). A Christian therefore has two natures. The old nature is called "flesh" because it is born of the flesh; the new nature is called "spirit" because it is born of the Spirit (John 3:6). Furthermore, these two natures are contrary one to the other. Says the apostle Paul, "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." Gal. 5:17. And in a parallel passage he describes the reality of two natures within a justified saint:

"For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." Rom. 7:15-:25.

To the Reformers there was no such thing as the believer becoming more and more just; neither did the believer's old nature become less and less sinful. Luther coined a Latin expression to describe the nature of a Christian man: simul justus et pecator (at the same time righteous and sinful).


A Christian does not live by trying to reform the flesh, much less by purifying the flesh from its corruption; but he gets above it and walks in a new state in Christ. This is the theme of Paul's thought in Romans 8. The believer does not live "in the flesh" but "in the Spirit." That is, he follows the desires, promptings and dictates of the Spirit; and by His indwelling power he denies, fights and puts to death the desires and inclinations of the flesh. In this way the Christian is called to a life of suffering (Rom. 8:10-18; 1 Peter 4:1, 2), to constant warfare against the sinful nature. The Spirit is not given to release him from painful conflict but to sustain him in successful conflict until the end.

"… ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." Rom. 8:23-25.

Thus, the believer is always a saint, always a sinner. In Christ he is fully righteous; in himself, by reason of the sinful nature, he is fully sinful. He has peace, but it is in the midst of war; he has rest, but it is with tribulations.


Then too, the Reformers had a very different view from the medieval church on the matter of a Christian's good works. God must first accept our persons, they said, quite apart from any of our works (Rom. 3:28; 4:4-6). Whereas the medieval church taught that God accepts men's persons because of their works (done with God's help of course!), the Reformers declared that God accepts our works because He has accepted our persons through faith in the Substitute. 


No good work of the saints is entirely without sin, said Luther and Calvin many times. True, God's Spirit causes Christians to do good works, but the sinful nature of man corrupts all these works with the taint of human imperfection, said they. Good works are accepted only by mercy and by the intercession of Christ's merit at the right hand of God. Neither our persons nor our works are ever perfect, declared the Reformers, but our perfection, righteousness and entire satisfaction to the law reside only in and with our Head.


There is no fulfillment in human experience in this life. Our righteousness with God is only by faith and not by the reality of our own experience. Christ is our righteousness, and His person is not here on earth but in heaven. Now we are righteous by faith; but hope looks to the coming of Christ when we shall be altogether righteous by nature as the angels. Faith pertains to the "now," hope to the "not yet." Faith looks to the cross and what has been done for us; hope looks to the glorious future that will be ushered in at Christ's return. Hope refreshes faith in this waiting period between the first and second coming of Christ. Faith restrains hope from trying to bring the "not yet" into the "now." By faith the Christian knows that sin, the sinful nature, death and Satan are already vanquished; but he still feels sin within, the devil without, and sees death on every hand. If this were not so, there would be no need to fight the good fight of faith.


But by the Spirit he waits and groans for the day when sin, death and the devil will be abolished as threatening, visible foes.


From; Present Truth Magazine....vol 4.....article 5

Old Man Dead?

Here is an article about our old and new natures, that as believers we still must contend with.

Question

Is our old self really dead once we become a Christian, or is it still alive and kicking? Most historic Calvinist such as Calvin, Bavinck and others hold that the old self and new self are aspects of the believer. (Rom.6:6, Col.3:9, Eph.4:22,24 and elsewhere.) John Murray didn't hold this view but said that the old self was speaking about the unregenerate. What do you say about this?

Answer

I line up with the majority of Reformed thinkers in believing that the old self is still a part of us, co-existing in a less-than-peaceful relationship with the new self. That being said, many good men are on the other side of the issue. I would also add that despite our differences of opinion on this matter of interpretation, and on the biblical use of the vocabulary of "new man," "old man," etc., our theology is really very similar. We all believe that everyone still sins, and that we all need forgiveness and sanctification on an ongoing basis. We all know experientially that it is hard to avoid temptation, and that sometimes it seems irresistible. We all believe we won't be perfected until Jesus returns, and that until then we are corruptible and corrupted. We all agree that we are influenced by sin through the world, the flesh and the devil. In short, there is not a great deal of substantive difference between the two camps, although there are certainly some that are worth noting, such as the way we go about thinking about sin and forgiveness, and particularly about conquering "besetting sins."

In general, I would say that those who believe that the old self is dead and gone argue largely on theological grounds, whereas those who believe the old self is still an active force argue on largely exegetical grounds. I know that is a gross oversimplification, but it does seem to me that some of the language on this subject is rather direct, and that the only way to come to the minority view is to defer to one's theology over against what appears to me to be the fairly plain reading of the text. Let me give you a specific example: Romans 7:14-25. This is one of the greatest passages of debate in this issue. I have a rather extensive answer online dealing with this passage, if you are interested (Q&A).

In answer to some of the specific passages you have mentioned, Romans 6:6ff. does not appear to me to state that the old man is dead and gone. Paul was speaking here of three states of existence, not two.

First, our old self was crucified with Christ when we came to faith. We were crucified by virtue of our union with Christ in his death. The purpose of this was, in part, to free us from sin and its bondage. But the bondage Paul had in mind seems primarily to have been to the effects of sin, not to the present power of sin ("not under law but under grace," Rom. 6:14).

Second, we have been united to Christ in his resurrection, and we currently live in him. But we do not yet live in him in the way we will in the future -- we have yet to be glorified as he is. When that happens, we will be perfectly free from sin's influence.

Third, in the meantime, we have been crucified with Christ, and we have been raised with him spiritually but not physically. We are in process. In our current state, it is a struggle to keep sin from reigning in our "mortal body" (Rom. 6:12; cf. "weakness of your flesh," 6:19). Paul's point seems to be that we have died with Christ, but because our bodies have not been glorified, we have not yet begun to live with him fully.

So, our old man is counted or reckoned as dead (Rom. 6:11), even though he isn't yet gone. This is very similar to the way that believers are counted as perfectly righteous and sinless in Christ, even though we have not yet actually been made perfectly righteous and sinless. The difference between our past experience and our present experience is that whereas we had only the old man in us before, so that we could only sin, we now have the new man as well, so that we can struggle against sin and sometimes win.

Colossians 3:9 presents a similar case. We have "laid aside the old self" in some sense, but we have not entirely put it away from us. If we had entirely put it away, there would be no reason for Paul to exhort us to sinless behavior, for we would already be sinless. But that is not the case. We are not yet completely renewed; we are in the process of "being renewed" (Co. 3:10). If we are not yet completely renewed, then there are some things in us that have not yet been renewed. And if they have not yet been renewed, then they are "old."

Ephesians 4:22-24 seems to me to be a rather direct statement of what I have been arguing. In verse 22 Paul says that the old self "is being corrupted." That is, the old self is still alive and kicking, and it is still in the process of subjecting itself to sin.

Notice also that in this context (as in the other passages), Paul's exhortation to put on the new self is not directed toward regeneration or resurrection. Rather, even though it is based on the fact of regeneration, the action itself is ceasing from sin and beginning to do good works. But again, if we only had the new self, these activities would be natural and unavoidable, just as if we only had the old self, evil works would be natural and unavoidable. The fact that we have the potential for both indicates that we have a nature that is capable of both, or to put it another way, we have two natures, one which is subjected to sin and one which is subjected to righteousness (cf. Gal. 5:17).

A very common rebuttal from the minority camp is that sin is just a habit; it is not reflective of the continued existence of the old man. But this seems to me to cast our new selves in a very poor light. First, how does a new man have any habitual remnants of sin? A new man should have no past record of sin, and no sinful habits. Those habits belong to the old man. And how do new sinful habits form? How does one who is saved from near-infancy grow up to commit adultery? And if our new man is perfectly willing to sin, what kind of salvation from sin do we really have? What's so "new" about a self that, although being free from its prior corruption, is ready, willing and able to dive into new corruption? It seems to me that the "new self" of the minority position is not nearly as good as the new self of Scripture.

Answer by Ra McLaughlin

M.Div., Webmaster and V.P. of Curriculum, Third Millennium Ministries

Is Faith a Work?

Can Faith Ever Be Considered a Work?

As noted in several texts of Scripture, faith and works are contrasted so as to show that we must repent of trusting in our good works and place our faith in Jesus alone for our salvation. For example, in Romans chapter four it reads, "Now to the one who works, his wages are nout counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted a righteousness." But since, according to Scripture, faith is impossible without the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3), the question is, are there any unbiblical assumptions or presentations of faith which could erroneously make it into a work? In other words, is it possible to incorrectly present faith as to rely on its own native ability and, therefore, not "rest on grace" (Rom 4:16)?
J.I. Packer once wisely commented that "...sinners cannot obey the gospel, any more than the law, without renewal of heart."
In light of this clear biblical truth, we confess that our regeneration or new birth in Christ is monergistic (a work of God alone) and not synergistic (i.e. a cooperation of man and God in regeneration). This means that our faith in Christ itself arises out of a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit to change and soften our heart's natural hostile disposition toward God. We likewise affirm that only by upholding monergistic regeneration do we faithfullly herald the biblical doctrine of 'Sola Gratia', or salvation by grace alone. All other schemes in which unregenerate man either takes the initiative or cooperates to be regenerated (by a faith produced from their native ability), should be considered synergistic and contrary to grace alone. Some may be unhappy with being called a 'synergist' because it implies that they believe man and God work together toward salvation which clearly is a form of semi-pelagianism. So to defend themselves many synergists may respond to this charge as follows:

"Why do you call our belief that faith precedes regeneration synergistic? How can this be, unless faith is understood to be a work? Faith is not a meritorious work, by definition. In essence, the two are mutually exclusive. Accepting a gift is not a work, therefore it can't be considered synergism. If salvation is by faith, then works are nowhere to be found in the process. Again, to argue that faith precedes regeneration is synergistic would only be valid if faith = works."

I might respond to this line of reasoning by saying something like the following:
You are correct that the Bible teaches that faith is not a work and, in fact, contrasts these two as polar opposites, but, I would argue that we make faith into a work as soon as we view it as something we can autonomously come up with, apart from any work of the Holy Spirit. (Prevenient grace does not resolve this problem as I will show later) Those who believe we can, from our own resources (and native ability), change our unregenerate hardened hearts in some way that is independent of God are promoting rank Pelagianism. I would encourage you to ask yourself, in light of Scripture, can you believe the gospel apart from ANY work of the Holy Spirit? (see 1 Thes 1:4,5). God indeed commands us to come to Him but the problem is that unregenerate man is naturally faithless. The reason for this is that he is, by nature, unspiritual (i.e. w/o the Holy Spirit). Among other things this means that we cannot grasp spiritual truth without the Holy Spirit to change our heart and illumine our mind. To claim we can do this by nature would be a contradiction, for spirituality is a condition of spiritual understanding. In 1 Cor 2:12 Paul affirms this by writing, "We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us." ( i.e. the gospel). That is why through the prophet Jeremiah, God makes the promise, "I will heal your faithlessness" (Jer 3:22). With this in mind do you think we can heal our own faithlessness?
The question we need to be asking ourselves is, "what makes us to differ from other men who do not believe?" ... the grace of God in Christ or the will of man? If we say "the will of man" it is a boast and therefore not the kind of faith that is contrasted with works in the Bible. For Eph 2:8,9 speaks of faith that is the gift of God, a faith which leaves no room for boasting. True faith is seen as God's merciful gift (John 6:5) which then looks away from its own resources and looks unto Christ for all spiritual blessings, including the very ability to believe. This is utterly distasteful to the natural man, not to mention humbling. And as Spurgeon said, "...no one natually submits to the humbling terms of the gospel". Elsewhere to strengthen this point Spurgeon said,

"...did you ever meet a Christian man who said, "I came to Christ without the power of the Spirit?" If you ever did meet such a man, you need have no hesitation in saying, "My dear sir, I quite believe it-and I believe you went away again without the power of the Spirit, and that you know nothing about the matter, and are in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity."

In the synergists' understanding, what ultimately makes us to differ from unbelievers is the will of man, not the grace of God. For, in that system, God has given all men an equal amount of prevenient grace, but men still differ in their response, so God's blessing hinges upon a condition we meet, our action, our wisdom, our innate spiritual sensitivity. But it was for this very reason God sent His Son, to do for us what we could not do for ourselves, (that is, including providing us with the spiritual resources to meet God's demand of faith and repentance.).
What makes men to differ according to the synergist, therefore, is not grace and not Jesus Christ, for, to them, all have grace, so the difference is how one man makes use of that grace better than another. Grace no longer, therefore, has anything to do with it, for ultimately it depends on a fallen person creating a right thought or affection about Christ thus believing in our ability to believe in Him. That our moral inability to exercise faith, due to a corruption of nature, does not itself need to be redeemed. Why, then, do some believe but not others? In answer to this most synergists say to me "because some believed" ... but notice that we did not ask what they did, but why they did it.
This is not some side discussion but the very core reason for the Protestant reformation. Michael Haykin once noted that

"It is wrong to suppose that the doctrine of justification by faith alone, that storm center of the Reformation, was the crucial question in the minds of such theologians as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, and John Calvin. This doctrine was important to the Reformers because it helped to express and to safeguard their answer to another, more vital, question, namely, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether God is to be thought of as saving them by free, unconditional, invincible grace, not only justifying them for Christs' sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith."

This is a wholly biblical doctrine. In John 10 Jesus himself said some do not believe BECAUSE they are not My sheep, and "My sheep hear my voice". Who they are in essence, therefore, precedes how they respond. Jesus explains this in detail when he says that Spirit gives birth to spirit but flesh gives birth to flesh...for this reason I said that no man can come to me UNLESS God grants it (John 6:63, 65). To believe in Christ God must grant it, and further, the Bible says ALL to whom God grants it, will believe (John 6:37).
Again, it is true that the Bible contrasts faith and works, but biblical faith is never seen as something we, in our unregenerate condition, had to autonomously (apart form the invincible power of the Holy Spirit) contribute. To the synergist, there are certain aspects of salvation that they are unable to thank God for. For example, can the synergist thank God for his faith? The only way for him to be consistent with his beliefs is to pry the following, "God I thank you for your salvation, except for my faith, the one thing I exercised on my own." Or consider another prayer, "Thank you Lord I am not like other men who do not have faith. While you extended prevenient grace to all men, some did not make use of it, BUT I DID." Such boasting, whether unconsciously or not is the result of believing that what makes you to differ from others is not God's grace but your faith. But the work of Christ redeems us unto faith, not on the condition of faith.
In the synergists' system, all men have grace, but only some have faith, yet because that faith does not comes from God's gift (since not all men have faith), is therefore, something we produce naturally on our own, apart from the Holy Spirit. That is why, after the Rich Young Ruler when away sad when called to repent and follow Jesus, the Lord answered his disciples' question "who then can be saved" with "what is impossible with man [i.e. faith and repentance] is possible with God."
Most of you who visit this site are convinced that the Bible teaches that salvation is by the grace of Jesus Christ alone, that is, that man and God do not cooperate in salvation. Most would further affirm that faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature but comes about as the result of a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit who turns our heart of stone to a heart of flesh, opens our spiritually blind eyes and unplugs our deaf ears to the gospel. We believe the gospel can only be heard by those God has spiritually granted to hear it (John 6:63, 65). This is not only what the Bible teaches from beginning to end, but this safeguards the reality that all glory goes to God for our salvation.
We affirm that our blindness and deafness to the gospel cannot be changed by mere human persuasion, (just as light itself does not make a blind man see) but rather it is by God doing a work of grace in our heart to change our naturally hostile disposition to one of love for Christ. We believe the Bible teaches this because, without the Holy Spirit, the natural man does not understand spiritual things (1 Cor 2:14) but thinks of them as foolish. He naturally loves darkness and hates the light and will not come into the light (John 3:19, 20) The human will as a 'slave to sin' does not, therefore, by liberty obtain saving grace, but by saving grace obtains liberty.
I would like to leave you with the following bit of the Hebrew Scripture: Sometimes in the Old Testament and the New, God reveals behind the scenes how He enabled particular persons to obey his Word when they were called to repent: In 2 Chronicles chapter 30 when couriers with a message of repentance passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far as Zebulun, those who heard laughed them to scorn and mocked them when they were called to repent,

"Nevertheless [the Bible says] some men of Asher, Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. The hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the princes commanded by the word of the LORD." (2 Chronicles 30:11-12)

The text says some resisted the call, but all those tribes which the hand of God gave a heart to obey the Word, repented.
-J.W. Hendryx
Monergism.com

The Work of Regeneration

The Work of Regeneration

C. Craig Wells

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one

is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3 (ESV)

The title of this article implies that regeneration does a work. This is a true statement, for regeneration is what makes a person alive. Unger’s says, “The spiritual change wrought in man by the Holy Spirit, by which he becomes the possessor of a new life. It is to be distinguished from justification, because justification is a change in our relation to God, whereas regeneration is a change in our moral and spiritual nature.” (1) From this definition, we can state that regeneration is a work done to a person in bringing that person to a new life and that the Holy Spirit does this work.

I guess we can conclude with this article since we have defined “the work of regeneration”. Not so, there is much more to say. The real question concerning the work of regeneration is when regeneration takes place. What is the role of man verses God in regeneration? Is regeneration the source from which our faith comes or is regeneration due to faith? That is the real question! What are the implications for either one?

Where can we find the word regeneration in the bible? Regeneration is in the KJV twice, in Matthew 19:28 and Titus 3:5. Jesus is talking of His resurrection to the throne in His glory in Matthew. Titus is the only verse that really uses the word in reference to a washing or renewing of a person. The ESV only uses the word in Titus.

As we can see, the word regeneration is very limited in the scriptures. So, where did the term “work of regeneration” come from? Like many terms used to describe God and His nature, such as Trinity or sovereignty, are not in scripture, at least the KJV. However, the church from its beginning used these terms to describe the nature of God or His work as the scripture reveals them. So, where are the scriptures that reveal that regeneration is the renewal of man done by the Spirit? Do these scriptures say when regeneration takes place?

John 3:1-14 is a well-known scripture describing the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. There are tons of Theologians, Scholars, and Commentators of the scriptures, which conclude that these passages describe the work of the Holy Spirit in the regeneration of the person to a new life. There are great commentaries out there and would recommend you read them. However, I will make a feeble attempt to explain this passage in the limited space I have.

Jesus, in verse 3, responds to a comment by Nicodemus in verse 2. Read those two verses. Have you asked something of another person and that person answers back with something you think is totally unrelated? You had to think, where did that come from? Do you think Nicodemus did the same here? Nicodemus was describing who he thought Jesus was. Nicodemus called him a rabbi, a teacher from God, and said that a person could not do the works that Jesus did unless God was with him.

We do not know for sure, but from the context of verses 1 and 2, it seems that Nicodemus was seeking to find out if Jesus was the Messiah prophesied in the scriptures. I am sure he was seeking a direct and explicit answer. Nicodemus really did not know to whom he was talking! God was not just with him; Jesus is King and God incarnate. Jesus’ response in verse 3 is nothing more than an explanation as to why Nicodemus did not know Him. Jesus said, “Unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God”. Nicodemus could not see God standing directly in front of him, because he was blind to the truth. In fact, he had to be born again.

Verse 5 says, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” This is a reference to Ezekiel 36:25. This is the direct link connecting regeneration to the Spirit. Verse 6 even makes the case stronger. It says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” This verse is very significant in relation to the nature of man. Flesh in this passage describes man in his natural state due to the fall in Eden. Man is born spiritually dead. The next part of the verse implies this. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”, can only mean one thing, in the flesh, man is dead spiritually and cannot do anything which enables him to see or enter the Kingdom of God. Due to the work of the Spirit, we become spiritual, where before we were not. The words born again indicate that we are a new creature with a new nature due to the creator of such a renewal, the Spirit. To see the spiritual things of God in the gospel message, we have to become spiritual and that is due to the work of the Spirit. We have to receive spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear the spiritual things of God. (2)

Titus 3:5 is another passage of scripture that directly links regeneration to the Spirit. Here it refers to washing as John 3:5 does. Here, it is washing of regeneration that makes us clean. We cannot cleanse ourselves or make ourselves righteous, even by doing righteous deeds. It also says that a renewal takes place and that by the Spirit. It says, “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy”. What about our faith, is it considered a work? No, but we are saved through faith and not according to our faith. However, the verse does say it is according to his mercy. Our salvation is through our faith from the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit to which once made alive, we can believe the gospel as truth.

How can I say that regeneration comes before faith? I want to make clear that from the scriptures, a defense of such a claim is not explicit. Otherwise, there would not be a debate over the issue. However, the implications abound all through the scriptures. We must start with the nature of man and its implications. We must clarify what ability or inability man has due to his natural state.

The best place to start is Ephesians 2. It says that we are dead in trespasses and sin. (3) To what extent is this dead in trespasses and sin? Verse 2 says that we once walked in trespasses and sin, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is at work in the sons of disobedience. (4) The sons of disobedience are the people who are not children of God.

Verse 3 says that we once walked among those very people that are not children of God. (5) Before we were a child of God, we were following the spirit of disobedience. Verse 3 also says that we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. By nature, we followed the prince of the power of the air living in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. We are incapable to change our nature. The scriptures say that an Ethiopian cannot change his skin nor can a leopard change its spots. (6) How can we change our nature, if scripture describes us as dead in sin? We know that that does not mean we are physically dead. It can only mean dead spiritually and from the context, it is clear that includes the entire human race.

Verse 5 is a very important verse to help put all this together. (7) Who made us alive together in Christ when we were dead in trespasses? It was God, being rich in mercy. We were dead spiritually and had no ability to do anything spiritual, especially receive the spiritual message of the gospel. God does the work by making us alive by the work of the Holy Spirit through regeneration. We did not believe unto salvation before the regeneration by the Spirit. Why or how could it? If our salvation were according to our faith, which indicates life, there would not be any need for regeneration if it came after faith. We then would have something to boast. God made us alive when we were dead not when we had faith.

In Ephesians 2:8, it says that we are saved by grace through faith, and that not of our own. It also says that it is a gift of God, not a result of works, so no one can boast. People will argue when the verse says, “And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works”, that it does not refer to the faith but to salvation. They say salvation and not faith is the gift of God. I tend to agree after careful study of the passage using resources, such as Greet dictionaries.

However, it does not matter to me, because ultimately it is the work of God. The faith this verse relates to is not going to come about unless the Spirit of God makes that person alive. Regeneration has to take place for a person to receive the gospel and have faith unto salvation. That faith does belong to that person and it came about due to his or her own volition, however, it would not have happened if God had not changed the person’s nature first. Matthew 16:17, John 1:3, and John 6:63 are more verses that are comparable. I wish I could discuss these verses as well, but I am limited in space.

Colossians 2:13 is another verse that indicates the same thing. This verse also says that we are dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of our flesh. Verse 11 says, “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands”. The Spirit does not circumcise the heart after we come to faith. Why would He if we could resurrect our own spiritual being and believe without any outside help? Verse 13 says that God made us alive together with Him. God makes us alive through the circumcision made by the Spirit. This is the only way we can believe.

To deny that regeneration is before faith, denies the need for the Holy Spirit unto salvation. It will limit the work of the Spirit to strictly sanctification. The Triune God works in our salvation. God the Father, who has chosen us before the foundation of the world, calls us. God the Son died on the cross as satisfaction for the requirements of the law, vindicating God’s righteousness and justice to those who believe on Christ. God the Spirit regenerates us, by giving us a new nature, which enables us to believe unto salvation. Who can boast? Indirectly, faith is even a gift. Without regeneration, there would be no faith.

*************************************************************************************

(1) New Unger’s Bible Dictionary

(2) Isaiah 6:20

(3) Ephesians 2:1

(4) Ephesians 2:2

(5) Ephesians 2:3

(6) Jeremiah 13:23

(7) Ephesians 2:5