October 21, 2017
Many
are attracted to the doctrine of gospel regeneration, i.e. God uses the gospel
preaching as the means to regenerate sinners dead in trespasses and sin.
It
seems to give its adherents an aura of
power and indispensability in the eternal salvation of God's elect. They think
God is impotent to produce His children without them! Or if God does not bring
His elect to hear them, or if they fail to get to the elect in all nations,
tongues, people, and tribes, then God's elect will perish. God chose to subject
His sovereignty in regeneration, they explain,
to the cooperation of human activities of preaching, and hearing the
gospel.
Why
can't they see the simple distinction, that the activity assisting God to
produce His children is a WIDE WORLD OF DIFFERENCE from the activities of
helping God in nurturing His children - whom He has fathered Himself by free
and sovereign grace - through the instrument of preaching?
Regeneration
is the divine activity of bringing God's children into BEING; Conversion,
through the ministry of the word, deals with the WELL-BEING of the children of
God.
Apostle
Paul exhorted Timothy,
"Study
to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth."
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Comments
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(One Brett made many comments, raving away with his ideas...)
Sing
Yes,
like many of God's children among the Jews, they needed to be converted to the
truth of Jesus Christ.
Dellis
Layne
I
was just making sure I had my ducks in a row.
Sing
"Ducks
in a row" - I hear a new expression. What meaneth, Sir?
Dellis
Layne
It's an old one for me. It means getting everything in line
Dellis
Layne Worsham Sr.
like
this
Dellis
Layne
In
your photo, on the conversion side, please explain "repeated".
Matthew
Carl Eastland
Conversion
is not necessarily a one-time event. God, in His Providence, may only lead you
to a place where you have learned some of the truth but not all of it. To give
an example I know personally, my father-in-law went from a God-hating Humanist
to a Christian, but only knew and understood some aspects of truth. He was an
Arminian and believed a number of wrong things until he was shown more truth
years later. He was regenerated to even have embraced God at all, but his
conversion was gradual. A scriptural example of this would be Apollos. He
already followed the teachings of John the Baptist and showed his regeneration
by his deeds and love of the truth he had. But it took Aquila and Priscilla
showing him "the way of God more perfectly" for him to understand the
message of Christ that John had been teaching.
Or, the other side of the equation is that sometimes we choose not to live in the light of our salvation and God allows us to walk away from the truth for a while. We can lose some of our understanding or just reject it for sinful ideas. But God, in His mercy, can then call us back to Him, so that we change our lives again to please Him. The scriptural example of this would be Peter, who had been with Jesus for years already and had been clearly regenerated and led by God, as could be seen in many statements, but then went and denied Christ. Jesus Himself told Peter "when thou art converted" to strengthen the others in Luke 22:32. Peter had been converted before to preach, but he back-slid in sin and had to be converted again.
Sing
Regeneration
is a once, complete, perfect, immutable event.
Conversion
is a lifelong process, thus repeated, and ends at our last breath.
Dellis
Layne
Thanks
to both of you.
Sing
Mr
Brett Noll has deleted all his comments.
Sing
Brett,
you are just a shameless coward, deleting what you have written because they
have been shown to be in error. "Ever learning but never able to come to the
knowledge of the truth."
