What About This Matter of Salvation

Study on Regeneration and Conversion

 

 

Regeneration How and When

SALVATION: REGENERATION: THE NEW BIRTH: CONVERSION; EFFECTUAL CALLING

THE CHRISTIAN IS BORN AGAIN

Romans 9 and Selected Verses

Charles e Whisnant, Pastor/Teacher/Theologian,

Reading Abraham Kuyper this morning he gives a description of salvation: He said a child knows nothing of his own existences, as a child, nor of the first period of his life, from his own observation. If he were to tell you his history from his own recollections, he would began with the time he could remember. ( My own first recollection)I was walking with my dad to the church holding his hand when I was about 5 years old.) ) But being informed by others of his early life he can go back of his recollections and speak of his parents, family, time, and place, how he grew up, etc. So there is a differences between the two accounts. 

 

So there is a difference between what I believed happen when I was saved and what really did happen. When I was saved (as I have dated) I was personally ignorant of the implanting of the new life, I only remember that I needed to be saved, which I believe led me to faith and repentance as far as I knew those terms back in 1954 when I was seven. Well as I was getting order I was not satisfied with this, I wanted to know just how did I become saved. Was it that I raised my hands? Was it that I went to the alter? Was it that I prayed and quoted John 3:16? Was I just persuaded by the preaching? Where was the starting point of my salvation I wondered as I got older.. So I have spend a life time just learning what really happen when I was saved.,

I must say then that the first act of salvation for me was wholly passive and unconscious. Generally that is the case with those who are children, and in most cases adults as well. 

 

So the question ask is this: “WHAT HAD GOD WROUGHT IN THE SOUL THAT BRINGS ABOUT SALVATION TO HIM? I am not sure that I knew that for years after I went forward at Williamsroad Baptist Church in Roanoke Virginia the same time that Winston Hall did.

Quoting Kuyper: 

 

But this subjective representation, more or less incomplete, can not satisfy us now. It was to be expected that the supporters of "free will" would abuse it, by inferring that the origin and first activities of the work of salvation spring from man himself. A sinner, hearing the Word, is deeply impressed; persuaded by its threats and promises, he repents, arises, and accepts the Savior. Hence there is nothing more than a mere moral persuasion, obscuring the glorious origin of the new life. To resist this repulsive deforming of the truth, Maccovius, already in the days of the Synod of Dort, abandoned this more or less critical method to make regeneration the starting-point. He followed this order: 

"Knowledge of sin, redemption in Christ, regeneration, and only then faith." And this was consistent with the development of the Reformed doctrine. For as soon as the subjective method was abandoned, it became necessary in answer to the question, "What has God wrought in the soul?" to return to the first implanting of life. And then it became evident that God did not begin by leading the sinner to repentance, for repentance must be preceded by conviction of sin; nor by bringing him under the hearing of the word, for this requires an opened ear. Hence the first conscious and comparatively cooperative act of man is always preceded by the original act of God, planting in him the first principle of a new life, under which act man is wholly passive and unconscious.

 

Thus God worked in my heart, spirit, soul , as a child creating a new life without my knowledge, while later the work God brought into my heart the knowledge of regeneration with my full knowledge and consent.

REGENERATION, THE NEW BIRTH:

….the first effect of the power of God in the heart in regeneration is to give the heart a Divine or sense; to cause it to have a relish of the loveliness and sweetness of the supreme excellency of the Divine nature. Said Jonathan Edwards

In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” JOHN 3:3 

 

Regeneration is a New Testament concept that grew, it seems, out of a parabolic picture-phrase that Jesus used to show Nicodemus the inwardness and depth of the change that even religious Jews must undergo if they were ever to see and enter the kingdom of God, and so have eternal life (John 3:3-15). Jesus pictured the change as being “born again.”

The concept is of God renovating the heart, the core of a person’s being, by implanting a new principle of desire, purpose, and action, a dispositional dynamic that finds expression in positive response to the gospel and its Christ. Jesus’ phrase “born of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5) harks back to Ezekiel 36:25-27, where God is pictured as symbolically cleansing persons from sin’s pollution (by water) and bestowing a “new heart” by putting his Spirit within them. Because this is so explicit, Jesus chides Nicodemus, “Israel’s teacher,” for not understanding how new birth happens (John 3:9-10). Jesus’ point throughout is that there is no exercise of faith in himself as the supernatural Savior, no repentance, and no true discipleship apart from this new birth.

Elsewhere John teaches that belief in the Incarnation and Atonement, with faith and love, holiness and righteousness, is the fruit and proof that one is born of God (1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4). It thus appears that as there is no conversion without new birth, so there is no new birth without conversion.
Though infant regeneration can be a reality when God so purposes (Luke 1:15, 41-44), the ordinary context of new birth is one of effectual calling—that is, confrontation with the gospel and illumination as to its truth and significance as a message from God to oneself. Regeneration is always the decisive element in effectual calling.

Regeneration is monergistic: that is, entirely the work of God the Holy Spirit. It raises the elect among the spiritually dead to new life in Christ (Eph. 2:1-10). Regeneration is a transition from spiritual death to spiritual life, and conscious, intentional, active faith in Christ is its immediate fruit, not its immediate cause. Regeneration is the work of what Augustine called “prevenient” grace, the grace that precedes our outgoings of heart toward God.
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WHY DOES IT SEEM WE HAVE A HARD TIME KNOWING WHO A TRULY BORN AGAIN, REGENERATED BELIEVER REALLY IS?
Part four

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Over the last 100 years or so the church has been manifested with the manipulation of the invitation method and the man made terminologies of "let Jesus come into your hear" or "if you prayed this prayer and meant it then you can be certain that you are going to Heaven." And the mass revivals and evangelist meetings that have produced professions without fruit. One evangelist reported they had 40,000 people coming to Christ in their week revival. Only to go back the next year and couldn’t find but a hand full of people who openly admitted they were Christians.

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So our study is "Can we know if a person is truly converted from darkness of sin and unbelief to seeing the light of Christ and being born again?"

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And I say you should.

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"Now it seems every religious group has a strong desire for a fool-proof method of giving assurance of salvation" John Reisinger says. "Each group has a system that enables them to produce, package, label, and seal their converts with the assurance that they are heaven bound." Each group has different methods but they have a clearly defined system that enables them to say to anyone who goes through the prescribed course, "you are saved and safe."

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The Roman Catholic has a system, the Episcopalian have a system, the Church of Christ have a system, the Lutheran and Reformed folks have a system, the Plymouth Brethren have a system, and the Charismatics have a system. Of course the Baptist have a system. Then all the rest of the religious churches have a system that they all think is the right method of being able to know if you are saved.
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I am not going to deal with the religious group systems of knowing if you are saved by what they believe are safe ways but looking first to what does it mean to be born again, or regenerated, from what I believe is the biblical way. (Don’t we all say this)

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FIRST: We will use the term "regeneration" as the term to describe a Christian. I will list come choice quotes on regeneration:

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"Regeneration is the foundation; sanctification is the rive." Sidlow baxter

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"Faith does not proceed from ourselves, but is the fruit of spiritual regeneration" Calvin
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"When God designs to forgive us He changes our hearts and turns us to obedience by His Spirit. Calvin

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"Regeneration is a spiritual change." Stephen Charmock
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"Regeneration is the communication of the divine nature to men by the operation of the Holy Spirit through the Word." A.J. Gordon

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"Whatever man may do after regeneration, the first quickening of the dead must originate with God." A. A. Hodge
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"Spiritual life is the consequence of spiritual quickening. The baby cries because it is born; it is not born because it cries." Erroll Hulse

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"When God works in us, the will, being changed and sweetly breathed upon by the Spirit of God, desires and acts, not from compulsion, but responsively. Martin Luther
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"Just as in the beginning God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light’ so, at the moment He appointed for our new birth, He said, "Let there be light, and there was life." J. A. Motyer

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"Regeneration is inseparable from its effects and one of its effect is faith." John Murray.
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"The embrace of Christ in faith evidence of regeneration and only thus may we know that we have been regenerated." John Murray

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"Sinners cannot obey the gospel, any more than the law, without renewal of heart." J. I. Packer
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"The new creation is as much and entirely the work of God as the old creation.": C.H. Spurgeon.

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"God regenerated the Soul by uniting it to Jesus Christ." Augustus H. Strong.
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"Regeneration is the commencement of spiritual life in a essence before dead in sin, by the omnipotent medium of God; and the exercises of this life are specifically different from all the practices of an unregenerate heart. C.E.W.
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You know if you are saved if regenertion has taken place in your mind, soul, amd spirit. You are not saved because someone said you are saved. "My dad said I was saved when I was seven" is not assurance of your salvation.

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HOPE YOU WILL HAVE A NICE FAMILY THANKSGIVING
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Eric and Leslie

Becky

Chad

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Joe

Dewayne Prossor

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Ellen and Hershel

Stephen

Mom

Alana

Christy

Kurt and Michele

John MacArthur, Jr.

Phil Johnson

Paul Lamey

TO ALL MY BLOGGERS

AND

READERS OF THIS

GROW BY LEARNING
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