The basis of this post is a discussion I recently had at a message board.  The subject was 2 Peter 3:9 and different exegetical looks at it.  The discussion turned to whether Irresistible Grace (a Reformed doctrine) is true or false considering that passage.

A specific part of that discussion was devoted to the relationship between faith and regeneration, specifically their sequential relation.  I held (hold), thanks to insights from R.C. Sproul, that regeneration (being born-again) precedes faith.  Here are some of the posts in that thread.

My text blue.  Jimmy is green.  Segell is brown.

I must not be a very good Reformed thinker.  I honesty don’t get how 2 Peter contradicts Calvinism…God desires that all men should come to repentance, but because we are by nature against Him, we would not on our own accord accept Jesus.  That’s why God has to regenerate us and give us faith before we accept Him.I admit I’m not overly familiar with all Calvinist ideology–most of what I’ve been exposed to is from R.C. Sproul–but I don’t see how Limited Atonement is refuted by this passage.I am curious where you read that God regenerates us then we begin to believe?I think the following passage fives us a glimpse of how God works:

Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

Yes, but there is nothing there that defines the order of events as regeneration then believe.

(To Jimmy’s first question:)
It is a way of summing several passages.  One of the major passages behind the idea is Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2in 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. 3Among 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. 4But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.This is at least part of the meaning behind John 6:44.  Jesus speaks of the Father literally dragging the chosen to the Son.  What do you do with a dead person [to get him to move]?  You drag him.  We were spiritually dead before God saved us.  Thus, He had to drag us to Christ for our salvation.  This was not based on works–nothing we did merited God’s favor in this way.  As one writer put it:

When the Holy Spirit draws sinners, He literally drags them. Before salvation sinners are dead in trespasses and sins. A dead person is lifeless and not able to do anything. If you wish to move a dead person without any assistance, from one end of a place to another you must drag him. That is exactly what the Holy Spirit has to do to sinners to bring them to salvation. The Holy Spirit regenerates the unregenerate by turning a spiritually dead will that is in rebellion against God to one that is spiritually alive and willingly accepts Jesus as Savior and Lord.
Thus, salvation is all of God and not of man in any way, shape, or form. He deserves all the credit, praise, and glory.On death row, who is in control of the sentence? The convict or the governor? The governor can issue the pardon, but the convict cannot pardon himself. The same is true of salvation. God can pardon us, but we cannot pardon ourselves. Even as a governor elects the convict to a pardon, God elects us to redemption. Ephesians 2:8-9 bolsters this point: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Salvation is all of God and none of man.

I might add to his statements the verse John 3:18.  ”He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”Nicodemus once asked Jesus, “How do we enter the kingdom of God?”  We must be reborn.  Well, how can one who is spiritually dead birth himself again?  Birth has nothing to do with the person being born.  It is all God.  One who is spiritually dead cannot make himself reborn.A few more verses for you:
John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”Many Christians believe that we first become aware of God’s kingdom (i.e. salvation) and then become reborn.  This is not the sequence Jesus presents.1 Cor. 2:14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Again, from the same writer as above:

According to the words of Jesus, a sinner absolutely cannot come to Christ until God first does something in that sinner’s nature. That “something” is what the Bible calls the new birth (regeneration), and it is the exclusive work of God the Holy Spirit. A person has as much to do with being regenerated as he had with being born! In other words, no human being has any part whatsoever in regeneration. A good illustration of this important point can be found in John 11:“When He [Jesus] had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.’” (John 11:43)Did Lazarus have the ability in himself to obey that command? Of course not, since Lazarus was dead! He had no ability at all. Unsaved, unregenerate people have a duty to believe the gospel, but lack the ability. Why does God command us to do what He knows we cannot do? To show us how depraved we are, to show us the depth of our utter sinfulness and rebellion against Him. When God commands us to return and promises that if we do He will return to us, we will not do it, for we cannot. Before regeneration we are in bondage to what our sinful nature innately loves, that which is darkness and evil. In this state we reject what we hate, that which is light and goodness and of God. We should be able to turn to God, but cannot because of our inherited sinful nature that came as a result of Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden.

I agree with most of the ideas presented on this website, but I find this page particularly accurate: http://www.gospeloutreach.net/total_depravity.html

EDIT: Thanks segell - I meant to include Ezekiel.  That was the first verse I ever memorized…

(To Jimmy:)
I think the order is very, very clear.  God breaks our hearts of stone with His Spirit making them hearts of flesh - not only able to obey (place our faith in God) but desiring to do so.  To what end?  That we know with certainty that He is our God and we His people.  Jimmy, I really do believe there is an order there.(Speaking of order, I mean if foreknowledge must come before predestination, then God’s work in our hearts must come before faith, according to this order of events.  Right?)No, Absolutely not.   The order that you really do believe is there is not.  The order is what you see there not what is presented there.Are you going to address my post?What can I say?  I disagree with you.  None of what you posted says that we are reborn before we believe.John says concerning his Gospel, chapter 20,30  Many other signs therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;
31  but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name..Paul says the gospel is the “power of God for salvation” (Rom 1:16).  “Faith comes from hearing , and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17)  The work of the Holy Spirit upon the heart of man is mostly through hearing the word of Christ, that is the Bible.  What the Word accomplishes, the Holy Spirit accomplishes.James 1:18 says,  In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures. 1 Pet 1:23, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God.  Heb 4:12, For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  

The word of God is the work of the Holy Spirit.  It is through the word that He works on our hearts. 

Jesus commanded in Matt 28,

19  “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
20  teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” There are only two commands here.  One is to “Go”.  The other is to “make disciples”.  The phrases, “baptizing them”  and “teaching them” are not strictly commands; rather, they are participial phrases modifying the command “make disciples”.  That is, baptizing and teaching is how we are to are to make disciples.  What are we to teach?  The word of God.  That is the primary way that the Holy Spirit works on the unbeliever.This would be a false dilemma.I also affirm that God uses the gospel to save people.  That in no way refutes my premise that regeneration proceeds faith.Of course it does.  But believe what you wish. I would be happy to discuss it with you.  I haven’t the time to get into it right now.  I will come back to that when I can.  I will make a comment at the outset that you can think about.  Regeneration is a part of the salvation process that God established.  Salvation is generally sort of divided into three separate but related parts, regeneration, justification and sanctification.  It is generally recognized by nearly all that salvation is by grace through faith (Eph 2).  Thus without getting into a lot of other folderall, regeneration, as one part of salvation, is through faith, hence it is faith then regeneration.It is absolutely clear from Ephesians 2 that regeneration is through faith, not vice versa.We can get into the details later if you wish.No, once again, it doesn’t.It would be hard for Eph. 2 to refute this doctrine since it does not establish a direct relationship between faith and regeneration.  Rather, it is salvation which is through faith.  The two are distinct: salvation and regeneration.Ephesians 2:4 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)Did you catch it?  Made us alive (i.e. regeneration) while we were dead.  The faith part comes later in verse 8: For by grace you have been saved through faith.  Salvation through faith; faith as a consequence of regeneration.  We must be able to comprehend the spiritual before we can have faith in Christ’s promise.

For more information, check out R.C. Sproul’s website, accessible through our links.

-Nick

Posted: 02|24|08 at 6:47 pm. Filed under: Nick's Posts, Thoughts.
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