The PuritanBoard is confused, allow a street Calvinist to unconfuse them
At the PuritanBoard, where anyone with a doctrinal I.Q. above 2 digits gets banned (actually anybody who doesn't fear man gets banned), a person asked if regeneration and faith occur at the same time. None of the members over there could answer the question. Here's the answer:
No, they don't. Here is why: faith requires knowledge. We have to know who or what we are to have faith in and why. So after one is regenerated by the word and the Spirit there will likely be a time when the person does not yet have the biblical, doctrinal knowledge to know what we are to have faith in or why.
But once we learn (and regeneration puts the motivation in us to learn) then faith follows.
The main thing is regeneration. Once regenerated by the word and the Spirit (not by man and ritual) everything follows in its wake.
Somebody will ask: "What if you die right after you are regenerated by the word and the Spirit and you don't yet have faith based on real understanding?" That gets into providential matters which God controls. But one can speculate also that if someone has truly been regenerated by the word and the Spirit then they have enough of a knowledge (if not systematic doctrinal knowledge) of Jesus from actually reading the Bible to have saving faith, if even somewhat still unconscious at that point. But I doubt God in His providence is going to allow you to die prior to you having real faith based on real understanding of the what and why right after He has regenerated you. That suggests chaos, and God is not a God of chaos.
2 Comments:
A new born breathes shortly after leaving the womb. It's natural. It is alive, physically. Jesus compares the spiritual birth with the physical type. (Just thinking "out load."
Joe V.
Yes, in that sense regeneration is the main thing and all that is necessary will follow from it.
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