Faith # 6

[Brightfame52]

We don’t need faith if we already have life.

I dont see why not, that's when Faith is most beneficial. I dont see why one needs faith when they dead. A person is dead, first line of business is to be made alive.

 

[cjab]

Of course it can, in fact Faith isnt possible save from a regenerated person, otherwise man is dead in sin and unbelief.

"I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Luke 5:32.

If only the regenerated can hear Christ, then your cast Christ as a liar, or as deluded, as his call to "sinners" could not be acted upon.

It would also help if you didn't used extra-biblical words like "regenerated" which doesn't figure in the bible. Who knows what you mean by it?

I have spoken of the "natural man" who rejects the gospel. It is a category of sinner that is not open to listening to God. There are other categories of sinner who do hear the gospel. Hence your allusions to "natural men" in the context of the gospel is misinformed. They are not amongst the "many" who Christ came to call.

As for the word παλινγενεσίας commonly translated "regeneration" in Tius 3:5, its really means "new birth" and the analogy is natural birth. As Meyer says, references to ἀνακαίνωσις and ἀνακαινοῦν, and the similar passage, Ephesians 4:23, show that the terms are always used of those who are actually living the Christian life (i.e. believers).

 

[cjab]

"I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Luke 5:32.

If only the regenerated can hear Christ, then your cast Christ as a liar, or as deluded, as his call to "sinners" could not be acted upon.

It would also help if you didn't used extra-biblical words like "regenerated" which doesn't figure in the bible. Who knows what you mean by it?

I have spoken of the "natural man" who rejects the gospel. It is a category of sinner that is not open to listening to God. There are other categories of sinner who do hear the gospel. Hence your allusions to "natural men" in the context of the gospel is misinformed. They are not amongst the "many" who Christ came to call.

As for the word παλινγενεσίας commonly translated "regeneration" in Tius 3:5, its really means "new birth" and the analogy is natural birth. As Meyer says, references to ἀνακαίνωσις and ἀνακαινοῦν, and the similar passage, Ephesians 4:23, show that the terms are always used of those who are actually living the Christian life (i.e. believers).

NB: ἀνακαίνωσις = renewal, also found in Titus 3:5

Titus 3:5 "He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of (spiritual) rebirth (παλινγενεσίας) and renewal (ἀνακαίνωσις) by the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life."

The Calvinist error is to subordinate faith to grace, in relegating it to being a byproduct of salvation by God's mystical choices authored by the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit was not given prior to Christ's resurrection.

For the Calvinist, salvation through faith is subsumed by salvation by grace. Grace has appeared to all men Titus 2:11, true, but not all have faith. By lumping faith in as a mere facet of grace, linked now to God's arbitrary choices, the human element to faith is diminished, and relegated to being a mere 'gift' of God. But this is not what Jesus taught, who rather taught faith requires concerted human effort in submission to God's grace. Why were the ancients commended for their faith? Why was Abraham commended for his faith? Because they put in the required effort to believe and they submitted to God's grace.

Heb 11:1 "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."
Heb 11:2 "This is what the ancients were commended for."

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." So, faith is open to everyone apart from those who have conscionably made the decision to follow satan: 2 Corinthians 4:4 (i.e. natural men who and blinded in consequence as a form of God's wrath).