How Strongly Do You Hold to Your Doctrinal Beliefs?

I'm curious. Do you hold to 'Gospel Regeneration' and 'Regeneration Before Faith' both? That's the only reason I can see as to why you insist that no more than a nanosecond separates regeneration and conversion.

@Iconoclast too.

 

Did you not read Sproul's 'Regeneration Is Immediate' that I linked to in my post?

'Gospel Regeneration', or, 'regeneration apart from the gospel'.

 

KYRED;
From a Baptist catechism with commentary;
Second, regeneration is not an emotional or irrational experience. Some confuse regeneration with conversion, and conversion with irrationalism. Others make regeneration the Divine response to man’s faith. The relation between regeneration and conversion is one of cause and effect. See Question 87. It is a Divine quickening to spiritual life, a “spiritual birth” that is necessarily evidenced both intellectually and emotionally in repentance and faith. The following answer is general and summary so its pervasive nature may be perceived.

Regeneration is being “born from above” or “born again” (Jn. 1:12–13; 3:3, 5). There are six essential spiritual realities which comprise regeneration, or the “new birth.” If any one of these realities is not true or actual within the personality, the individual is yet unregenerate:

first, the impartation of Divine life (Jn. 3:3, 5; Eph. 2:1, 4–5). Unless the individual receives such a principle of spiritual life, he cannot even “see” the kingdom of God, much less enter it. He may perceive, know or understand much, even so as to be without excuse, but his will is bent toward sin and evil and his inner being is darkened (Rom. 1:18–25; 1 Cor. 2:14).

Second, the breaking of the reigning power of sin (Rom. 6:3–14, 17–18, 20, 22). Every human being by nature is a willing bondslave of sin. This power is broken by God in a definitive act of grace, and a radical cleavage is made with the reigning power of sin in the life. See Questions 94–9

 

Third, the removal of natural heart–enmity (Rom. 8:7–8; 1 Cor. 2:14). Man by nature has an innate aversion to God and his truth. This animosity is removed by a sovereign act of God, enabling the sinner to savingly turn to God in the context of his truth.

Fourth, the re–creation of the image of God in principle (Eph. 4:22–24; Col. 3:1–10). Both these passages refer to a past act, not to an entreaty. Man was created as the image–bearer of God. In the Fall, this image was devastated spiritually, morally and intellectually; the thought–process became fragmented and given to futility. The physical body, with its appetites and desires, assumed a controlling influence over the individual (Rom. 6:6, 11– 14; Eph. 4:17–19). In regenerating grace, God re–creates the image of God anew in principle in righteousness, holiness of the truth and knowledge—a spiritual, moral and intellectual transformation. With the mind thus freed, and a holy disposition given to the personality, the sinner is enabled to freely turn to Christ in faith as presented in the gospel message.

Fifth, the removal of satanic blindness (2 Cor. 4:3–6). Above and beyond all matters of the will or heart, looms the awful, evil power of Satan, who specifically blinds sinners to the truth of the gospel. He further seeks to remove any influence of the gospel in any way he possibly can (Matt. 13:3–4, 18–19; Mk. 4:4, 15; Lk. 8:5, 12). This blinding influence is removed by an act of God’s grace.

Sixth, the gift of saving faith (Eph. 2:4–10). Conversion, or repentance from sin and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, is inseparable from regeneration. Conversion is the infallible and immediate consequence of the work of the Holy Spirit upon and within the personality (Acts 16:14). The Scriptures usually consider regeneration and conversion inclusively as one. It is conversion, pointedly personal faith in the Lord Jesus and repentance from sin, which necessarily and infallibly expresses the work of God within the personality (Acts 13:12, 48; 14:1; 16:14, 27–34; 17:4, 11–12, 34; 18:8, 27; 19:18; Rom. 10:9–10, 13, 17; 1 Cor. 2:4–5; Eph. 2:4–10). See Questions 86– 88. The necessity of regeneration or the new birth is found in the utter spiritual impotence of man, the blinding power of the devil, the eternal redemptive purpose, and the righteous character and omnipotence of God. If any human being is to be saved or delivered from the reigning power of sin, his own innate animosity toward God, the blinding power of Satan, and ultimately delivered from eternal hell, God must initiate the work of salvation (Isa. 64:6; Matt. 13:3–4, 18–19; Acts 16:14; Rom. 1:18–25; 3:11, 27–21; 8:5– 8; 1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 4:3–6; Eph. 2:1–10; 4:17–19; Titus 3:5; 1 Jn. 5:19). To say all this is to declare that salvation is by grace.

 

Because of the mystery of this Divine operation, the inability of our finite minds to fully comprehend it, and the great possibility of misunderstanding its nature, God has been pleased to represent regeneration in human terms, using figures or metaphors to aid our understanding.

Regeneration is described as a “spiritual birth.” This is the most common designation. Cf. Jn. 1:12–13; 3:3, 5–8; Jas. 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23; 1 Jn. 3:9. As a “birth,” it is mysterious and miraculous, and so couched in figurative terms.
Regeneration is described as a “quickening” to spiritual life. Regeneration is described as a “heart transplant.” The Old Testament language of Jer. 31:31–34; Ezk. 11:19–20; 36:25–27, as fulfilled in 2 Cor. 3 and Heb. 8, although couched in Old Testament symbolic terms, anticipates the New or Gospel Covenant

 

Faith precedes salvation [regeneration]. Hearing the gospel precedes faith. Sanctification precedes hearing the gospel.

". . . Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, . . ." -- Acts of the Apostle 16:31. σωθηση verb future passive indicative.

 

Prior to hearing the gospel:

1 Now there was a certain man in Caesarea, Cornelius by name, a centurion of the band called the Italian band,
2 a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, who gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always. Acts 10

Somehow Cornelius just doesn't fit into that totally depraved dead alien sinner category all the way up to a nanosecond before hearing the gospel. Neither does Abraham prior to Genesis 15:6 and many other examples we're given.

Apart from hearing the gospel:

15 For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and he shall drink no wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother`s womb.
44 For behold, when the voice of thy salutation came into mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. Lu 1

John the Baptist exemplifies Christ's revelation of John 3:

7 `Thou mayest not wonder that I said to thee, It behoveth you to be born from above;
8 the Spirit where he willeth doth blow, and his voice thou dost hear, but thou hast not known whence he cometh, and whither he goeth; thus is every one who hath been born of the Spirit.` Jn 3

'The Spirit where he willeth doth blow ' apart from the hearing of the gospel.

I'm a big time hyper-Monergist. Paul's crisis on the road to Damascus was conversion, not regeneration. Think about these words:

4 and he fell upon the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
5 And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: Acts 9

...and remember Christ's words:

2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall think that he offereth service unto God. Jn 16

 

I don't think that was what was being implied there. I read it as simply us having to discern between what is indisputable biblical revelation vs what we ourselves infer from such truths through our subjective human reasoning.

Using your language, one should die on the sword on upholding say the deity of Jesus but not on something like calvinist predestined reprobation which is inferred through human reasoning from other indisputable truths.

Anyone reading John 3:16 on their own with no awareness of existing doctrinal systems would read the world to mean the world - everyone in it. All mankind. Anyone reading Rom 9 will have to see God showing mercy sovereignly to those He individually chose. It's just that these 2 don't seem to fit in together in our minds - so we derive further inferences to make them fit. That's the part we should be willing to give room for correction in our own beliefs.

 

Then by definition I wouldn't categorize such a doctrine as indisputable. Do you think one Christian could hold Jesus as God to be an indisputable truth while another can hold it as disputable?

 

It's a precious pearl the Lord gave me, along with a few others.

O.K. The gospel doesn't regenerate but regeneration cannot occur apart from the gospel. You don't see the contradiction there?

 

So God changed? Jesus Christ is not the same yesterday and to-day, yea and for ever?

 

Was it a God hating totally depraved dead alien sinner that Jehovah called out of Mesopotamia years before Gen 15:6, appeared to several times, and announced blessings upon?

Was it an unregenerate man that built an altar to Jehovah at Shechem years before Gen 15:6?

Was it to a dead alien sinner that Melchizedek pronounced 'Blessed be Abram of God Most High' years before Gen 15:6?

I think not. God had already wrought within him as revealed in Jn 3.