What is Grace?

Regeneration

 

Gospel

 

Praise God

Yes they are regenerated because of God's word. The word tells them to trust in Jesus and be saved or not and be condemned. You are condemned or saved because of the word of God not your choice. We are regenerated and given the ability to believe or not, not regenerated with one for the word says to believe an be saved or not and be condemned it doesn't bring 1 road, but two roads.

God really does want all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth and we are the messenger of it.

No the word of God brings two roads to believe and be saved or not and be condemned. We are not condemned or saved because of our choice, but it is because what the word of God say's, for the will of God is to save those who trust in the Lord and condemned those that don't. I will not bring glory to my choice for it is against scripture but bring glory to Him and His word.

 

Well, all we know for certain is that she knew of the Messiah or Christ.

John 4:25 The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.
26 Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.

John 4:28 The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men,
29 Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?

The other Samaritans also knew of the Christ or Messiah, and showed they knew he would come to save them from their sins.

John 4:41 And many more believed because of his own word;
42 And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.

Messias is the Greek form of Messiah predicted in Daniel.

Dan 9:25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

Andrew also knew of the coming Messiah.

John 1:41 He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.

So, this woman of Samaria and the people of her city knew and believed the OT scriptures.

 

By the Samaritan woman's own admission in the passage, the Samaritans had some expectation of a Messiah. However, this does not amount to "salvation" as you suggest and it doesn't amount to expecting Christ.

First and foremost, the Samaritans rejected everything in what we know as the Old Testament except for the books of Moses, the Pentateuch. So the Samaritan woman would have had no expectation of a Messiah from Daniel.

What is more, the typical word for "Christ" used in Greek is usually "Christos." In fact, John--in a parenthetical statement--uses this very word to let His readers know the correlative word because the woman did not use "Christos," she used "Messias" which is a Hebrew word meaning "anointed one" (just as Christos means anointed one).

However, because of the Samaritan rejection of the Prophets, like Daniel, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, there was no "Messianic" expectation like the Jews had or as we see in the Prophets as Christians today. The Samaritans expected a man, not a God-man, as messiah.

Furthermore, in v. 22, Jesus tells her "you worship what you do not know," meaning that the Samaritan worship was flat wrong and in vein.

So, your "idea" that the Samaritan woman was a "believer" and Christ just showed her a "better way" is absolutely and demonstratively false.

If Christ had not done the work of an evangelist and gone to meet this woman by divine appointment, going where Jews do not go (see v. 4 "And he had to pass through Samaria," emphasis mine), she would still be lost in her sins. There was no true belief on her part before her encounter with Christ because the Samaritans were worshiping a "god" other than the God who had revealed Himself in the totality of the Old Testament scriptures and who would reveal Himself in the New Testament.

You are absolutely wrong and you hold to a heretical position when you claim that persons can be saved without specific knowledge of Christ--and when you spread that drivel you deny the exclusivity of the Gospel and you spread heresy.

The Archangel

 

Psalms109:31, I do not agee with you here. Unregenerate man has the ability to believe, he has the ability to make a choice. The gospel enables a person to believe in that it provides knowledge of Jesus. You cannot believe in something you have never heard of and know nothing about. This is what Paul says in Romans 10.

Rom 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?

Believing is not a supernatural act, it is natural, and all men have this ability. So, our part in salvation is natural, it is something we have the ability to do.

But the word of God is supernatural. Jesus said his words are spirit, and they are life. When we receive God's word, that is, when we trust or believe, then the Holy Spirit comes into our heart and regenerates us. God's word is supernatural, it is powerful.

But again, the word of God provides knowledge, it provides us with an object of faith.

2 Tim 3:15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Notice when Paul speaks to Timothy, he speaks twice of "knowledge". He says Timothy has "known the holy scriptures" which are "able" to make him "wise unto salvation". And that salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ.

Do you get that? The scriptures enable us to believe in that they give us knowledge, they make us wise (we have the ability to learn). If we did not have the scriptures that revealed Jesus Christ to us it would be absolutely impossible for any man to be saved. No man in his natural mind would ever even imagine the gospel, or will it. Man always wants to believe he can save himself in his own will. The gospel is 100% from God and His will. So God gets all the glory and credit.

The scriptures are a physical manifestation of God's Spirit, just as Jesus was a physical manifestation of God the Father. We do not have the ability to reach God, so God came down to us and met us at our level of existence. His Spirit became his word which we can hold in our hands and read or hear with our ears. And Jesus became a man of flesh that a person could see, hold, touch, and hear with our ears.

God does not ask us to do the supernatural to be saved, we are not required to do something beyond our ability. He has come down to us and manifested himself to us in a way we are able to communicate and know him. If God had stayed in heaven as a spirit, and if his word could only be heard spiritually, no man would be able to be saved. He had to come down and meet us on our terms and according to our abilities. His word and Son Jesus had to be manifested in the physical world so that we are able to communicate with him. Now, that the spiritual world could be manifested in our physical world is indeed a supernatural work of God.

That said, when God speaks to us in words we can read or hear with our human abilities, and when we believe with our human ability, then he supernaturally comes into our heart and regenerates us supernaturally.

We have no power, God has all the power.

I hope you understand what I am saying here.

 

Life

We do not have an ability to believe in what we don't know. We can believe many things, but not what we don't know. Without the word of Christ we have no life in us. Praise be to God and His word, without it we don't know what to believe to have life that comes from the words of Christ, not man. In which we know that Christ words come from the Father in which our faith to have life comes from God through His word.

I was a dead man, now because of Christ not me I am alive.

 

Psalms 109:31,

I have to say you nailed it when you said "We do not have an ability to believe in what we don't know."

My compliments on clearly and succinctly articulating this.

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

Quote by pinoybaptist

Quote by pinoybaptist

 

The gospel is for sinners. One is not regenerated until they believe the gospel

Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Eph 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved


Also

5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.


Is not the gospel "The death, burial and resurrection of Christ?" How then is it for the regenerate, if one is not regenerated (quickened) until they by faith have been saved (by God's Grace) ????

 

The gospel and its entire message including instructions from it, is for regenerate sinners, not the unregenerate. See Romans 15:4.

The gospel DOES NOT redeem the sinner. It is the good news of an already finished redemption, by a Holy God who left His pristine, pure, and holy abode to live among His people and redeem them with His blood.

He is the temple that sanctifies the gold which is the gospel.

Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say , Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor !
Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?
And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty .
Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? (Matthew 23:16-19)

 

Amen. Exactly. For the child of grace, the gospel brings that life and immortality to light that the Spirit has imparted. The gospel does NOT impart life and immortality, it tells of it.

but hath now been manifested by the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, 2 Tim 1:10

 

Sinner

The words of Jesus is Spirit and life we are dead without it, no matter how much you want to twist the scripture into a doctrine.

We are dead unregenerated until we get the word which brings two roads not the one only as they preach to believe, trust in Christ and be saved or not and be condemned.

God does want all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

Trusting in Jesus not ourselves is our only hope. Those who were cut out was not cut out for not being chosen, but for unbelief, for they didn't trust Christ. We were included when we heard the Gospel of our salvation having believe.

God said He will keep those who are meek and humble trust in the Lord, not those who lean on their own understanding.

They cannot prove by scripture that we were regenerated before the word.

Trusting in Christ is not work so you cannot say that you earned your salvation, but that God saved you because it is His will.

 

I completely agree with you here. Faith is not a work, in fact, it is directly contrasted against works in the scripture.

Rom 4:5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

Trusting in Christ is not a work, plain and simple. To trust means to rely or depend on someone else. It is a ceasing of work and self effort.

Archangel said:

I have been saying this for months! I must have quoted Romans 10:14 a dozen times here.

Rom 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?

Paul never implies that having faith in Christ is some sort of supernatural act on man's part. He says faith comes by hearing the word of God. But he points out it would be impossible to trust in Christ unless God had revealed Jesus to us. And how does God do that? Either through reading the scriptures, or hearing the scriptures preached to us. So, when we trust in Christ God gets all the credit, for unless he had revealed Christ to us we could not possibly believe in him.

But Calvinists like R.C. Sproul say an infant who cannot possibly understand the gospel or place faith in Jesus can be regenerated (for years) or have spiritual life. This absolutely contradicts the clear teaching of scripture.

You want to focus on the word "ability". Men have the ability to believe or disbelieve anything they hear. And that is a God given ability.
We do not have to be regenerated to have the ability to believe. No, the scriptures say just the opposite, we have to believe to be regenerated.

John 5:40 And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.

Coming to Jesus is believing on him. And Jesus showed that you must come to him to have life. Having life is being regenerated.

John 20:31 But these are (#1)written, that ye might (#2)believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that (#2)believing ye might have (#3)life through his name.

What is written? The word of God. And I 100% agree, you must first hear of Christ to be able to believe in him. But this shown to be when you are unregenerate, because what do you have to do to have life? Believe. Regeneration follows belief.

And this is exactly what Ephesians 1:13 shows.

Eph 1:13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

#1 You first must have the gospel, the word of God. Without hearing of Jesus you could not possibly believe in him.

#2 You believe or trust the gospel while unregenerate.

#3 You receive the Holy Spirit and are regenerated or have life.

 

Holy Spirit

I was dead without life before Christ. When Jesus word was preached I felt the life and the Spirit in the words of Jesus, every time I walked away I felt the life leave me. The Spirit and life is in the words of Jesus not you, without His word you are a dead man.