You must be born again

You go John Piper! This is precisely what is wrong with the church today. There are too many that think being born again is by an exercise of their will. If being born again is by an exercise of their will........ why not the choice to live like the world... after all, it is free will.
That is what gets me about those who espouse *free will*. They expect that their new birth is due to an exercise of their will.... but they expect God to sovereignly keep them saved. I don't get it. Someone come straighten this Calvinist out!

 

Among contemporary pastors and theologians, Dr. Piper has been the most influential in my life--he's a careful exegete of Scripture.

 

Amen bro.............:thumbs:

 

But then again........ who can straighten what God has bent? :thumbs:

 

Good point!

That's the problem with the theology of influential men like Dr. Charles Stanley.

 

Well, John has established one thing that reformers/Calvies around here have been denying ad nauseum --- that regeneration = born again.

Now that we have that established and that regeneration comes before faith, we have the perfect pattern for false salvation -- one in which the person is "spontaneously" regenerated and then hears the gospel and does whatever his particular "take" on that gospel happens to say to do (which is usually join our church, receive communion in order to receive the grace of Christ, recite the Apostle's Creed, and repeat the Lord's Prayer weekly in a "vainly repetitious" manner).

Now go out and practice "will worship" showing the world that you are saved (You know, good behavior has its rewards).


But I say this "tongue in cheek" to y'all cause you KNOW in your hearts that there has to be a decision/repentance BEFORE there can be regeneration, right? I mean, repentance is what makes one "born again from above," isn't it.

skypair

 

Thanks Gerald, this was a great sermon! If you don't mind me asking, he was speaking of this being part of a larger series, what series? If you could just post the link to the series, that would be great.

 

I don't see anything in John 3 during Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus about repentance. The Spirit moves where He will. Those who believe in the only begotten Son will receive eternal life. Nothing about repentance. An unregenerate person does not desire to repent.

 

I'll respond by quoting another poster:
Post #41

:laugh:

 

What is your point, besides laughing at me?

 

Apparently you were never taught the concept of "irony" (and if you were it isn't showing here). No one is laughing at you.

 

There is no irony. The OP posted a link to an article that could be read by all and a discussion could take place. You posted a link to Amazon for a book to be purchased and read before a discussion could take place. That's not irony. It's avoidance.

 

And again I quote you to respond to the OP:

Nuff said, point made clear.

 

God passes one from death to life. That's great! Now...what exactly is the need for faith at that point, if you have already passed from death to life

 

It certainly contradicts, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved".

Salvation from death here clearly is AFTER on believes, not before. But once you accept the grid of Calvinism and have invested ego into your theology, well you are stuck constructing arguments that are filled with contradictions.

 

I'm with you, Amy.

 

Thanks for this valuable contribution to the OP. :thumbs:

 

You are certainly welcome. And the hope is you will learn a lesson from using double standards and avoid that in the future. Now, back to the OP. :thumbs:

 

Who has denied this? I am thinking back through almost 20,000 posts and countless conversations on this topic and can't recall any Calvinist who denies that regeneration=born again. AFter all, "born again" is the definition of regenaration. It is giving spiritual life to the spiritually dead.

You know, you complain when I say you don't know what you are talking about and you constantly misrepresent stuff, and then you come out and say stuff like this that simply proves you don't know what you are talking about. This is why conversation with you is so unproductive. You don't listen and you don't learn. You are free to believe what you like, and free to reject what we believe. But please, at least reject what we believe. Don't go out and make something up, attribute it to us, and then reject it and castigate us.

I recognize nothing of my belief in your preceding paragraph, and nothing of the belief of any Calvinist I know or have read.

No, born again, or born from above (depending on how you take the textual variant) is for Calvinists the result of being regeneration.

So the question is, How long will you continue in this obstinacy about what we believe? When can we expect you to start being honest about our beliefs? Is that really too much to ask?

I maintain that the reason people like you are unwilling to be honest about what we believe is because if you are you know you will not have anything to argue with us about. The only arguments you can make are ones that are based on somethign we don't believe anyway.

Oh how I wish you would stop this.