Was the Spirit of God Indwelling the Redeemed before Pentecost?

[Bob Carabbio]

So YOU are the one who has it right, and not the Calvinists. Good luck with that!

Chuckle!!! "Calvinism" is nothing but "just another theological system" among many. POPULAR, yes!!! Accurate?? who cares.

I'm not saying I have it right. All I'm saying is that it's unimportant what "Calvinism" says one way or another, but you have to be careful of terms like "Regenerated", "Total Depravity", "Election", etc. since they have several meanings depending on which "theological paradigm" you're addressing. That's why I personally don't use 'em, since they're essentially meaningless.

 

[Josheb]

I think some of them tend toward mere attendance of precepts and not implications. They have not thought it out, in other words. These would likely consider TULIP or at least the WCF and probably Calvin himself to be of some referential authority.

That's a misrepresentation of those sources.

• Calvin was not the first monergist. He just happened to be among the most prodigious.
• TULIP and the WCF were developed because of existing departures from Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and/or the other prominent monergists. Those documents are attempts to establish an authoritative summary of core concepts.
• Calvin was studious, a practiced exegete and a prolific writer. Calvinism is not a soteriology. Calvinism is a theology and soteriology is just one part of his larger theology. This is very important to understand because.....
• TULIP is specifically soteriological. Its precepts touch on various aspects of larger theology but it makes no claims to be encompassing or applicable to anything beyond salvation.
• The WCF is just the opposite. The WCF (along with its catechism) was intended and designed to be a more encompassing statement about many diverse subjects and aspects of the Christian faith theologically. Its articles pertaining to salvation are a small part of the larger Confession.
• The word "Calvinism" rarely means only the views of Calvin. It is now a colloquial or "umbrella" term for monergism. This should not be the case but, for better or worse, it is the case. It is why I make the effort to self-describe as monergist and not specifically Calvinist. I've read Calvin for myself and find many errors in his soteriology. His emphasis on God being the causal agent of salvation and all its aspects is correct but there are places where he ventures into RC doctrine, tradition, or personal opinion that I reject.
• Conversion is not the whole of salvation. This is important because much, if not most, of the debate about salvation uses the word "salvation" when what is mean is strictly and specifically conversion. We are converted from death to life. That is salvation, but it is not the whole of salvation. This is also important because when it comes specifically and solely to the one matter of conversion, very few are synergist. Even most synergists are monergistic when it comes to conversion. No one (except perhaps for radical Pelagians) believe the human can convert him/herself from death to life, from dead in sin to life in Christ. Words matter.

And the failures to correctly discriminate these points sometimes leads monergists to make mistakes about their own theology or soteriology. Mistakes are not the same as well thought-out diversity. These conditions, in turn, make it difficult for outsiders to correctly learn, understand, and accept the monergistic views. One obvious example would be a comparative reading of someone like Pink versus Sproul. The two men shared a core set of views within monergism, but Pink was many times much more deterministic than Sproul.

That may sound harsh, but all I mean by that is like I said, that they cling to Calvinism/Reformed Theology's mere mentions, while seeking to understand its implications, instead of seeking to learn what Scripture says concerning the principles and tenets that Calvinism/Reformed Theology has extracted from Scripture...

While I believe I understand what you're saying and agree in part (but only in part), this is a bit of a false dichotomy. The fact is the prominent monergists in Christian history have been the most studious examiners of scripture in Christendom. This applies to most discussion forums, too. It can readily be observed that monergists in any soteriology board have a markedly better knowledge of whole scripture, observably use scripture from beginning to end and use it exegetically. We're the least likely to proof-text a verse. We're also the least likely to read scripture inferentially. The examination of scripture and the allegiance to doctrine can (and sometimes are) disparate conditions for any Christian (monergist or synergist). That is why I try to post scripture, make my case from scripture alone, and rarely appeal to extrabiblical sources (on the occasions that I do so it is usually because that source is a matter of debate). I would venture to say (my fellow monergists can attest to this as they choose) that while it has often been established most of the Cals in CCCF used to be Arms, the reason we became Cals is because of our study of scripture! We had the repeated experience whereby our synergist views kept running into conflict with what we were reading in scripture and the necessity to bend our doctrines to God's word provide inconvenient and annoying .

But bend and bow we did. That is why we're Cals. Scripture, not Calvin, TULIP, or the WCF.

I am a long way from the first to come to the realization that salvific (and subsequent) faith is not generated by the believer, but by God himself.

How's it feel to realize you're a monergist?

 

[fastfredy0]

Hence that take that some give it, that God wrote a story or a play, and we are the characters in the story.

That's my take ... with the Author inserting Himself into the story line at times.

Before there was anything created there was God alone; a God that knew all things that would occur (God being outside of time but I will take a liberty and insert His knowledge on a time line).
As God knew all things and He was the only source of knowledge before creation, He must have written the script (decree, plan, whatever).

• 1 In Him also we have received an inheritance [a destiny—we were claimed by God as His own], having been predestined (chosen, appointed beforehand) according to the purpose of Him who works everything in agreement with the counsel and design of His will,
• 28 For in Him we live and move and exist [that is, in Him we actually have our being], as even some of [a]your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’
• yahda, yahda

 

[CrowCross]

To my way of thinking, the indwelling was not Pentecost-style —THAT was filling, but ok. Terminology, lol. My point is that what produces faith, is the Spirit of God given by grace, generates that faith, by which we are saved. And it is a continuous thing. The Spirit does not leave or come and go, in that sense —I don't see how that would be possible and that faith remain his doing in us, and not our own product.

I agree.

God is 100% responsible for our salvation.

 

[makesends]

That's a misrepresentation of those sources.

• Calvin was not the first monergist. He just happened to be among the most prodigious.
• TULIP and the WCF were developed because of existing departures from Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and/or the other prominent monergists. Those documents are attempts to establish an authoritative summary of core concepts.
• Calvin was studious, a practiced exegete and a prolific writer. Calvinism is not a soteriology. Calvinism is a theology and soteriology is just one part of his larger theology. This is very important to understand because.....
• TULIP is specifically soteriological. Its precepts touch on various aspects of larger theology but it makes no claims to be encompassing or applicable to anything beyond salvation.
• The WCF is just the opposite. The WCF (along with its catechism) was intended and designed to be a more encompassing statement about many diverse subjects and aspects of the Christian faith theologically. Its articles pertaining to salvation are a small part of the larger Confession.
• The word "Calvinism" rarely means only the views of Calvin. It is now a colloquial or "umbrella" term for monergism. This should not be the case but, for better or worse, it is the case. It is why I make the effort to self-describe as monergist and not specifically Calvinist. I've read Calvin for myself and find many errors in his soteriology. His emphasis on God being the causal agent of salvation and all its aspects is correct but there are places where he ventures into RC doctrine, tradition, or personal opinion that I reject.
• Conversion is not the whole of salvation. This is important because much, if not most, of the debate about salvation uses the word "salvation" when what is mean is strictly and specifically conversion. We are converted from death to life. That is salvation, but it is not the whole of salvation. This is also important because when it comes specifically and solely to the one matter of conversion, very few are synergist. Even most synergists are monergistic when it comes to conversion. No one (except perhaps for radical Pelagians) believe the human can convert him/herself from death to life, from dead in sin to life in Christ. Words matter.

And the failures to correctly discriminate these points sometimes leads monergists to make mistakes about their own theology or soteriology. Mistakes are not the same as well thought-out diversity. These conditions, in turn, make it difficult for outsiders to correctly learn, understand, and accept the monergistic views. One obvious example would be a comparative reading of someone like Pink versus Sproul. The two men shared a core set of views within monergism, but Pink was many times much more deterministic than Sproul.

While I believe I understand what you're saying and agree in part (but only in part), this is a bit of a false dichotomy. The fact is the prominent monergists in Christian history have been the most studious examiners of scripture in Christendom. This applies to most discussion forums, too. It can readily be observed that monergists in any soteriology board have a markedly better knowledge of whole scripture, observably use scripture from beginning to end and use it exegetically. We're the least likely to proof-text a verse. We're also the least likely to read scripture inferentially. The examination of scripture and the allegiance to doctrine can (and sometimes are) disparate conditions for any Christian (monergist or synergist). That is why I try to post scripture, make my case from scripture alone, and rarely appeal to extrabiblical sources (on the occasions that I do so it is usually because that source is a matter of debate). I would venture to say (my fellow monergists can attest to this as they choose) that while it has often been established most of the Cals in CCCF used to be Arms, the reason we became Cals is because of our study of scripture! We had the repeated experience whereby our synergist views kept running into conflict with what we were reading in scripture and the necessity to bend our doctrines to God's word provide inconvenient and annoying .

But bend and bow we did. That is why we're Cals. Scripture, not Calvin, TULIP, or the WCF.

Thank you, and yes you said it better than I did. I often quote from those who came before me, (including some who I think didn't even know they were themselves Calvinistic, like CS Lewis), because they have said something I want to say better than I do —not because they are authorities, like the RCC considers the pope.

How's it feel to realize you're a monergist?

Known it a long time, now, though it came to me gradually through my own unfaithfulness, inability to understand, etc. And I LOVE it. Not only is it the only thing that makes sense, both scripturally and logically from what facts we do know, but it completely changed my outlook on the whole of existence. Finally, it all makes sense. In a way, I feel like I've always known it, but "the structure of the words I had learned" inhibited the understanding of it. Self-determinism doesn't give way easily.

 

[Josheb]

That passage seems to me to be referring to no lack of completion in faith or regeneration, however. Time irrelevant, I think.

Explain that, please.

Well, no, but it regeneration IS necessary, according to Calvinistic/Reformed thought, before faith is possible, no?

Yes. That is the case because absent the Spirit the sinner has only the flesh and that flesh and all its constituent components are sinful. Regardless of "total depravity," the premise means God uses something sinful to save from sin and that is both circular and contradictory. Sin saves from sin? The righteous God uses unrighteousness to make on righteous? Both those questions (and a plethora of others like them) dey reason.

So I don't see how their take is possible, if the OT saints died without being regenerated.

I don't either. They were, by grace through faith, accepted, gained approval, and deemed righteous. Perhaps someone could explain otherwise, but given the whole of scripture it's enormously inconsistent to think these men were left alone with their sinful flesh an the exact same state described in the NT among the ecclesia. That would mean there are three categories of humans, not two (dead in sin, alive in Christ, and dead in sin and righteous but not alive in Christ). Remember: the gospel was preached to Abraham and David understood the promise of an eternal thrown to reference the resurrection and he knew the LORD's Lord was more significant than he.

They knew and believed the gospel that saves.

This may help me to skinny down what I believe regeneration/faith/indwelling is. Don't give up on me.

I haven't shot anyone in cyberspace yet .

 

[makesends]

That's my take ... with the Author inserting Himself into the story line at times.

Before there was anything created there was God alone; a God that knew all things that would occur (God being outside of time but I will take a liberty and insert His knowledge on a time line).
As God knew all things and He was the only source of knowledge before creation, He must have written the script (decree, plan, whatever).

• 1 In Him also we have received an inheritance [a destiny—we were claimed by God as His own], having been predestined (chosen, appointed beforehand) according to the purpose of Him who works everything in agreement with the counsel and design of His will,
• 28 For in Him we live and move and exist [that is, in Him we actually have our being], as even some of [a]your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’
• yahda, yahda

But the Author himself doesn't just insert, but maintains the reality of the story, VERY intimately. This rings true biblically, experientially and philosophically/logically.

 

[Eleanor]

Because the faith the Spirit of God generates at the new birth is continuous, living. Not a one-hit, and leave-it-alone sort of thing. The person NEEDS the indwelling, to be re-born. It is living IN Christ, not just AT Christ, is one way to put it.

Now, that last, I can accept.

Let me ask specifically, then: Salvation in the Old Testament was by faith, which was impossible to the natural man? And so the change wrought in him by God was by the Spirit of God within him in some necessary sense, no? —The faith and the change from "natural man" both
being the gift of God, and not of works? Monergism still applied in the OT the same as in the NT?

To me, this deals with the very root and essence of the gospel.

To the side, though, if John 3 chides Nicodemus for not knowing about regeneration, then it is shown in some way, in the OT. Or did Nicodemus and his like have some other divine authority from which to understand spiritual reality?

Would water and Spirit be shown in Eze 36:25-27, 37:1-14, 18:31, Nu 19:13, 20, Dt 30:6?

 

[ReverendRV]

The Bible says God 'Meant' the same 'Act' Joseph's brother’s meant; God didn't Mean the Sin, just the Act. God's Good Meaning kept the Act from being Sinful for Him; the brother’s Evil Meaning caused the same Act to be Sinful for them. This means God remains Providential / Decreetive, because elsewhere God says it never entered his Mind to 'Cause' Judah to Sin. Of course the Act entered God's Mind before it happened, even Provisionists agree with this because of God's Foresight. So what did not enter God's Mind? To 'Cause' Judah to Sin. We may never know what God's Meaning is in any cruel Sin you could fathom, but we can know it was for a Good reason. Emotionalism makes it hard to stomach that God has Good Meaning in something horrendous, but he does. God's Meaning and Joseph's brother’s meaning did not mix within that same Act; so why does the Meaning in God's Will for you, mix with the meaning of your Will regarding your own Acts?

 

[Eleanor]

Chuckle!!! "Calvinism" is nothing but "just another theological system" among many. POPULAR, yes!!! Accurate?? who cares.

I'm not saying I have it right. All I'm saying is that it's unimportant what "Calvinism" says one way or another, but you have to be careful of terms like "
Regenerated", "Total Depravity", "Election", etc. since they have several meanings depending on which "theological paradigm" you're addressing. That's why I personally don't use 'em, since they're essentially meaningless.

You'll never find me declaring the holy words of God to be "essentially meaningless."

"Regeneration" and "election" mean what their NT usage shows them to mean, in light of all Scripture taken in its context, and which can be demonstrated. However, it requires intellectual honesty to acknowledge what Scripture shows.

Their truth can be known, their terminology is not meaningless, and to assert such is contra-Biblical.

 

[Eleanor]

Explain that, please.

Yes. That is the case because absent the Spirit the sinner has only the flesh and that flesh and all its constituent components are sinful. Regardless of "total depravity," the premise means God uses something sinful to save from sin and that is both circular and contradictory. Sin saves from sin? The righteous God uses unrighteousness to make on righteous? Both those questions (and a plethora of others like them) deny reason.

Does a plan deny reason that
renders mercy at the same time it executes justice, or that
upholds and honors God and his law at the same time it rescues/saves criminals from that law and its consequences of death?

 

[makesends]

Would water and Spirit be shown in Eze 36:25-27, 37:1-14, 18:31, Nu 19:13, 20, Dt 30:6?

I believe so, and in several other similar places. I see it everywhere, but then, granted, I assume it and conceivably then, read it into the text in some places.

 

[makesends]

The Bible says God 'Meant' the same 'Act' Joseph's brother’s meant; God didn't Mean the Sin, just the Act. God's Good Meaning kept the Act from being Sinful for Him; the brother’s Evil Meaning caused the same Act to be Sinful for them. This means God remains Providential / Decreetive, because elsewhere God says it never entered his Mind to 'Cause' Judah to Sin. Of course the Act entered God's Mind before it happened, even Provisionists agree with this because of God's Foresight. So what did not enter God's Mind? To 'Cause' Judah to Sin. We may never know what God's Meaning is in any cruel Sin you could fathom, but we can know it was for a Good reason. Emotionalism makes it hard to stomach that God has Good Meaning in something horrendous, but he does. God's Meaning and Joseph's brother’s meaning did not mix within that same Act; so why does the Meaning in God's Will for you, mix with the meaning of your Will regarding your own Acts?

That seems to me unnecessarily equivocating, though. But it may be just another way to say what I do, that it is logically self-contradictory for God to sin, since sin is rebellion against God. Sin IS the rebellion of the creature, whether God caused it to happen or not.

 

[prism]

It's not about "grasping" them, it's about believing in and trusting on them. That requires a work of God.

Would you believe that which you didn't grasp or at least spiritually perceived? I don't deny grasping or perceiving is a work of God.

Matthew 16:16-17 NKJV

Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

 

[ReverendRV]

That seems to me unnecessarily equivocating, though. But it may be just another way to say what I do, that it is logically self-contradictory for God to sin, since sin is rebellion against God. Sin IS the rebellion of the creature, whether God caused it to happen or not.

Exactly. I get a Provisionist to admit I'm a Brother, then I agree with him God can't Sin; so why is my God a Monster?

It's mainly Unconditional Reprobation that they think is Monstrous. But that's Supra / Infra Lapsarian stuff. Did God Elect before or after the Fall? After the Fall would take the "God Monster" Accusation out of the equation, because God would Elect or Reprobate out of the concept of Original Sin; without people doing anything Good to deserve Election, or anything Bad to deserve Reprobation...

Does God Elect from the same Lump of Unfallen Clay, or from the same Lump of Fallen Clay?

 

[Josheb]

Does a plan deny reason that renders mercy at the same time it executes justice, or that upholds and honors God and his law at the same time it rescues/saves criminals from that law and its consequences of death?

Does a plan deny reason that renders mercy at the same time it executes judgment?

No, not always or usually but there is a judgment pending where there will be no mercy and any "plan" about that judgment holding another view does deny reason. I would further say that, temporally speaking, all judgments are also acts of mercy because God could simply speak a sinner's existence out of existence and do so with such effect that all memory in others of the sinner's existence is also eradicated. All temporal judgment is, in fact, intended for some purpose in addition to the judgment itself and as such is an act of mercy for all that survive. This is because - as I have often posted - ALL acts of God glorify God. God is glorified when he - by grace - saves a purpose from sin AND God is also glorified when He metes out the just recompense for sin.

However, the "law" is not the justification for God's action. The law is God's partial explanation for His actions. His holy righteousness is His justification.

Now why am I asked this question because I'm not following the relevance (and you know how I disdain digression )?

 

[Arial]

Because the faith the Spirit of God generates at the new birth is continuous, living. Not a one-hit, and leave-it-alone sort of thing. The person NEEDS the indwelling, to be re-born. It is living IN Christ, not just AT Christ, is one way to put it.

A person does not need the indwelling to be reborn. Regeneration by the Holy Spirit is not the same thing as the indwelling. Jesus describes the new birth to Nicodemus in John 3. Being filled with the Spirit is the indwelling. And maybe it amounts to the same thing before Christ's incarnation, I do not know. And I don't think anyone does unless they just happen to guess correctly. The Bible does not speak of regeneration or indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the OT. The NT believer is in the incarnate Christ which cannot happen until He is incarnate and does the work of redemption. That is the covenant relationship.

Nevertheless, Christ before the incarnation is present in the Godhead. Just as Israel worshiped a triune God whether they understood Him as triune or not. We know that no one has the faith that trusts in God as we are all at enmity with Him. So He has to give that faith, and He has to sustain that faith. The details of this I can only know how it is in the new covenant because He tells us. I cannot peer into the mind of God and I cannot peer into the mind of any in the OT.

Let me ask specifically, then: Salvation in the Old Testament was by faith, which was impossible to the natural man? And so the change wrought in him by God was by the Spirit of God within him in some necessary sense, no? —The faith and the change from "natural man" both
being the gift of God, and not of works? Monergism still applied in the OT the same as in the NT?

Yes. I don't see how it could be monergistic in the NT and not in the OT. God doesn't change and the natural man has no ability to change himself in that regard. But that does not necessarily translate to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the OT. It also does not necessarily discount it.

To the side, though, if John 3 chides Nicodemus for not knowing about regeneration, then it is shown in some way, in the OT. Or did Nicodemus and his like have some other divine authority from which to understand spiritual reality?

Jesus was chiding him for not knowing what the water and Spirit in Is 32:15;44:3; Ezek 35:25-27. Water and Spirit were linked there to express the pouring out of God's Spirit in the end times (the end times being the time between His first and second coming) and the purification and new life that flow from His arrival.

 

[Bob Carabbio]

You'll never find me declaring the holy words of God to be "essentially meaningless."

"Regeneration" and "election" mean what their NT usage shows them to mean.

But we're not talking about BIBLICAL usage. We're talking about MAN'S THEOLOGY about what the Bible says.

 

[Arial]

I think some of them tend toward mere attendance of precepts and not implications. They have not thought it out, in other words. These would likely consider TULIP or at least the WCF and probably Calvin himself to be of some referential authority. That may sound harsh, but all I mean by that is like I said, that they cling to Calvinism/Reformed Theology's mere mentions, while seeking to understand its implications, instead of seeking to learn what Scripture says concerning the principles and tenets that Calvinism/Reformed Theology has extracted from Scripture. —And, I easily admit, that may be habitual. That is, that many of those on this site do that habitually, though they have thought quite a bit farther than I have, chasing those implications and derivatives.

It is a bit harsh considering you have no way of knowing what is in the mind of anyone or how they arrive at what they believe. It assumes that if someone agrees with what Calvin or other of the reformers say, it is because of who said it, rather than because they have found it's truthfulness for themselves in the scriptures., even though they may have first heard it by Calvin or Calvinists.

 

[prism]

I had said "Abraham was justified when he believed God. Is there something we need to add?"

As a matter of fact, there is: believe is more than just intellectual assent, it is to have faith in and to trust on, to count on.

So we should add to Scripture?

Romans 3:28 NKJV
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.