What does an unregenerate heart lack that keeps a person from coming to faith?

[Dave]

Excellent thread, my friend. If I may add, even the demons believe & shudder (James 2:19). As Luther, Calvin and the Augustine once wrote, it's a living Faith; a true Faith. And the battle cry of the Reformation is you are Justified by Faith Alone but not by Faith that is Alone. Meaning that the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit is transforming believing sinners into the image of Christ. And this is a live long process called Sanctification.

But to clarify when a sinner hears, believes and trust in Him who justifies the ungodly. That moment they are declared righteous before a Holy God apart from works of the Law. For a sinner cannot produce or offer God anything in exchange for redemption. In the Gospel announcement God provides everything we need in Christ. Which includes perfect holiness that Christ merits by His own obedience that is given or credited to those who believe. (1 Cor. 1:30).
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People bring up how God wanted to make Israel jealous. God chose Israel out of sheer mercy and good pleasure, not because they earned it or were perfectly holy people. They transgressed against God over and over again. God who is rich in Mercy found a way to redeem gentiles too. But people always want to be pessimistic and ridicule the greatest news any guilty person can hear.

Hey Dodgers fan

I agree with everything that you've written above here. I only brought up the jealousy thing to highlight that maybe their faith wasn't motivated by the purest desires.

Not necessarily, the walking dead (sinners) suppress the truth because they lust the desires of the flesh and mind. They seek to worship idols made from human hands instead of Almighty God himself. They hate the light and love the darkness.

I just posted that same passage above to John. It paralleled a lot of the passages in the OT that we've been discussing in this thread recently. They all seem to say the same thing, that God finalized the process of the effects of sin as judgment, to a people who would have otherwise still had the potential to believe. At least those passages seems to suggests that.

You are looking at this in reverse. It's God himself who descended to us, revealed himself to us in His Son. Without Him coming to us first we will never come to him. His sheep hear his voice and follow him. He knows his sheep and his sheep knows him (John 10). He came to redeem his people from their sins.

It is possible that Jesus is referring to the OT believers with a true faith. They could very well be the ones that the Father gave Him. I know that there are other passages where the context could be the bigger picture, but this one could just as easily be the smaller context. All those who had a genuine faith in the OT revelation, before they had heard the the Gospel, would hear His voice, and come to Him, and He would give them eternal life, at the cross, where we all got our eternal life. They didn't have that yet. What they had was a promise, not yet realized.

I have some threads on this, try 'What happened in Acts and 'Regeneration and Born again are not synonymous' threads, if you're bored.

No, Faith is a Gift from God (Ephesians 2).

Does Eph 2 really say that? Maybe the faith once we are in Him. But we differ in opinion on when we are actually in him. This is where faith takes us. "For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father"(Eph 1:18). Then and only then we're "...made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus," (Ephes 4b-5).

Please challenge me, I was once an Arminian before I recanted that and become a convinced Classical Calvinism. I believe it's all of Grace; Monergistic not Synergistic.

I can do that. If you can be partial, I'll give some good questions to ask me.

By Grace Alone!

Agreed.

 

[Rescued One]

As far as morality goes...this passage seems to paint a different picture.

2:14-15 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)

From the perspective of seeking go.

Paul is quoting Psalms, which sheds a little more light on the context. This was discussed elsewhere in this thread about other passages that said the same. "They have all turned aside" begs the question, from what? Where they able to see before "they all turned aside" The fact that God looks down upon the children of that time to see if there were any who understand and who seek God would appear at a glance to answer that question. Psalm 53: says the same thing, but adds "They have together become corrupt". Interesting, that they "became corrupt". One could argue that sin needs to take it's course, and their comes a point in time, while being in a bad state, God, as judgment, puts the final nail in the coffin, lest they see, hear, and believe. Just a thought.

Psalm 14:2-4 The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, Who eat up my people as they eat bread, And do not call on the Lord?

Psalm 53:2-4 God looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God. Every one of them has turned aside; They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, Who eat up my people as they eat bread, And do not call upon God?

Dave

You haven't convinced me that unregenerated people people seek or understand God.

Dave, try believing God's word:

Romans 3
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

 

[Rescued One]

People have various reasons for seeming to follow Christ, but like Judas, in the end we see that they will turn away.

 

[John Bauer]

I disagree in the idea that there was no ability. Where there is opportunity, there is a possibility to believe—at least in potential. He did qualify what the hardening stopped: "Lest they hear," etc. That's ability or potential.

That inference holds water only if you read this text in isolation from the rest of scripture.

For example, your inference directly contradicts Romans 8:7-8, which declares that the flesh-governed disposition of the unregenerate person (Greek: to phronēma tēs sarkos) is inherently hostile to God and does not submit to his law (nomos tou theou, his moral will in covenantal form), that indeed it cannot. Paul is clear: The flesh-governed disposition of the unregenerate person cannot please God. To make the point obvious: To believe in the Son whom the Father sent is pleasing to God (and something he commands).

And it contradicts John 8:47, which teaches that only those who belong to God listen and respond to his words; "You don't listen and respond, because you don't belong to God." In other words, the potential to believe is not universal. It exists only in those who belong to God and only by his powerful grace. The issue is belonging, not opportunity.

It also contradicts John 6:65, which testifies that no one has the ability to come to Christ (oudeis dynatai elthein pros me) unless the Father grants him the ability (ean mē ē dedomenon autō ek tou patros).

And so on.

The notion that mere exposure to opportunity can unlock a universal ability to believe (even if only a potential) appears to be flatly rejected by the very scriptures that define the nature of unregenerate unbelief, moral inability, and the necessity of sovereign monergistic grace. According to Romans 8, unregenerate sinners are hostile to God and incapable of submitting to or pleasing him whether in the presence or absence of opportunity. In scripture, hardening is a withdrawing of mercy from a rebellious heart, not a denial of grace to a willing heart (and God's judgment is seen in him giving them over to their debauchery). This is not preventing faith, it is confirming unbelief by judicial abandonment.

When Isaiah and John talk about God withholding grace or removing the means thereof (e.g., prophets), that doesn't somehow imply that man universally has the ability to respond. Such a conclusion does not follow from the stated premises.

Question: The ability of the unregenerate to believe—however small, even if only a potential—does it belong to human nature (Pelagian), or is it attributed to prevenient grace (semi-Pelagian)?

People come to the conclusion that sin is self-destructive when they bottom out in it. Just like an alcoholic bottoms out. That's why, at that point, they start to ask questions and seek for the truth, because they realize that they were living a lie, and a self-destructive one at that.

For the first time, they have what is called a moment of clarity. And for the first time in maybe forever, they begin looking for the truth. It's the Truth that sets us free, right? It's really the first step towards faith. For the first time, seeking truth, thus seeking God, even unknowingly.

Agreed. But your position maintains that this realization occurs to an unregenerate sinner, a conclusion which you haven't drawn from any biblical text (although it has operated in your reading of certain texts).

And from that we might want to do what is good, maybe even come to faith in Jesus Christ, ...

Dave, you're going to have to contend with Romans 8:7-8. Paul teaches that the flesh-governed disposition of the unregenerate person is (a) inherently hostile to God, (b) does not submit to God's moral will in covenantal form (which would include his command to believe in Christ Jesus: 1 John 3:23; cf. John 6:29)—(c) is unable to submit to that will, and (d) cannot please God (and believing in the Son whom the Father sent is pleasing to God).

Yes, people can bottom out in their sin, realizing it is self-destructive and seeking for the truth—the first steps toward faith—but not in their flesh-governed unregenerate state. That is the part you need to demonstrate from scripture, if you want to maintain that yours is a biblical position. (Drawn from scripture is what biblical means.)

Can a person answer the call to faith selfishly? ... And can that faith, by the grace of God, mature into something that is not selfish?

I think they usually do start that way. (I did, too.) But can they do it apart from regeneration? You seem to think so, but I need to see that drawn from scripture.

Paul said that by the flesh he wanted to do good, but was unable to do so (Romans 7:18).

First, Paul is speaking as a believer there (v. 22). Second, it is not "by the flesh" that he wanted to do good but rather his "inner being" (kata ton esō anthrōpon); see Galatians 5:16-24. In other words, his ability here is a product of regeneration (consistent with what Christ said in John 6:65).

The one thing that I'm noticing is that a lot of the Scripture that speaks about God working in us, is that it fits just as well or better from faith forward as is does with the idea that it starts before faith.

Yes, sir, God working in us prior to faith is called "effectual calling" and "regeneration."

When I started this thread and a few like them, I really didn't even entertain the idea that a person could believe outside of the grace of God. But now I wonder.

Let's keep digging, then.