Hi Arial, because you ducked out on me when I gave you questions or Scripture that you couldn't answer, at least it appeared that way, and then resurface a week later as if it never happened, with more questions.
What does an unregenerate heart lack that keeps a person from coming to faith?
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Hazelelponi
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All we do is submit everything to Christ right? Bring everything of us, thoughts actions, words, deeds, beliefs, into submission to His Word?
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I have no clue what you refer to. I don't know that I have ever ducked out on anyone for anything, and I certainly have never dodged any questions on purpose. If I don't know an answer, I will go find one if one is to be had from the Scripture and helps if I need them.
Eternally-Grateful
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i love the passage in I believe it is hebrews that says by one offering he has perfected forever. those who are being sanctified,
we do not even sanctify ourselves. Even as believers. all we can do is hinder our sanctification. by failing to trust god or take steps of faith.
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Thread temporarily locked until @Eternally-Grateful leans to stay on topic. Will reopen in a couple of days.
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If I may add: To demonstrate his Love to His Elect, and to reconcile to His people to himself. The Covenant which God himself made. That He will be our God and we will be His people. And to show the cosmos that He the Alpha & Omega, and the only true Triune God of the Universe which all things exist in Him and through Him.
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Since the latest response from @Dave bypasses the main lines of argument, I think his response can be answered briefly without reopening settled ground.
Spirit-baptism is not the new birth
Galatians 3:2-3, 27 speaks of covenantal incorporation, not rebirth. Paul's aorist "begun in the Spirit" (enarchesthai) refers to their reception of spiritual gifts authenticating their justification by faith; it does not refer to regeneration.1 The phrase "baptized into Christ" in verse 27 is objective covenantal union language, matching Romans 6:3-4 and Colossians 2:12; in every case the eis construction denotes a transfer of forensic solidarity, not the secret work of implanting new life.
In 1 Corinthians 12:13, Paul describes ecclesial placement—"in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body"—where the emphasis falls on "one body," the visible covenant community. Regeneration is invisible and individual; Spirit-baptism is public and corporate. Conflating the two levels disregards Paul's covenantal ordering: faith appropriates Christ, Spirit-baptism seals that faith, and gifts follow (Eph 1:13-14).
And with 1 Peter 3:21 any lingering ambiguity is removed: "baptism … now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a good conscience." Peter guards against sacramental realism; the water is a sign whose saving efficacy lies in the believer's appeal to God for a cleansed conscience, itself the fruit of prior rebirth (1 Pet 1:3, 23). Far from equating baptism with regeneration, Peter clarifies that its power lies in what it signifies, not in what it is.
Condemnation lifted in the context of faith
Dave posits that the Father lifts condemnation antecedently, in order that the sinner may believe. But scripture reverses that order: "having been justified by faith, we have peace with God" (Rom 5:1). Justification follows faith. To place the lifting of condemnation before faith is to grant covenant benefits to the unregenerate sinner while he is still outside Christ, violating John 3:18: "Whoever does not believe is condemned already." The proposal is therefore ad hoc, unsupported by exegesis, and internally self-defeating—for if condemnation can be lifted without faith, why is faith required at all? Paul is clear: "There is no condemnation"—for whom? "For those in Christ Jesus" (Rom 8:1). Condemnation is lifted in the context of covenantal union, which presupposes faith.
Regeneration predates Pentecost
Deuteronomy 30:6 promises heart-circumcision "so that you will love the Lord your God," a grace already operative in the remnant (cf. Deut 29:4). The difference is the scale of the Spirit's work, when the grace that touched only the remnant will sweep across the whole covenant community. What was once partial and hidden becomes widespread and manifest. Ezekiel 36:26-27 announces this same reality in exile, yet David himself knew its power centuries earlier (Ps 51:10-12), pleading not for the Spirit's arrival but his renewal. When Christ speaks with Nicodemus, he treats the new birth as an existing reality Nicodemus should have known: “You are the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?” (John 3:10). The perfect tense of "has been born" (gennēthēnai) is what grounds the present believing. Pentecost amplifies and extends the Spirit’s ministry (Acts 2:33); it's not where his life-giving work began.
1 John 5:1 briefly revisited
"Pas ho pisteuōn hoti Iēsous estin ho Christos ek tou Theou gegennētai." The perfect-passive –ge reduplication prefix in the word gegennētai denotes a completed act with abiding result—has been and remains born again—and John places it prior to the present-participle pisteuōn.² That temporal asymmetry rules out simultaneity: believing is the consequence of the new birth. The verbal forms are not simultaneous, and the theological implications are not optional.
"Everyone currently believing is born again," Dave said, "because when that faith began they became born again"—utterly violating the Greek text. Every believing person has been born again, John said. Not is, not will be, but has been. The perfect passive indicative is decisive here; ignoring it mishandles the text.
There is irony in the fact that he accuses me of eisegesis immediately after he ignored the tense of a cited verse in order to make it say something it does not.
In closing
None of the newly cited proof-texts overturns the order established by scripture: regeneration begets faith; faith receives justification ("no condemnation"); Spirit-baptism seals and empowers. Dave's proposed "judicial removal" has no exegetical warrant, and his Pentecost exclusivism collapses in the face of evidence for pre-Pentecost regeneration. Unless supported by fresh exegesis, continued repetition will obscure rather than clarify the matter.
---
[1] For the timing of sealing, see Richard B. Gaffin Jr., Perspectives on Pentecost: Studies in New Testament Teaching on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1979), pp. 34–38.
[2] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Zondervan, 1996), pp. 574-575.
Spirit-baptism is not the new birth
Galatians 3:2-3, 27 speaks of covenantal incorporation, not rebirth. Paul's aorist "begun in the Spirit" (enarchesthai) refers to their reception of spiritual gifts authenticating their justification by faith; it does not refer to regeneration.1 The phrase "baptized into Christ" in verse 27 is objective covenantal union language, matching Romans 6:3-4 and Colossians 2:12; in every case the eis construction denotes a transfer of forensic solidarity, not the secret work of implanting new life.
In 1 Corinthians 12:13, Paul describes ecclesial placement—"in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body"—where the emphasis falls on "one body," the visible covenant community. Regeneration is invisible and individual; Spirit-baptism is public and corporate. Conflating the two levels disregards Paul's covenantal ordering: faith appropriates Christ, Spirit-baptism seals that faith, and gifts follow (Eph 1:13-14).
And with 1 Peter 3:21 any lingering ambiguity is removed: "baptism … now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a good conscience." Peter guards against sacramental realism; the water is a sign whose saving efficacy lies in the believer's appeal to God for a cleansed conscience, itself the fruit of prior rebirth (1 Pet 1:3, 23). Far from equating baptism with regeneration, Peter clarifies that its power lies in what it signifies, not in what it is.
Condemnation lifted in the context of faith
Dave posits that the Father lifts condemnation antecedently, in order that the sinner may believe. But scripture reverses that order: "having been justified by faith, we have peace with God" (Rom 5:1). Justification follows faith. To place the lifting of condemnation before faith is to grant covenant benefits to the unregenerate sinner while he is still outside Christ, violating John 3:18: "Whoever does not believe is condemned already." The proposal is therefore ad hoc, unsupported by exegesis, and internally self-defeating—for if condemnation can be lifted without faith, why is faith required at all? Paul is clear: "There is no condemnation"—for whom? "For those in Christ Jesus" (Rom 8:1). Condemnation is lifted in the context of covenantal union, which presupposes faith.
Regeneration predates Pentecost
Deuteronomy 30:6 promises heart-circumcision "so that you will love the Lord your God," a grace already operative in the remnant (cf. Deut 29:4). The difference is the scale of the Spirit's work, when the grace that touched only the remnant will sweep across the whole covenant community. What was once partial and hidden becomes widespread and manifest. Ezekiel 36:26-27 announces this same reality in exile, yet David himself knew its power centuries earlier (Ps 51:10-12), pleading not for the Spirit's arrival but his renewal. When Christ speaks with Nicodemus, he treats the new birth as an existing reality Nicodemus should have known: “You are the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?” (John 3:10). The perfect tense of "has been born" (gennēthēnai) is what grounds the present believing. Pentecost amplifies and extends the Spirit’s ministry (Acts 2:33); it's not where his life-giving work began.
1 John 5:1 briefly revisited
"Pas ho pisteuōn hoti Iēsous estin ho Christos ek tou Theou gegennētai." The perfect-passive –ge reduplication prefix in the word gegennētai denotes a completed act with abiding result—has been and remains born again—and John places it prior to the present-participle pisteuōn.² That temporal asymmetry rules out simultaneity: believing is the consequence of the new birth. The verbal forms are not simultaneous, and the theological implications are not optional.
"Everyone currently believing is born again," Dave said, "because when that faith began they became born again"—utterly violating the Greek text. Every believing person has been born again, John said. Not is, not will be, but has been. The perfect passive indicative is decisive here; ignoring it mishandles the text.
There is irony in the fact that he accuses me of eisegesis immediately after he ignored the tense of a cited verse in order to make it say something it does not.
In closing
None of the newly cited proof-texts overturns the order established by scripture: regeneration begets faith; faith receives justification ("no condemnation"); Spirit-baptism seals and empowers. Dave's proposed "judicial removal" has no exegetical warrant, and his Pentecost exclusivism collapses in the face of evidence for pre-Pentecost regeneration. Unless supported by fresh exegesis, continued repetition will obscure rather than clarify the matter.
---
[1] For the timing of sealing, see Richard B. Gaffin Jr., Perspectives on Pentecost: Studies in New Testament Teaching on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1979), pp. 34–38.
[2] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Zondervan, 1996), pp. 574-575.
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Synergists who refuse to admit they encounter tough questions will go to great lengths to avoid, dodge, and divert from these tough questions. When I was once a Synergist I didn't avoid the tough questions, because I was seeking the truth. For me it wasn't about having to admit I was wrong or looking foolish or even winning an argument. It was about the truth. Which is why I recanted the Synergistic view and hold to a Monergistic view. Knowing that all comes to pass by Grace Alone.
Synergistic theologies try to locate their Salvation in their response to the Gospel, rather than in the Gospel itself; namely who Jesus is and what God the Father accomplished in God the Son through the Power of the God the Holy Spirit. To suggest or think that fallen sinners can somehow find something within to save themselves has plagued the church from the beginning.
They think it's unfair that we do not decide or have any say or participation in their salvation. This conclusion comes not from Scripture truths but from human pride to refuse to believe that we are all condemned sinners under the Law, but not only that, but that we are sworn enemies of God alienated by sinful acts of treachery & original sin. Our fallen disposition is to do what we as sinners love to do which is sin; lust after the passions of flesh and mind. Which is why sinners suppress the truth, because we hate the light and love the darkness. Basically sinners are bound by what they love to do which is to sin. But they will say, then, I can be as bad as I want to be. This outlook is a dismissive reaction of trying to know our fallen condition before a Holy God. Total Depravity is talking about the extensive of sin not the intensity. What does this mean? Well, sin affect all of our human faculties from head to toe, in other words there's no part of us that is not affect with sin. And, yes some people are very evil, and some that are not as evil. But one thing is for sure, we all stand condemned before God as sinners. And we can do nothing to change this predicament. Which is why God made a Covenant of Grace in which He will do what we never could do, by sending His Son to redeem His people from their sins.
Sorry, about the long post, just wanted to share my 2 wooden cents.
Synergistic theologies try to locate their Salvation in their response to the Gospel, rather than in the Gospel itself; namely who Jesus is and what God the Father accomplished in God the Son through the Power of the God the Holy Spirit. To suggest or think that fallen sinners can somehow find something within to save themselves has plagued the church from the beginning.
They think it's unfair that we do not decide or have any say or participation in their salvation. This conclusion comes not from Scripture truths but from human pride to refuse to believe that we are all condemned sinners under the Law, but not only that, but that we are sworn enemies of God alienated by sinful acts of treachery & original sin. Our fallen disposition is to do what we as sinners love to do which is sin; lust after the passions of flesh and mind. Which is why sinners suppress the truth, because we hate the light and love the darkness. Basically sinners are bound by what they love to do which is to sin. But they will say, then, I can be as bad as I want to be. This outlook is a dismissive reaction of trying to know our fallen condition before a Holy God. Total Depravity is talking about the extensive of sin not the intensity. What does this mean? Well, sin affect all of our human faculties from head to toe, in other words there's no part of us that is not affect with sin. And, yes some people are very evil, and some that are not as evil. But one thing is for sure, we all stand condemned before God as sinners. And we can do nothing to change this predicament. Which is why God made a Covenant of Grace in which He will do what we never could do, by sending His Son to redeem His people from their sins.
Sorry, about the long post, just wanted to share my 2 wooden cents.
