All you're doing is talking AROUND the issue.
Please explain what the parenthesis relates to in v.5. I say it relates to the phrase "made alive".............
Please explain the parenthesis in v.5.........
So? the point is about 2 phrases in v.5; "made alive" and "having been saved". Did Paul equate them or not? Explain your answer............................
Then explain the parenthesis in v.5 and what it refers to in the verse.............................
Please stick with the issue at hand. Eph 2:5 equates "made alive" with "having been saved". Prove that it does not do that.
Paul is not
"equating" being made alive and being saved by grace. And he was absolutely
not "equating" faith with regeneration.
His is simply commenting on what should be obvious to every person who knows what the scriptures teach about the spiritual deadness of mankind.
Obviously Nicodemus is not the only one in need of chastisement for not knowing about this very basic doctrine concerning fallen man.
Paul simply says that God made us alive when we were dead and not able to do anything toward salvation because of this common condition of fallen man. Then he exclaims parenthetically what should also come inescapably to the mind of anyone considering this basic truth about salvation. Salvation is by grace.
Taken as a unit - the passage states that you are saved through faith (duhhh). But that salvation is by grace because it's very beginnings started with an act of grace whereby you were made alive while you were dead.
If we were dead and couldn't understand and respond in faith to the gospel (as the scriptures clearly teach) - then it is an obvious, inescapable and wonderful truth that salvation is by grace from the very beginning.
This truth should stir the heart of every believer. Instead - you have chosen to twist it to support salvation by human effort and merit. Not only have you missed the glorious truth about grace - you have it completely backward from what Paul was exclaiming about the exciting truth of salvation by grace.
What Paul was exclaiming was that it was God who made you alive when you were dead. You could not make yourself alive. It was God. In so doing He made it possible for you to understand and respond to the gospel and be saved through faith in the Word of God.
You were born again by believing the Word of God as Peter tells us. But being born is the result of the invisible work of the Spirit prior to our being born again - as Jesus tells us.
You've got it backward - at least as far as this particular doctrine goes. And, IMO, you have purposefully got it backward in order to escape the concept of election unto salvation through the grace of God.
We could debate the overall issues as we have several times. But one thing is obvious for all to see here. This particular passage does not prove what you say it does concerning the relationship of faith and regeneration.
This is not rocket surgery. What I have said about the passage makes perfect sense.
You want it to say something that it does not say. Saying it over and over again will not make it so.
And, by the way, 1 John 5:1 does not teach that faith and regeneration happen at the same time either. Again - you have brought your theology to a passage and are trying to make it say what it does not say - just the same as with the Ephesians 2:5-8 passage which we have been discussing.
P.S.
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving day brother.
I sure did. We had a couple of tables full of family.
Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Baptists, Catholics, and Word of Faith.
No theology allowed at the table except for "praise the Lord and pass the gravy".