What precedes what - faith regeneration

[heymikey80]

We have been in this discussion with you before and agree fully with your research, which also agrees with my research on the subject, but your conclusion “ This absolutely destroys any Arminian/synergistic/semi-pelagian/free-will salvation soteriology.” Does not logically follow.

The gift is the “gracious salvation that comes through faith”, since the gift is not plural meaning: “God’s grace and salvation and faith”. The context is not emphasizing “faith”, but is talking about salvation.

Actually, that concept is not directly mentioned. Y'can either place the reference directly on Paul's assertion, or y'got a problem with the context. Paul isn't focused on the salvation -- the grammar doesn't reflect that. Paul is focused on his audience being the saved ones -- the grammar reflects their own status as being those saved, as God's gift.

Again: there is no noun that fits. There is only the formulaic "and that", which Paul uses again in Philippians. There it's also a reference to the activity of God toward the people being saved (and actually there toward the people being condemned).

 

[spiritwarrior37]

If we are to have saving faith, regeneration must first take place. This sinful body of flesh cannot and will not have faith unless there is first a "circumcision of the heart" so to speak. It is then that we are given the gift of faith.

God bless

 

[heymikey80]

If we are to have saving faith, regeneration must first take place. This sinful body of flesh cannot and will not have faith unless there is first a "circumcision of the heart" so to speak. It is then that we are given the gift of faith.

It seems possible that regeneration is to bringing new birth as "the faithful man". In other words, one of the attributes of the regenerated man would have to be the regenerated's reliance on God. T'me that fits really well with some of the statements of Scripture, where the Spirit's new birth is a change of heart, and the heart is the source of faith.

 

[bling]

I never said it was plural gifts. I said "being saved by grace through faith" is the gift from God, and is not our doing.

In your soteriology, "faith" is your doing.

It's amazing that you contradicted yourself in the same post.

First you said that you agree that the gift is the phrase collectively. Then you turn around and tell us that the author is stressing that "salvation" specifically is the what is being referred to, by implication, as the gift.

Tsk tsk.

What the author is stressing is the gift is "being saved by grace through faith". The entire process is God's doing, not ours. Do you have faith in Christ? Then that's God's doing, not yours.

Give God the credit for your faith Bling. He's glorified by it. Drop the synergistic nonsense.

The gift is our “salvation” which is graciously given as a result of our faith. That is what is being described in the whole verse. “Grace” describes God’s part and faith describes our part.

God is not “gifting” us His grace that remains with God (that is part of God) and we understand this. Salvation is definitely a gift from God that is the result of grace and not of the gift of grace. In the same way faith is not being “gifted” but is our part in the transaction. The phrase is neuter, but the grace and faith part are describing the salvation.

When you use the word “it” the reader should easily know what you’re referring to and Paul follows good writing technique and grammar so the reader would know what he is referring to. Paul has been discussing our inheritance and salvation and not faith. Faith is used to better describe the salvation and not to become part of the gift.

 

[Hammster]

The gift is our “salvation” which is graciously given as a result of our faith. That is what is being described in the whole verse. “Grace” describes God’s part and faith describes our part.

God is not “gifting” us His grace that remains with God (that is part of God) and we understand this. Salvation is definitely a gift from God that is the result of grace and not of the gift of grace. In the same way faith is not being “gifted” but is our part in the transaction. The phrase is neuter, but the grace and faith part are describing the salvation.

When you use the word “it” the reader should easily know what you’re referring to and Paul follows good writing technique and grammar so the reader would know what he is referring to. Paul has been discussing our inheritance and salvation and not faith. Faith is used to better describe the salvation and not to become part of the gift.

Does everyone have faith then (since it seems that you are saying it doesn't come from God)?

 

[OzSpen]

The gift is our “salvation” which is graciously given as a result of our faith. That is what is being described in the whole verse. “Grace” describes God’s part and faith describes our part.

God is not “gifting” us His grace that remains with God (that is part of God) and we understand this. Salvation is definitely a gift from God that is the result of grace and not of the gift of grace. In the same way faith is not being “gifted” but is our part in the transaction. The phrase is neuter, but the grace and faith part are describing the salvation.

When you use the word “it” the reader should easily know what you’re referring to and Paul follows good writing technique and grammar so the reader would know what he is referring to. Paul has been discussing our inheritance and salvation and not faith. Faith is used to better describe the salvation and not to become part of the gift.

Bling,

I don't know where you are getting your information about the gender of the Greek words in Eph. 2:8. A phrase cannot be neuter in the Greek language. Parts of speech (nouns, pronouns, relative pronouns, etc.) have gender. Let's look at the gender of some of the nouns and the demonstrative pronoun in this verse:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God (ESV)

• The noun, grace - charis - is feminine gender;
• The noun, faith - pistis - is feminine gender;
• The demonstrative pronoun, this/that - touto - is neuter gender.

So it is very clear in Greek that touto, neuter, cannot refer back to the feminine nouns - charis and pistis. If the demonstrative this/that was meant to refer to grace or faith, there is a perfectly good Greek way of expressing this. The demonstrative would be the feminine, taute.

So, to what does "this/that" refer if it is not to grace or faith? Verse 8 tells us that "it is the gift of God', thus referring to salvation by grace through faith.

What did John Calvin state about this verse?

He does not mean that faith is the gift of God, but that salvation is given to us by God, or, that we obtain it by the gift of God (Calvin's Commentaries, vol. 11, p. 145, my emphasis).

One of the greatest NT Greek scholars of the 20th century, Dr. A. T. Robertson, noted this of Eph. 2:8,

"Grace" is God's part, "faith" is ours. And that (kai touto). Neuter, not feminine taute, and so refers not to pistis (feminine) or to charis (feminine also), but to the act of being saved by grace conditioned on faith on our part (Word Pictures in the New Testament: The Epistles of Paul, vol IV, 1931. Nashville, Tennessee: Boardman Press, p. 525, emphasis in the original).

If Paul wanted "that/this" to refer to grace or faith, there was a regular Greek way of doing it. He would have used the same gender for "that/this" as for "faith" or "grace". Paul would have written taute and not tauto for the demonstrative "that/this". But he did not use this grammar. Instead, by using the neuter, tauto, Paul refers to the whole process of salvation by grace through faith.

Even the Calvinist, F. F. Bruce, stated of Eph. 2:8,

But the fact that the demonstrative pronoun 'that' is neuter in Greek (tauto), whereas 'faith' is a feminine noun (pistis), combines with other considerations to suggest that it is the whole concept of salvation by grace through faith that is described as the gift of God (The Epistle to the Ephesians 1961. Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, p. 51)

Sincerely in Christ, Oz [FONT=&quot][/FONT]

 

[bling]

Does everyone have faith then (since it seems that you are saying it doesn't come from God)?

Sure God gave all mature adults faith and He did not give animals faith. We have to channel that faith toward our Creator.

 

[bling]

Bling,

I don't know where you are getting your information about the gender of the Greek words in Eph. 2:8. A phrase cannot be neuter in the Greek language. Parts of speech (nouns, pronouns, relative pronouns, etc.) have gender. Let's look at the gender of some of the nouns and the demonstrative pronoun in this verse:

• The noun, grace - charis - is feminine gender;
• The noun, faith - pistis - is feminine gender;
• The demonstrative pronoun, this/that - touto - is neuter gender.

So it is very clear in Greek that touto, neuter, cannot refer back to the feminine nouns - charis and pistis. If the demonstrative this/that was meant to refer to grace or faith, there is a perfectly good Greek way of expressing this. The demonstrative would be the feminine, taute.

So, to what does "this/that" refer if it is not to grace or faith? Verse 8 tells us that "it is the gift of God', thus referring to salvation by grace through faith.

What did John Calvin state about this verse?

One of the greatest NT Greek scholars of the 20th century, Dr. A. T. Robertson, noted this of Eph. 2:8,

If Paul wanted "that/this" to refer to grace or faith, there was a regular Greek way of doing it. He would have used the same gender for "that/this" as for "faith" or "grace". Paul would have written taute and not tauto for the demonstrative "that/this". But he did not use this grammar. Instead, by using the neuter, tauto, Paul refers to the whole process of salvation by grace through faith.

Even the Calvinist, F. F. Bruce, stated of Eph. 2:8,


Sincerely in Christ, Oz

I am in full agreement.

 

[Hammster]

Sure God gave all mature adults faith and He did not give animals faith. We have to channel that faith toward our Creator.

Does God show grace to everyone?

 

[heymikey80]

Bling,

I don't know where you are getting your information about the gender of the Greek words in Eph. 2:8. A phrase cannot be neuter in the Greek language. Parts of speech (nouns, pronouns, relative pronouns, etc.) have gender. Let's look at the gender of some of the nouns and the demonstrative pronoun in this verse:

• The noun, grace - charis - is feminine gender;
• The noun, faith - pistis - is feminine gender;
• The demonstrative pronoun, this/that - touto - is neuter gender.

So it is very clear in Greek that touto, neuter, cannot refer back to the feminine nouns - charis and pistis. If the demonstrative this/that was meant to refer to grace or faith, there is a perfectly good Greek way of expressing this. The demonstrative would be the feminine, taute.

So, to what does "this/that" refer if it is not to grace or faith? Verse 8 tells us that "it is the gift of God', thus referring to salvation by grace through faith.

What did John Calvin state about this verse?

Bloomfield's footnotes shouldn't be attributed to John Calvin. The citation is actually his, and it's a citation itself from Theophylact, an early Orthodox theologian.

One of the greatest NT Greek scholars of the 20th century, Dr. A. T. Robertson, noted this of Eph. 2:8,

If Paul wanted "that/this" to refer to grace or faith, there was a regular Greek way of doing it. He would have used the same gender for "that/this" as for "faith" or "grace". Paul would have written taute and not tauto for the demonstrative "that/this". But he did not use this grammar. Instead, by using the neuter, tauto, Paul refers to the whole process of salvation by grace through faith.

Even the Calvinist, F. F. Bruce, stated of Eph. 2:8,

As demonstrated there are three interpretations of the expression "and that".

A comment on this issue, though. "and that not of yourselves, gift of God" has to communicate something. For Bruce, the entire process is "not of yourselves", and thus distributes to a faith not of ourselves along with a salvation not of ourselves. Calvin appears to hold the that faith is not our free decision due to this statement, saying, "Ought we not then to be silent about free-will, and good intentions, and fancied preparations, and merits, and satisfactions? There is none of these which does not claim a share of praise in the salvation of men; so that the praise of grace would not, as Paul shews, remain undiminished. When, on the part of man, the act of receiving salvation is made to consist in faith alone, all other means, on which men are accustomed to rely, are discarded." Robertson appears to want to give us part of it, despite Scripture itself pointing out the inconsistency: it's "not of ourselves".

Theophylact is arguing against other people, for instance the entire Council of Orange (529, Canon 5), and another unlikely advocate of regeneration preceding faith, Thomas Aquinas.

 

[Nanopants]

I'm inclined to believe that the "new birth" is much more profound than the initial belief:

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

If a new believer can't "see" the kingdom of God, has he been born again? This verse seems to say no to that.

 

[heymikey80]

And then there's that little half-verse ...

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God 1 John 5:1a

 

[Nanopants]

And then there's that little half-verse ...

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God 1 John 5:1a

Yeah. But there is something to be said about the imagery of the words that are used. A "birthing" is a process with an eventual conclusion that is quite profound, and this seems to be out of place if we assume that it refers only to one's initial faith.

 

[heymikey80]

Yeah. But there is something to be said about the imagery of the words that are used. A "birthing" is a process with an eventual conclusion that is quite profound, and this seems to be out of place if we assume that it refers only to one's initial faith.

So what's the person believing if they've not been born yet of the Spirit of God?

It's used more often in 1 John than elsewhere (I think it's 4 or 5 uses), it'd be interesting to see if that idea is operating in John's use of the term.

 

[Nanopants]

So what's the person believing if they've not been born yet of the Spirit of God?

It's used more often in 1 John than elsewhere (I think it's 4 or 5 uses), it'd be interesting to see if that idea is operating in John's use of the term.

I think it's interesting that the KJV translation of the text is a bit different than the version that you quoted.

Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.

This translation doesn't seem to present the idea as if it were strictly past-tense. I'm not fluent enough in Greek to confirm this, but I wonder if it could be like saying: "whenever it is dark outside, the sun does rise in the East".

IOW, it could be stated as a matter of fact that is free from temporal context.

 

[heymikey80]

It can be that the fact is a logical dependency, but that still leaves it as a temporal dependency.

The perfect tense ("is born") points to a result in the present due to this action. The result would be identified as "believing that Jesus is the Christ". "is born" is essentially not "is going to be born", and it wasn't in English in 1611, either, "born" actually being in perfect tense (at the time; now it's treated as an adjective).

Literal translators to modern English normally put the verb as "is having been born". That is, the person who is believing is the person who has been born of God.

 

[bling]

Does God show grace to everyone?

yes but not everyone accepts it.

 

[Pinkman]

It really helps if one has a grasp of sentence structure , and English idioms.

The two verses can be combined, as follows, with no loss of meaning, or skewing of the meaning:

"But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God, he gave the right to become children of God."

Clearly, the reference to being born indicates that the birth happened prior to the believing in and receiving of Christ, and it is that birth, followed by faith and receiving Christ, that is the basis for them becoming children of God.

But they only believed because it was a gift preordained by God. As Calvin tells us -
God ... arranges all things by his counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death

 

[nobdysfool]

But they only believed because it was a gift preordained by God. As Calvin tells us -
God ... arranges all things by his counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death

Where did I argue otherwise?

 

[heymikey80]

But they only believed because it was a gift preordained by God. As Calvin tells us -
God ... arranges all things by his counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death

While I agree by and large with Calvin as a philosophical viewpoint, I think his adherence to Scripture is much more enlightening. So the point here would need some Scriptural support -- no doubt it exists, but again, the Scripture would be a great place to look for this view.

Thinking offhand of Rom 9:11ff.