1. Effectual Calling
2. Regeneration
3. Saving Faith
4. Repentance Unto Life
A good way to study the subject, to see how to work with God, is to see examples of the events in Scripture.
1. Effectual Calling
Acts 17:
26and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,
27that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
Hebrews 11:
13All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
14For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.
15And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return.
16But as it is, they desire a better country,that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.
The above text and parallels tell us that God placed all men in different situations in this world so that they would be struck by how inappropriate it was for man to be placed in a situation where he wanted to follow a noble life, but the world would not allow it. They hated the human condition and longed for a better role for humanity, a role they would be comfortable in.
All people know this fact, but some want to take the easy way out, live life with the least discomfort, and decide to join forces with the unfairness of life. They themselves act unfairly towards others. They hate the light, because the light reveals their wrong choice and deeds.
Those who love the light are God’s sheep. When they hear Christ's words, it resonates with them. They recognise the Shepherd, the Leader, in Christ. This happens because those who cry out to God to be saved from Egypt are led out of Egypt and are given to Christ. They drink from the Rock. When a person leaves Egypt, God baptises that person, cuts the umbilical cord that tied them to Egypt, closes the way back just as the Red Sea closed behind Israel. However the person is still not regenerated, clean, changed. He has rejected Egypt, but he must also accept God. God gives them samples of how they will now live. They must pick up a cross everyday, and allow God to resurrect them. The first sample God gave Israel was when He withheld food and water. He then supplied these necessities of life miraculously.
The purpose of this was to reveal to the other nations the better way to live, by following God, not the way of the world, serving selfish interest, working incessantly to preserve earthly life. Notice God was only continuing what He had done in Egypt. Creating situations and solving them. Notice Jesus was similarly tested.
Some find it stressful and want to go back to Egypt, but you can't taste the new life and reject it because it involved a high cost to give this life and rejection is not recognising this fact, is insulting, and going against God. You can't go back, and the punishment given, to those who try, is to live out a life without entering rest, being fulfilled. This is called being unclean, being like Korah, Judas, Ananias and Sapphira. Those who are clean are like Joshua and Caleb, and Peter and Barnabas. Notice that even though they have bathed, they must still wash their feet. Peter left everything to follow God, but he had to learn that even his life was to be set before God to demonstrate eternal life, “experiencing danger, and being rescued by God”. Jesus had to tell Peter to go away when Peter tried to keep His Master’s life and his own away from being placed at God's service. God willed to rescue His People from all dangers, and all we have needs to be placed before God, even our own lives.
This is eternal life, to showcase God’s ability to preserve all we put to risk, even life. When we fully abandon serving selfish interest to gain and preserve treasure that perishes, even physical life. Again, this is meaningful life, life with lasting results: to serve God for treasure that lasts, by saving our fellow human beings,
2. Regeneration
John 3:
1Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.
2He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.
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4“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
5Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.
Luke 11:20But if I am casting out demons by the power of God, then the Kingdom of God has arrived among you.
Acts 4:
29“And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence,
30while You extend Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.”
31And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.
When we begin to understand the Way, we are said to be regenerated, born again. We know what God wants, how He will execute His plan and what the results look like. God wants people to see the futility of living selfish lives for treasure that perishes and to see the blessings of serving Him for treasure that lasts. He does this by showing His sufficiency in all situations in His followers' lives. He executes His plan by revealing His sufficiency to his followers and being faithful in resurrecting them everytime they lay down their lives. The results are that others themselves begin to stop leading selfish lives, to lead lives serving God. Those who know God’s plan are said to be regenerated, have a new worldview. They can see the Kingdom of God, understand it: it is God working in their lives. They can enter the Kingdom of God, this state of knowing God, having this unity with Him that Jesus had:
3. Saving Faith
This is not saving faith, it is self serving, safe faith which glorifies men and which does not show God’s ability and willingness to save:
Matthew 26:
6Now when Jesus was in Bethany, at the home of Simon the leper,
7a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume, and she poured it on His head as He reclined at the table.
8But the disciples were indignant when they saw this, and said, “Why this waste?
9“For this perfume might have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.”
10But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you bother the woman? For she has done a good deed to Me.
11“For you always have the poor with you; but you do not always have Me.
12“For when she poured this perfume on My body, she did it to prepare Me for burial.
13“Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.”
14Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests
15and said, “What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?” And they weighed out thirty pieces of silver to him.
16From then on he began looking for a good opportunity to betray Jesus.
This is how we are not clean:
John 13:
10Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”
11For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, “Not all of you are clean.”
Saving faith is to act on what you believe, to lay down your life for your fellow human being, do things that risk our own safety and comfort, SO that God raises us up, to showcase God’s sufficiency and abilty to save, so that people turn to Him:
1 John 3:16We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
17But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?
18Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.
19We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him
20in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.
21Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;
22and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
James 2:
14What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?
15If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food,
16and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for theirbody, what use is that?
17Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
4. Repentance Unto Life
Repentance, regeneration, being born again, are all the same: meta noia means change mind. We change our outlook, our mindset. We wake up to the fact that working for treasure that lasts by serving God through laying down our lives is the purposeful life, whilst working for treasure that perishes by serving selfish interest , saving our own lives is a futile life.
The words we see in the text are the short forms the believers used when they were referring to these long descriptions. Metonymy. Synecdoche.
