What is Regeneration, What We Believe, Part 26

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See website for details. 1, 2, 3! Welcome to The Rap Report with your host,

Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the

Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, the Executive Director of Striving for Eternity and the

Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a member. We have over 50 plus podcasts out at christianpodcastcommunity .org.

We have something that you will want to listen to, I'm sure. Everything out there is vetted.

We do not make it easy. Even my friends have said I don't let them off easy.

Even co -hosts are buying, so we vet stuff. It is going to give you some good content if you listen out there.

So, with that, I'm joined by my dear friend, Kofi Abubanu.

See, I would never get it right. I would never get it right. Edu Bahin.

Edu Bahin. I try, though. I try to get it right. And I can't say it with a cool accent.

I'll give you points for trying. Kofi is the host of the

Deep Dive Discipleship Podcast, so go check them out as well. You'll want to, after you hear his brilliance here, you're going to go, oh,

I should listen to him more. Well, Deep Dive Discipleship. He's going to join me today, and today's topic, as we're continuing our series on what we believe, going through the doctrinal statement of striving for eternity, today's topic is regeneration.

What does that mean? What does it not mean? So that's what we're going to go through today.

Before we do, as I like to do, it's been a while since we've been in the series, and therefore I want to revisit this and say, first off, if you haven't gone back and listened to the last episode in the series,

I know it was a while ago. I get that. But the last one, which was like eight weeks ago, started the topic of salvation.

We only had one line in there, one sentence, and it took us an entire hour to dissect. So we're going to see whether Kofi and I can do this in this whole paragraph.

I doubt it. It'll probably be two episodes, is my theory, because there's such depth to this.

But why go through a doctrinal statement? For one reason, it will help us understand theology. I hope that many of you have been enjoying the series as we've been going through them.

But why go through a doctrinal statement? Well, we're reading through the doctrinal statement because, as we said throughout this series, a doctrinal statement does two things.

It tells you what someone believes, but it also tells you what they don't believe. So it actually gives a hedge of, here's the things that we believe outside of this is error.

Now, is everything I'm saying, if you don't believe exactly it's error? Well, some things can be, and we go through that.

A doctrinal statement is going to be really concise. That's the goal of it, is to be as concise as possible, but yet cover as much as possible.

And so that's why it is taking us so long to go through this, because there's so much in every sentence here.

And so with that, I'm going to ask Pastor Kofi, because he is a pastor, if you wouldn't mind just reading this section on regeneration.

Would be my pleasure. All right. So regeneration. Regeneration is a supernatural work of the

Holy Spirit, by which a new nature and eternal life are given. It is instantaneous and is accomplished solely by the power of the

Holy Spirit through the instrumentality of the word of God. When the repentant sinner, as enabled by the

Holy Spirit, responds in faith to the divine provision of salvation. Genuine regeneration is manifested by fruits worthy of repentance, as demonstrated in righteous attitudes and conduct.

Good works will be its proper evidence and fruit, and will be experienced to the extent that the believer submits to the control of the

Holy Spirit in his life through faithful obedience to the word of God. This obedience causes the believer to be increasingly conformed to the image of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Such a conformity is climaxed in the believer's glorification at Christ's coming.

Now, side note, I do think that English accent just automatically adds 10 IQ points, right?

Doesn't it? An English accent just makes everyone sound smarter.

And the English actually do pronounce the word, in my theory, evolution properly. Can you pronounce that word for us?

What, you mean evolution? Evolution. See, that's the way it should be pronounced.

Evolution. That's funny. But actually, so how do you say

Isaiah? Isaiah. Isaiah, yeah. That's some of the things that you could pick up differences.

So let's work through this, this idea of regeneration. The first part of this, we're saying regeneration is a supernatural work.

Now, if we just stop right there, why add that it's a supernatural work?

Because I think for a lot of Christians, you may be wondering, well, of course, Andrew, God did this.

We say that, but there's a lot of people that don't exactly believe that.

There's a lot of people that would argue that regeneration, getting saved, is something that we can do on our own, whether it be by a choice we make, we choose

God, or some will believe it's works that we do. See, if you add any element of human effort, guess what?

That's not a supernatural work. I mean, it doesn't matter what God did on the cross, if you're believing in Roman Catholicism, and it's faith plus works.

So God did what he did on the cross, but it takes your work to make it final. Well, your work is not a supernatural work.

It's just a work. And so adding this word supernatural is very important. That's why

I say every word is there for a reason. When we look at this, I'm trying to say in this statement that regeneration is not something you can just do on your own.

I'm also eliminating, for a large section of Christian belief,

I guess, is this idea that if we just make a decision for Christ, we're good.

I mean, you've heard that before, Kofi, I'm sure. Just decide to trust in Jesus.

But regeneration being a supernatural work, we want to be specific.

Not only is it supernatural, but it's of a specific person in the sense of the

Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does this work within us. And so this makes a huge divide.

And I know that there's some that already are saying they're going to start already. You're saying this into your phone or whatever device you're listening to this podcast, and you're saying, you're a bunch of Calvinists.

Well, we're going to say we're going to teach what the Bible teaches. If you don't think that salvation is a supernatural work of the

Holy Spirit, I'm going to have to ask you what Bible you're referring to, because here's the thing I often find.

Most people that tell me they're not Calvinists will believe that the

Holy Spirit does a supernatural work to save us. There are some, though, that because they so hate that idea of Calvinism, that they fight that, and they will actually go into the point where they'll deny what the

Bible says and say that our prayer or our decision saves us.

Here, say the sinner's prayer, you're saved. Well, if just saying a prayer saved us, well,

I guess the real thing would be if just saying the prayer would save a person, make them believers, and do everything

Scripture says with new believers, and we'll get to this probably in the next episode where there are works that believers would have,

I think this country would look a lot different, because there's a whole lot of people that have said the sinner's prayer, and there's no change in their life.

But what I'm trying to say with this is that the regeneration is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, but what is it?

Well, it says, by which a new nature and eternal life are given. So this is now a major thing.

You're not going to have regeneration and stay the same person you were. You're going to be different.

You're going to be changed. And it may be something, Kofi, a lot of people when we think of what new life is, they will think of it in the sense that new life is living forever or living in heaven.

Well, John says that what new life is is knowing Christ and Him who sent

Him. That's what eternal life is. So when we speak of eternal life, it's not living forever.

We'll all live forever in our spirit, but we won't all have eternal life.

So it's not just living forever. It's not living in heaven because it's about knowing

Christ, because John says we have eternal life if we're a believer. We already have it.

2 Corinthians 5 will say that we have a new nature. Yeah, absolutely.

If I can just chime in for a moment, I think you've touched on something that I think is really fundamental to this whole question of having new life.

We are prone to forget that if we need new life, that implies we don't have life prior to that.

I will refer the listeners back to the episodes on the Doctrine of Man. If you believe what we believe about the

Doctrine of Man, that man is totally depraved, that he is not just—

I think it was James Montgomery Boyce who said there are three views that all people have about man. Either man is inherently good, man is sick, but there's still hope for him to cure himself.

And then there's the biblical view that man is dead. And if you believe that man is actually dead, then that's going to influence how you view regeneration.

Is this just a pick -me -up for those who are kind of in a bad way, but can spiritually get themselves over the line?

Or is it, no, he's dead. Like, he's very dead. And he needs a resurrection.

And I do think that has massive implications when we talk about this doctrine of regeneration. Oh, it does.

And you're right. When we spoke of the Doctrine of Man and spoke of the deadness of man, a lot of people use the illustration.

If you think back to that past episode, where people will say that, oh, you're like in the water, and someone's in a boat,

Jesus is in a boat, and he's throwing you a life preserver, and all you have to do is grab onto it. The problem with that illustration that so many use is if you want the biblical view, okay,

Jesus is in the boat, if you want to say that that's the case, but you're not floating in the water. You're dead at the bottom of the ocean.

He has to dive in, swim to the bottom, bring you up, put you in the boat, and resuscitate you.

That's spiritual deadness. Yes. Absolutely.

So that becomes the difference with it. And we see this in John 3, a very well -known passage.

Jesus is speaking with Nicodemus, and he says, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

So Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old?

Can he enter his mother's womb a second time and be born? And Jesus answered,

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

So if he's not born of the Spirit, and so that gives the idea of this is, we say regeneration is the work of the

Spirit, but why do I say the supernatural work? Well, Titus 3 .5 says that he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing and regeneration and renewal of the

Holy Spirit. So what we see from Paul is he's bringing both of these elements in.

One, it's not by our works, and I think what's interesting that Paul says here is not because of works done by us in righteousness, as if we could do something righteous apart from God, but he's conceding that.

This is a way of arguing, to concede a point to make a greater point.

He's even conceding if you could do works of righteousness, even if you did righteous deeds here on earth, they wouldn't save you.

It's only by the washing and regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit. That is the only means of salvation.

And this is something that sets Christianity apart from other world religions, if you think about this, because every man -made religion adds human effort.

Every man -made religion has this idea where they're doing something that you can earn your way somehow.

You may have to add on, maybe that Jesus did 99%, you've got to do this one. By the way,

I've already mentioned this in past episodes, but maybe you're new to The Wrap Report, and you haven't heard me say this, so I'll get myself in trouble.

It kind of comes natural. So here's the thing.

Billy Graham used to say, God did the 99%, and He just needs you to do the 1 % and believe on Him.

I know, I don't do it as good as he does, but if God did 99 % of the work of salvation, and you have to do that final 1%, then you're dead in your sin, because that's not what

Paul said in Titus. Because then you're doing a work of confession, and you want to say, well, that's not a work, that's a response.

Okay, that's a response, but you're still doing the final work.

So if God did all that He could, and all that He could couldn't save you, that's a real problem.

But this is the language that many people use, and I think the reason many do it is because they're pleading with people.

It's an appeal to the human that you're speaking to, and then people hear that over and over, because it is an effective appeal.

It was effective for Billy Graham to get hundreds of people to come down those aisles when he'd say

God did all He could, and now it's just up to you to come walk this aisle, to say this prayer.

But then that becomes the ultimate thing that saves you. And so what we're saying in this is that regeneration is a supernatural work of the

Holy Spirit, but what that doesn't say, this is what Doctrine and Covenants does, it then says that saying that it's of human effort, by saying it's a choice we make, if saying that salvation or regeneration is something other than a new nature, a changed nature, an eternal life, then that's not regeneration.

This idea of a new life is, out of 2 Corinthians 5, when he says that we become a new creation, that should describe us.

All things should be new. And if we're not seeing that, that's a problem, because that is what the

Scriptures end up saying about us, is that we should become a new creation.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away.

Behold, the new has come. So when we look at that, that should describe the believer.

If you are a believer in Christ, you should not be living the same way. Now this is really important to understand, because we're going to get to later on in the series, but I'll mention now, many people who struggle with James 2, and this whole idea of works being needed for salvation.

Now Kofi, you have heard this countless times. I know you have a Mormon, I wanted to say temple, but it's not a temple, but where the

Mormons will meet. Meeting house. Yeah, a meeting house, because that's where they'll meet to have their services, and they would say that God gives us faith after all we could do.

And if you were to say, but it's by faith alone, they're going to quote

John 2, and they're going to ask the question, because they're going to say that James says that faith apart from works is dead.

That's true. But there's a big difference, and we're going to speak about this in detail when we get to sanctification, because this is, and we spent a lot of time in the last episode, if you go back and listen to that, where we talked about this whole idea of salvation as a general term and a specific term.

So generally it can mean the process of regeneration, it could talk about the process of sanctification, it could talk about the glorification, any of those are included.

But what we're looking specifically here is regeneration, where James is speaking of sanctification.

So if we have a new nature, the expectation is we will have new works.

That's what James is speaking about. When James is speaking about it, he's talking to people who claim to be believers.

Always read verse 14. Everyone wants to start in verse 15. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?

That's the question being answered. Somebody who is claiming to be a believer but doesn't have the new nature.

What we're saying in this doctrinal statement is that the new nature is an automatic thing with regeneration.

If you claim to be regenerate and don't have a new nature, you're not regenerate. So if you've been walking supposedly with the

Lord for many years and you can't identify any changes in your life, you still have the same love for sin, same behavior with sin, and you haven't had any change, or maybe some maturity and you hide your sin better, but you still have that love affair with sin, then you really need to ask yourself, are you regenerate?

Have you really been regenerated? Because if you don't have that new nature, it becomes something you should question whether you really have been regenerated.

And there's many false converts out there. And so this is what regeneration is. We're being very clear.

And so as we use it throughout this episode and clearly the next, because we are only one sentence in, but as we look at this, when we speak of regeneration, this is what

I'm referring to, a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit by which a person gets a new nature and is given eternal life.

Now this next sentence here, Kofi, is one that a lot of people really struggle with.

In fact, I would argue this is where much of the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism actually is, is in this next sentence.

And so we're laying down a gauntlet. That's what a doctrinal statement is. We're saying this is what we believe.

You're perfectly just, you have the right to disagree with me. I get it.

Everyone of you listening, some of you probably already are disagreeing already with what I said. But the question is, don't fight for what you think is right, and I shouldn't fight for what

I think is right. We should fight for what the scripture actually says. What we end up seeing is that we're saying that you have to be mindful of the fact that we need to be people of the book, not people of the theological system.

I have changed in areas of theology over the years to areas that I, as I dug into scripture, realized

I was wrong. That's going to happen if you're a person of the book. But if you're a person of the system, you're going to fight for the system.

I just said every time. If you want to really be seeking truth, then even question your own theological system, because I'm going to argue every theological system is going to be wrong somewhere.

Even mine. This doctrinal statement may have error in it somewhere that I don't know of, and God may correct me from.

But I'm trying to be as faithful as possible to the word of God. So I'm saying that because I know that there's going to be many who will disagree with the next sentence.

So let's get into this, and let me spend some time explaining this. Okay. It is an instantaneous, and that's the word that gets everyone upset, because I'm saying it's instantaneous, and it is accomplished solely by the power of the

Holy Spirit through the instrumentally from the word of God. So what I'm trying to say here is, as we look at this, the instantaneous part.

I am saying that salvation is something that happens immediate.

Now, there's a lot behind this, because a big area of debate is, did

God choose us, he regenerated us, and then sometime after he regenerated us, we got saved?

In other words, he regenerated us, then we believed. Or could it be that I believed, and as soon as I believe, then

God regenerated me? That's where the fight actually is. Now, I can agree logically, it makes sense as we look at scripture, we can see

Ephesians chapter 1, God elected before the foundation of the world, he elected us, so we could say that he chose us before the foundation of the world, and yet that's,

I would argue with that though, that's language where God is trying to communicate to us, because to him, there kind of was no before the foundation of the world, he's outside of time, so there just is.

And so, this is language to explain to us, we had nothing to do with it. And that's the greatest way to do it, for God to say,

I chose you before I created a world. We would hear the phrase in some countries where, before you were a thought in your daddy's mind, is the way

I would always hear it. It's before you even had parents, before you had grandparents, God chose you.

The strongest way he could say it is, before I even created the world, I chose you.

That's the strongest way God could say, we had nothing to do with our salvation. And we could look at this and know that, as I already said, if this is a supernatural work of the

Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit must act first. So logically, it's very easy to understand that God had to choose us first, so logically, he would have to regenerate us first, and then we would believe.

However, what did we experience? Well, what we experienced is that we chose

God, and then we see all these benefits of regeneration. So experientially,

I chose first, and then I had the benefits of regeneration. So we can experientially think that I chose, and then

God regenerated. Kofi, let me ask you a question and see what you think about this.

And I got this from a Puritan. I think it might have been Christopher Love. But can someone be a unregenerate believer?

Ooh, that's a good question. So an unregenerate believer. So they're an unregenerate and a believer?

No. Okay. Can someone be a regenerate unbeliever? Well, if we believe that regeneration precedes faith, then, yeah, there can be a period between when regeneration happens and faith happens where you've got someone who is spiritually alive but has not yet placed faith in Christ.

So in theory, yes. In theory. And this is where I say there's a difference with the logical and chronological.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because chronologically, the answer is no. And that's why you said in theory. Chronologically, you can't have someone that is regenerate but not believing.

And so these have to be simultaneous. It has to be instant. Now, how can you have that?

That's the real struggle we have. So with this, and I've done this before, but because this is something that maybe you didn't hear the previous episodes.

Maybe this is a new concept, so the repetition is good. But I want to talk about a doctrine of superintending.

So when we look at the doctrine of inspiration, we looked at that several episodes ago when we started this series talking about the

Bible. But when we look at this, we look at the fact that the inspiration came by the

Holy Spirit working upon the human beings in such a way that he didn't dictate to them.

They weren't the people that made it inspired. It was the Holy Spirit working through them in such a way that every word that they chose of their own volition to write down was exactly as God intended it to be in such a way that God gets 100 % of the credit and the authors get none.

The authors physically wrote it, but they don't get the credit for it. We call it

God's word because he breathed it out. He did it through the human authors.

And you can see their personalities come out. You can see Paul saying, Hey, Titus, bring my books.

Bring my cloak. It's going to be cold. You could see the different styles of writing between Paul and James and John.

And yet every word is exactly as God intended it to be. That's the doctrine of superintending.

And we see that in the doctrine of inspiration. We also see that in the doctrine of sanctification, which we'll get into.

But the doctrine of sanctification, do we do good works? Well, yeah, we do as believers.

But scripture also says that it's God who does those works through us. So we can't take credit for those good works.

So again, we see this doctrine of superintending coming into play. God working through us that the good works that we choose to do of our own volition is exactly what

God intended in such a way that we can't take any credit. God gets all of it. Well, I take that same doctrine and I apply it to regeneration.

And I think that that resolves much of the debate that many people have when it comes to the battle of who chose first.

The answer is yes. Right? Did God choose first?

Yes. Did man choose first? Yes. Because it was instantaneous. The human being put his faith in God, believed in God, because God was working through the person in such a way that the very act that they did to believe was as God intended for them to do.

So they chose, but it was exactly what God was working through them. Who gets all the credit?

God gets all the credit. And so when I'm saying it's instantaneous, I'm saying there is not...

I remember a pastor friend of mine, he said, Andrew, you and I disagree by a millisecond because I believe that regeneration and belief are instantaneous and he believes regeneration occurs a millisecond before belief.

Logically, I agree with him, but chronologically, I don't. I think though that when you look at this as the doctrine of superintending, it really resolves a lot of the issues.

This also explains how the rest of the sentence, it's instantaneous and accomplished solely by the power of the

Holy Spirit. So it's the Holy Spirit who is doing this. He's the one working through us.

Now, by saying this is instantaneous, there's another aspect to that word. And so this is one of the things, you may read this and not see how much

I've put into thinking of this one word. It's instantaneous in that it's not who chose first, but it's also meaning that there's not a process.

When God regenerates us, we're regenerated. It's not something that happens over time.

That's sanctification. It's not even a flip of a switch because a flip of a switch takes time.

It's instantaneous. It can't be measured by time. It's just an instantaneous change.

And if you get my book, What Do We Believe?, I have in there a chart of all the things that happen instantaneously when we're regenerated.

Like we become adopted into the family of God. We become a new creation. We are now indwelt with the

Holy Spirit. We're regenerated, meaning that we're now justified with God.

There's several things that happen instantaneously, and we can't measure it in time.

And so that's another aspect of what's in this concept of instantaneous. Now we're saying that this is accomplished solely by the power of the

Holy Spirit. We've already belabored the point, but it is an important point that this is not based on your prayer, going down an aisle, or being born in a

Christian home, regeneration is solely by the power of the Holy Spirit, meaning not by your power.

John 1 is a very good passage. People know of it,

John 1, verse 12. And this is one that I use a lot of times when speaking, especially to cults like Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, that'll say we're all

God's children. But this says that that's not true. It says, but to all who receive

Him, who believe in His name, He gave the right to become a child of God.

So the question is, how do we become a child of God? Well, verse 13 explains, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

So when it says born of blood, it means your genealogy, your lineage. The fact that you're born into a

Christian home doesn't make you a Christian. That's what I believed growing up, that I was born the chosen line of Israel.

And therefore, I thought, as I was taught, that I was going to heaven because I was God's chosen people.

That's false. So it's not by genealogy. It's not by the will of the flesh.

It's not by works that you do. Your good works will not earn you the right to be a child of God.

And it also is nor by the will of man. In other words, not by your desire. It's only of God.

And that's what I'm trying to say in the statement here, is that it is solely the work of God. It doesn't matter how much you want regeneration your own way, or doing good works.

It won't help you. It is only through the power of the Spirit. And how does

He do that? Well, He says He does it through His Word. Now Kofi, this is something that many people get into discussion on.

Can we learn some things of creation? Can we know something about God from creation?

Well yeah, Romans 1 makes it clear that God's divine power and His attributes can be seen in the world that's created.

Okay. Now, can we know about salvation through creation?

Nope, that's the work of divine revelation. That's right. And that's what Scripture ends up saying, is that this is why we have

Scripture, because the general revelation, the sky and stars can tell us about God and reveal that He exists and tell us something about His attributes, but it can't tell us how

God came to earth as a man, died on a cross, so that we could be saved.

He revealed that in Scripture. So that becomes an important thing, because that is the instrument of which we use.

So we could think we have power in our words. I mean, this is Charles Finney, who believed this, and he really set off a motion where people thought that if they just had a compelling argument, just pleaded with people, and they made this moral assessment that they needed to change their life, that that would bring repentance, that would bring regeneration, and therefore, that would be the thing to do.

And so what would he do? He would end up saying, we need to get these people to come forward, come down an aisle to pray a prayer, and he would just plead with people and use emotional appeals.

And then you'd see someone that could just preach a sermon like, you know, in the hands of an angry

God in a monotone voice with lots of Scripture, and people are repenting and weeping, because our salvation is going to be the power that the

Holy Spirit, of the Holy Spirit, He's going to use is the Word of God. And so what

I'm going to do here is describe that not only is an instantaneous act that's accomplished only by the Holy Spirit using the

Word of God, but I'm saying here, it's when a repentant sinner, as enabled by the

Holy Spirit, responds in faith to the divine provision of salvation.

In other words, God has provided salvation when? Well, back at the cross. So for us, it's in the past.

For everyone prior to the cross, it was future. But for each of us here, the cross is in the past.

Colossians makes it clear that our debt was paid at the cross.

All of it. And so I know a lot of people will think that their punishment was paid when they believe.

But Colossians 2, starting in verse 13 of 14, says this, And you who were dead in your trespasses and uncircumcised in your flesh,

God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.

All of them. When? He says, verse 14, By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

That's where the punishment was paid. And so it's not when we repent that we're forgiven.

In God's mindset, he forgave us at the cross. And so when we see it that way, it helps us with a lot of doctrines, actually.

It helps us understand that we can't lose our salvation because when it says all of them were nailed at the cross and someone's saying, well,

I can lose my salvation, then which sins were not nailed to the cross? Which ones did

God say were paid at the cross and Jesus suffered on that cross for that sin and you think somehow he forgot about some?

Because every sin we ever do is future to the cross. And did God save us not knowing all things?

Did he not know the future sins we would do? That he would be an Indian giver, as Romans 11 would say?

That God's not, he's not going to revoke his gift? His gift of salvation is irrevocable?

It's the idea that once he gives this, he's not going to take it back. He knows all things. And so the repentant sinner, they're repenting because God is doing the work in them.

And that's why I said it's enabled by the Holy Spirit because a repentant sinner cannot be repentant on his own.

Part of the work of the Holy Spirit, Kofi, that I think a lot, especially in Reformed circles, I think one thing that many people struggle with is they forget about the convicting work of the

Holy Spirit. I think a lot of people in Reformed circles, circles you and I are in, would look at things and say, they start with election.

That would be a good place to start. That was before the foundation of the world. But they start with regeneration.

And this is an area that I think when we think of those who don't hold to regeneration, they focus a lot on the convicting work of the

Holy Spirit. And I think there is a work prior to salvation where the Holy Spirit does convict people of sin and yet doesn't regenerate them.

That was my own experience. I heard the gospel as a teenager, and there was a very intense period of me wrestling with what

I was hearing in God's Word. And I believe that God was active in bringing me to a place of seeing my sin for what it was.

But that in and of itself didn't save me, but God was still at work. He was still weighing heavy on me about sin, righteousness, and judgment, as John 16 says.

That was happening. And yeah, absolutely. I think we can't ignore that convicting work that he does, that work of bringing the sinner to the point of seeing who they really are, and in some cases, for the first time.

Yeah. Well, and that's the thing is I thought everyone got saved the way I did, where they heard the gospel once, and God just regenerated them.

I discovered that's not the case. I discovered that most people, they hear the gospel, hear the gospel, there's conviction, conviction, and then there's something that changes, and that's regeneration.

But the repentant sinner can't be repentant on his own. I'm saying this is the convicting work of the

Holy Spirit working through the repentant sinner. Remember that doctrine of superintending, Holy Spirit working through the believer, or sorry, through the person, to bring them to that conviction.

Now, this is going to be a major difference, by the way, in the way that many people will share the gospel, because when you see a person who is convinced that they can, that it's just, a person has to make a mental assent, and that will bring about regeneration.

How do they share the gospel? Well, they're going to use lots of evidence, they're going to use lots of things, convicting talk, they're going to try to make someone feel guilty over their sin, they're going to take on the role of the

Holy Spirit trying to convince, to convict, convince, and convert.

But that work of convincing, convicting, and converting is the work of the

Holy Spirit, not you and I. And so if we think the person just needs to make a mental assent, we tend to fall into the error of trying to do the work that the

Holy Spirit does. And so that's what we end up seeing as a change in the way people will end up sharing the gospel because of the response.

When we think of this repentant sinner, all this builds up to this one thing, because what we end up seeing is, people will say, that when

I say here that the repentant sinner, enabled by the Holy Spirit, responds in faith to the divine provision of salvation, there are those who say that a response to faith is a work.

Now, if you've been tracking with me all along with this doctrine of superintending, guess what?

You start to see that this is something we do respond, but that response we don't do on our own.

It's God working through us. That becomes the important distinction here. And so that's why this doctrine becomes so important to understand, especially when we talk about regeneration, because this is where I think so many of the battles are.

Now, I think, Kofi, some of the other things that we will talk about in future episodes here will get a little bit easier and less...

Well, it shouldn't be that there's people fighting over these things, but they are. So there's a lot of contention over these issues.

And I hope that you haven't wanted to shoot us yet. I hope that we haven't created any

Twitter firestorms yet. But I do want you to consider, to think through, because I just think that if people were to sit and work through this, you end up seeing that there's a lot more agreement than disagreement.

In fact, you can even watch my debate that I had with Ari Fuentes on Apologetics Live.

Go see that debate on Calvinism. And what you end up seeing there is the guy actually holds the five points of Calvin.

He just doesn't know what they are. I'll correct you on one thing. That was not a debate. The less said about that, the better.

But one of the things that has worked overwhelmingly with folks is when they say they're not a

Calvinist, and what I'll do is walk through the five points of Calvin, or Calvinism, I should say, because they weren't actually the five points of Calvin, but walk through the five points of Calvinism and then ask them if they believe it without using the labels.

And they end up agreeing to all five points. And so now all we're doing is discussing what the labels mean because that's the difference.

And so I think that there's a lot more agreement within Christianity than we think on these issues.

It's just that people are fighting over labels and not doctrine. They're fighting over labels and not scripture.

I've said this before previously in this series, but I always think of one of my professors who has now gone home to be with the

Lord, but I sat down with him over lunch, and he, being an Old Testament professor, could sit there, and he said, he goes over to Westminster.

So I went to an independent fundamentalist Baptist seminary. Westminster is a

Presbyterian Reformed seminary, so they would be covenantal, not dispensational.

And so you have Baptist versus Presbyterian, dispensational versus covenantal.

At my school, they'd be Arminian versus Calvinist. So you have these different views, and yet my

OT professor had said, he said, in our department, I can get together with the guy from Westminster and find a lot of agreement, but the guys in the theology department can't.

And I said, why? He said, because when I sit down with someone from Westminster, I'm sitting down with them and looking at the text of scripture and we can find we agree.

The theologians, the systematic theology guys, what they end up doing is they sit down and look, and they're arguing over the system, and so they can't agree.

And if I can impress upon you, this audience, with anything, it would be that, to be people of the book, to let the

Word of God dictate your theology. Don't let your theological system dictate your interpretation of the

Word of God. Let the Word of God reign true, and all men found to be a liar. So that's how, what my, if I can impress one thing upon you, the listening audience, that would be the thing

I'd try to impress, is to study the Word of God, know the Word of God, follow the Word of God, and from that get your theology, not read your theology into the

Word of God. They're brilliant, brilliant men, far more brilliant than me, that developed those theological systems.

Yes. Am I the end all be all? No. But guess what? I've created a theological system as well.

It's here in this doctoral statement, further explained in my book, What Do We Believe? So, there is system.

We all have a theological system, whether we admit it or not, know it or not. So my challenge is to be more people of the book, and let the book change your system as it needs.

Study the Word. And so that's the thing that I want to encourage you to do. You know,

Kofi, any last comments you want to make with this, what we've spoken about with regeneration? No, I think this has been a good discussion, and I would heartily affirm everything you just said about the importance of going back to the

Scripture, and not just allowing our own preconceptions or the system that we've always been taught to kind of get in the way of us and the

Scripture, but rather to go back to the book and let's see, does the Bible teach this? And then we align ourselves with those who teach what the

Bible teaches. So, no, I think that's a very helpful distinction to make, and I hope, again, the listeners will take that to heart.

Yeah, and folks, if you want to get, I mentioned a couple times in my book, What Do We Believe?

Right now, what we're going to do is run a special. We did this a couple years ago, I think last year, and people really appreciated this, so we're going to do this again.

If you need a Christmas gift to get, we're going to do 50 % off of the book,

What Do We Believe? So, if you go to Striving for Eternity, go to the store, you can get as many copies as you want.

So, this is something I know that there were several people that got for their church, they gave it out to everybody in their church.

Some people have given it as Christmas gifts. So, if you want to get 50 % off, go to strivingforeternity .org,

put as many copies of What Do We Believe? in your shopping cart, and use the promo code or coupon code

CHRISTMAS. So, just put CHRISTMAS in the coupon code, and you will be able to get 50 % off that book.

I don't know if we're ever going to do this again, but one of the reasons is we still have a large amount of inventory, so we can afford to do that because that inventory was actually paid in the previous year's budget.

So, that allows us to do this when we have that. And I think we're changing that and we're not going to keep as much inventory anymore.

So, this may be the last year that we do this special. So, 50 % off, go to strivingforeternity .org,

go to the store, get a copy of, or as many copies as you want, of What Do We Believe?

The coupon code is CHRISTMAS. Now, if you'd also like to get, we're still running a 35 % off on the book

Sharing the Good News with Mormons. So, if you're interested in that book, the coupon code for that to get 35 % off is

LDS for Latter -day Saints. I don't know if they could both be done on the same order as combined.

So, you may have to do two orders if you want both books, just saying. But that's something

I want to encourage you guys to do. And so, Kofi, I appreciate you coming on and joining me, adding your wisdom and, of course, the great accent.

Anytime, brother, anytime. And right now, you're somewhere in the beautiful land of traffic,

I believe. Isn't that what they call it? Yeah, yeah. Oh, Los Angeles, I'm sorry. Yes. You're at the

Puritan Conference. Yep, that starts, we're recording this on a Monday, and the conference starts

Wednesday. So, the day this drops, you're going to be having to suffer through the great preaching of great men about the

Puritans. I know, suffering for the Lord. Yeah, I know, I know, it's hard. But I'm looking forward to you putting out all the information as you're learning it, because you usually do that.

I'll be looking for great quotes that you get. Of course, you'll have pictures with everybody.

I'll try to, anyway. All right, so, folks, I appreciate you guys listening.

I hope you find this helpful. And if you did, would you consider sharing this with others?

That is how others find out about this podcast. And if you have not gone back, you may want to go back to the first episode in this series and follow the whole thing to get all the context.

That'd be very important to do. And we'll see you next week. Until then, that's a wrap.

This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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