Eph 2:1-6 (regeneration preceding faith?)

[Guest]

The doctrine that regeneration precedes faith is taken from e.g. Eph 2:1-6.

Wrong.

At first glance, the argument that Eph 2:1-6 teaches regeneration precedes faith appears to be perfectly reasonable – until we realise that the entire argument from these texts contradicts other passages of Scripture, overlook alternative records of the same event, and fails to take into account other verses which might qualify what is being said.

What God means to teach us in Eph 2 cannot be understood apart from everything else he teaches us on this subject. And what God teaches us in specific passages may not be the whole truth he reveals to us about a topic. I really wonder if any calvinists have considered the possibility that the passages in Eph. 2 may only be part of, one side, or one phase of everything God reveals on the subect depravity and regeneration. Have you, bshow? The only way these passages can work and support deductive calvinism, is not take into consideration the overall teaching of Scripture on this subject.

Eph. 2:1-6
1 And you, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. 4 And God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Instead of doing a verse by verse commentary on the all six verses, I will instead just comment on two of them which are bolded.

Col. 2:11-14
In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us

When we compare the two passages, we get a more complete picture of what took place. As a side note, many Scholars have pointed out a that the letter known as being to the Ephesians and the letter to the Colossians have a special relationship to each other. That being said, Colosians places faith and forgiveness of sins before regeneration when speaking of the very same thing, with the same phrases mentioned in Ephesians. Forgiveness is equivalent to justification (see Rom.4:1ff). Justification comes as a result of faith. "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness" (Gen.15:6). That is, faith precedes justification, and since justification precedes regeneration, faith must precede regeneration. This necessarily means that the passages in Colossians qualifies the passages at hand in this discussion found in Ephesians.

If we were to use the calvinist method for interpreting Eph. 2:4-6 when coming to texts like Ac 2:47 where is says the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved, we might conlude that the gospel was not preached, nor did anyone believe. Same thing for the prodigal son. That text says he came to himself [repented], but nothing is said of any activity of the Spirit or that he repented so by grace. If we handle this verse like the calvinist handles Eph. 2:4-6, we might conclude that the prodigal came to His senses and returned to the father without grace.

In the end, we have many Scriptures that teach that upon believing, we experience eternal life. (see John 3:16, 18, 36; 4:42, 53; 6:40, 47 20:21 to mention a few) Isn't this the same life that makes us alive?

[Guest]

The same type of interpretive method is used with Romans 9. They (Calvinist) forget to read the entire context of Romans 9 which includes chapters 10-11.

[Guest]

The doctrine that regeneration precedes faith is taken from e.g. Eph 2:1-6.

Wrong.

Wrong that it's taken from there? Or the doctrine itself is wrong? Oh, I see it's the latter...

At first glance, the argument that Eph 2:1-6 teaches regeneration precedes faith appears to be perfectly reasonable – until we realise that the entire argument from these texts contradicts other passages of Scripture, overlook alternative records of the same event, and fails to take into account other verses which might qualify what is being said.

Oh boy, here we go again. Fire up the spin machine. Whir, whir, whir!

What God means to teach us in Eph 2 cannot be understood apart from everything else he teaches us on this subject.

Okay, never claimed otherwise...

And what God teaches us in specific passages may not be the whole truth he reveals to us about a topic.

Again, never claimed it was...

I really wonder if any calvinists have considered the possibility that the passages in Eph. 2 may only be part of, one side, or one phase of everything God reveals on the subect depravity and regeneration. Have you, bshow?

Well, you know those Calvinists have never been ones to think through their positions. You can hardly find anything they've ever written...

The only way these passages can work and support deductive calvinism, is not take into consideration the overall teaching of Scripture on this subject.

Something tells me you're going to enlighten me...

Eph. 2:1-6
1 And you, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. 4 And God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Instead of doing a verse by verse commentary on the all six verses, I will instead just comment on two of them which are bolded.

Okay, I expect to see something that addresses these two verses. (By the way, I would be helpful if you would cite the translation you use when you quote Scripture.)

Col. 2:11-14
In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us

When we compare the two passages, we get a more complete picture of what took place. As a side note, many Scholars have pointed out a that the letter known as being to the Ephesians and the letter to the Colossians have a special relationship to each other. That being said, Colosians places faith and forgiveness of sins before regeneration when speaking of the very same thing, with the same phrases mentioned in Ephesians.

Whoa, hold on there Skippy. Where is faith put before regeneration in either passage? Col. 2:12 seems to be about baptism. I thought you were going to exegete Eph 2:5-6? In your system, isn't faith something you bring to the table? Here we see the working of God. God is the active force in each verse. I don't see man's contribution, so you gotta explain this some more.

Forgiveness is equivalent to justification (see Rom.4:1ff). Justification comes as a result of faith. "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness" (Gen.15:6). That is, faith precedes justification,

Not sure I would say forgiveness is *equivalent* to justification, but okay...

and since justification precedes regeneration, faith must precede regeneration.

Again, I'm not seeing that. Which verse says justification precedes regeneration? When are you going to exegete Eph 2:5-6 like you promised?

This necessarily means that the passages in Colossians qualifies the passages at hand in this discussion found in Ephesians.

Why can't you exegete the passage at hand before jumping over to another? You said you were going to explain Eph 2:5-6...

If we were to use the calvinist method for interpreting Eph. 2:4-6 when coming to texts like Ac 2:47 where is says the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved, we might conlude that the gospel was not preached, nor did anyone believe.

Why would we conclude that? I'm not seeing the connection. Have you read Calvinist commentaries on Acts 2:47 that claim that the gospel was not preached and that people were not being saved? If not, what on earth are you talking about?

Same thing for the prodigal son. That text says he came to himself [repented], but nothing is said of any activity of the Spirit or that he repented so by grace. If we handle this verse like the calvinist handles Eph. 2:4-6, we might conclude that the prodigal came to His senses and returned to the father without grace.

Wow, this is just like Acts 13:48 and Eph 1:4. We can't deal with the passage given to us, but need to pack our tradition in around it. I would be more impressed if you would actually exegete the passage you promised to.

In the end, we have many Scriptures that teach that upon believing, we experience eternal life. (see John 3:16, 18, 36; 4:42, 53; 6:40, 47 20:21 to mention a few) Isn't this the same life that makes us alive?

Regeneration is not the whole of salvation. Dude, that's Calvinism 101. Do a little homework before launching your missiles at strawmen.

Here's the logical priority:

Election -> Regeneration ("calling") -> Faith/Repentance -> Justification -> Sanctification

Cheers,
Bob

[Guest]

We've discussed this on other threads.

Hi Rick,

I plead guilty to not having scoured the archives. I'm sure we can all at least agree that I'm representing the mainstream Calvinist position fairly accurately. That the vast majority of those here are stridently opposed to it, is obvious, but I don't think I'm misrepresenting it. But I am a layman, so I have no special credentials.

Among other things, I challenged both Calvinists and Arminians (or non-Calvinists) to show --- from the Bible --- where "ordo salutis" (the order of events that happen during initial salvation) was even an issue to the people who wrote the Bible.

I maintain it was not!

Rick, I think that can be taken in two ways:

a) It was "not an issue" in the sense that the New Testament was not written in response to the Calvinist-Arminian debate. Sure, I agree with that.

b) It was "not an issue" in the sense that the New Testament doesn't contain sufficient material to allow us to understand this doctrine. I don't agree with that at all.

The reason for the strong feelings on both sides of this issue (and other related issues) is because it goes to our fundamental doctrine of God. And surely that "was an issue" for the New Testament writers!

The Calvinist "ordo salutis" is related to the larger doctrine of "sola gratia", that salvation is a perfect work of God's grace, not dependent on any cooperation or contribution from man for its success.

Here's an excerpt from:
N.T. Wright,
The New Perspectives on Paul, 2003

4. Ordo Salutis

I refer to the question known as ordo salutis. I take this phrase to refer to the lining up in chronological sequence of the events which occur from the time when a human being is outside the community of God’s people, stuck in idolatry and consequent sin, through to the time when this same erstwhile sinner is fully and finally saved. This question has been closely bound up with that of justification, but I shall suggest in this and the next section that when Paul uses the word and its cognates he has in mind one step only within that sequence, and – critically, as you will see – not the one that the word has been used to denote in much Christian dogmatics. At this point I am implicitly in dialogue with a general trend, at least since the sixteenth century, to make ‘conversion’ and ‘justification’ more or less coterminous; a trend which has been sped on its way when ‘conversion’ is understood as ‘the establishment of a personal relationship with God’, and justification has been understood in a ‘relational’ sense with the meaning, not of membership in the covenant as in the Old Testament, but of this personal relationship between the believer and God.

I have already described how Paul understands the moment when the gospel of Jesus as Lord is announced and people come to believe it and obey its summons. Paul has a regular technical term for this moment, and that technical term is neither ‘justification’ nor ‘conversion’ (though he can use the latter from time to time): the word in question is ‘call’. ‘Consider your call’, he says to the Corinthians; ‘God called me by his grace’, he says of himself. (This is why, incidentally, Krister Stendahl’s suggestion that we should think of Paul’s ‘call’ as opposed to his ‘conversion’ misses the point. For Paul, the word ‘call’ denoted not merely a vocation to a particular task but also, more fundamentally, the effective call of the gospel, applied by the Spirit to the individual heart and life and resulting in a turning away from idolatry and sin and a lifelong turning to God in Christ in believing allegiance.)

But if the ‘call’ is the central event, the point at which the sinner turns to God, what comes before and after? Paul himself has given the answer in Romans 8.29–30. Though he does not often discuss such things, he here posits two steps prior to God’s ‘call’ through the gospel: God’s foreknowledge, and God’s marking-out-ahead-of-time, the mark in question being the mark of the image of the Son. (I translate with a paraphrase because of the problems associated with the word ‘destiny’ within the word ‘predestination’.) These serve to emphasize, of course, the sovereignty of God in the call itself, while Paul never engages with the questions we want to ask about how precisely these things work out. (The closest he comes is of course Romans 9, which simply restates the problem for us; the parallel statement in Ephesians 1.3–14 is a celebration rather than an explanation) (as if I cannot agree any more, mine)!

But what matters for our purposes even more is the question of what comes after the ‘call’. ‘Those he called, he also justified’. In other words, Paul uses ‘justify’ to denote something other than, and logically subsequent to, what we have often thought of as the moment of conversion, when someone who hasn’t before believed the gospel is gripped by the word and the Spirit and comes to believe it, to submit to Jesus as the risen Lord. Here is the central point in the controversy between what I say about Paul and what the tradition, not least the protestant tradition, has said. The tradition has used ‘justify’ and its cognates to denote conversion, or at least the initial moment of the Christian life, and has then debated broader and narrower definitions of what counts. My reading of Paul indicates that he does not use the word like that; and my method, shared with the reformers, insists that I prefer scripture itself to even the finest traditions of interpretation. The fact that the Christian tradition has since at least Augustine used the word ‘justify’ to mean ‘become a Christian’, whether broadly or narrowly conceived, is neither here nor there. For Paul, ‘justification’ is something that follows on from the ‘call’ through which a sinner is summoned to turn from idols and serve the living God, to turn from sin and follow Christ, to turn from death and believe in the God who raised Jesus from the dead. This points on to my fifth and final point, to which we shall come shortly.

But before that, we note that the final verb in Paul’s sequence is not ‘sanctified’. He would say that this has already happened to all baptised believers (see 1 Corinthians 6.10f.). It is ‘glorified’. Paul regards it as a fixed point that those who belong to the Messiah by faith and baptism already share his glorious life, his rule over the world, and that this rule, this glory, will one day be manifest. There is no time to develop this here, but I note, as a point which much dogmatics has yet to come to terms with, the fact that both Paul and John the Seer place great emphasis not just on being saved, not just on being raised from the dead, but on sharing the glorious rule of Jesus Christ as Lord over God’s new world. What this role will consist of, who or what will be in subjection under this rule, and so on, are questions which have fallen off most people’s radar screens. I suggest it’s time we got them back on.

I hope I have said enough in this short section to convince you of two things. First, my understanding of how Paul supposed someone became a Christian is, I think, basically orthodox and indeed reformed. God takes the initiative, based on his foreknowledge; the preached word, through which the Spirit is at work, is the effective agent; belief in the gospel, that is, believing submission to Jesus as the risen Lord, is the direct result. My central point is that this isn’t what Paul is referring to when he speaks of ‘justification’. But the substance of what reformed theology, unlike Paul, has referred to by means of that word remains. Faith is not something someone does as a result of which God decides to grant them a new status or privilege. Becoming a Christian, in its initial moment, is not based on anything that a person has acquired by birth or achieved by merit. Faith is itself the first fruit of the Spirit’s call. And those thus called, to return to Philippians 1.6, can be sure that the one who began a good work in them will complete it at the day of Christ.

Interesting quote. I find myself in general agreement with it. I have not confused justification with regeneration ("calling").

Of note is where NTW wrote:
"Paul never engages with the questions we want to ask about how precisely these things work out."

Calvinists and Nons will debate, "Is regeneration before or after faith?" till the cows come home....

Yes, perhaps. But I guess each new generation needs to struggle through these issues on its own. My views on the subject have certainly changed as I came to study them carefully. I would have placed myself in Steve Gregg's "default position" ten years ago, out of ignorance and the inertia of tradition. So it is possible to learn and change one's views.

It wasn't an issue in the Bible days...imo!!!

If you're trying to say both sides are somehow "right", I don't think you're going to get many takers...

Cheers,
Bob

[Guest]

Here's the logical priority:

Election -> Regeneration ("calling") -> Faith/Repentance -> Justification -> Sanctification

Are you suggesting an equivalence between the effectual calling and regeneration?

[Guest]

We may define regeneration as follows: Regeneration is a secret act of God in which he imparts new spiritual life to us. This is sometimes called "being born again" (using language from John 3:3-8).

Even Grudem (with whom I don't agree) sees them as separate concepts.

What is the connection between effective calling and regeneration? As we will see later in this chapter, Scripture indicates that regeneration must come before we can respond to effective calling with saving faith. Therefore we can say that regeneration comes before the result of effective calling (our faith). But it is more difficult to specify the exact relationship in time between regeneration and the human proclamation of the gospel through which God works in effective calling. At least two passages suggest that God regenerates us at the same time as he speaks to us in effective calling. Peter says, "You have been born anew, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.... That word is the good news which was preached to you" (1 Peter 1:23, 35). And James says, "He chose to give us birth through the word of truth" (James 1:18 NIV). As the gospel comes to us, God speaks through it to summon us to himself (effective calling) and to give us new spiritual life (regeneration) so that we are enabled to respond in faith. Effective calling is thus God the Father speaking powerfully to us, and regeneration is God the Father and God the Holy Spirit working powerfully in us, to make us alive. These two things must have happened simultaneously as Peter was preaching the gospel to the household of Cornelius, for while he was still preaching "the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word' (Acts 10:44).

I think He often calls someone over their whole lifetime and the moment they have faith and repent and rely upon and decide to follow Christ, He regenerates them and gives them a clean heart and enabling power of the Spirit.

[Guest]

It seems that we as non-calvinists have to "do our homework" and present Calvinism more accurately than the calvinists themselves do in order to be taken seriously and avoid the charge of using strawmen arguments (which gets old). One gets the impression that only Calvinists understand Calvinism.

[Guest]

Here's the logical priority:

Election -> Regeneration ("calling") -> Faith/Repentance -> Justification -> Sanctification

Are you suggesting an equivalence between the effectual calling and regeneration?

Yes.

[Guest]

We may define regeneration as follows: Regeneration is a secret act of God in which he imparts new spiritual life to us. This is sometimes called "being born again" (using language from John 3:3-8).

Even Grudem (with whom I don't agree) sees them as separate concepts.

What is the connection between effective calling and regeneration? As we will see later in this chapter, Scripture indicates that regeneration must come before we can respond to effective calling with saving faith. Therefore we can say that regeneration comes before the result of effective calling (our faith). But it is more difficult to specify the exact relationship in time between regeneration and the human proclamation of the gospel through which God works in effective calling. At least two passages suggest that God regenerates us at the same time as he speaks to us in effective calling. Peter says, "You have been born anew, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.... That word is the good news which was preached to you" (1 Peter 1:23, 35). And James says, "He chose to give us birth through the word of truth" (James 1:18 NIV). As the gospel comes to us, God speaks through it to summon us to himself (effective calling) and to give us new spiritual life (regeneration) so that we are enabled to respond in faith. Effective calling is thus God the Father speaking powerfully to us, and regeneration is God the Father and God the Holy Spirit working powerfully in us, to make us alive. These two things must have happened simultaneously as Peter was preaching the gospel to the household of Cornelius, for while he was still preaching "the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word' (Acts 10:44).

Although he puts a slightly different emphasis on the two, he considers them together ("simultaneously") so that my drawing an equivalence is perfectly reasonable. Some authors do not draw the fine distinction Grudem does, although I have no argument with him doing so.

What he manifestly does *not* do is make room for this:

I think He often calls someone over their whole lifetime and the moment they have faith and repent and rely upon and decide to follow Christ, He regenerates them and gives them a clean heart and enabling power of the Spirit.

Indeed. You are a committed synergist. We've already established that.

I've not been able to understand how man is able to repent and rely upon and decide to follow Christ without a clean heart and enabling power of the Spirit?

Cheers,
Bob

[Guest]

It seems that we as non-calvinists have to "do our homework" and present Calvinism more accurately than the calvinists themselves do in order to be taken seriously

Not more accurately, just accurately would be quite nice.

and avoid the charge of using strawmen arguments (which gets old).

Then stop doing it.

One gets the impression that only Calvinists understand Calvinism.

You seem like a smart guy Troy. I think you can understand it. Come to the dark side!

Cheers,
Bob