"Salvation is from the Lord."
Jonah 2:9
It's amazing, considering the mood of my last post, that I should be writing about joy. But that is what I feel right now. It is so wonderful. Let me back up a few hours.
I was sitting in my room earlier tonight, just minding my own business, and dwelling on a harmless theological question. I was wondering which came first: regeneration or confession. That is, is it our confession of sin that causes us to be born again or are we born again first which causes us to confess? I decided that regeneration comes first. I could be wrong, but that's not really relevant to this post. That question led me to the realization that my very act of repentance is an act of God, a working of grace in my heart. We are born with a depraved nature. We "have all turned aside" (Psalm 14:3). We are incapable on our own of coming to God.
Where am I going with this? A big part of my depression that I mentioned in my last post had been my assurance of salvation (or lack thereof). I had started to question whether I really was born of the Spirit or not. Thoughts leaning toward the negative answer had left me bitter. I was occasionally angry with God. I had confessed my sins. I had been broken over them to the point of tears. Had God not held up His end of the bargain?
But salvation is not a bargain. What can I offer to God? The entire universe is His property. There is nothing that I have that I could trade with. Even my acts of so-called righteousness "are like a filthy garment" (Isaiah 64:6). So, what is salvation? Grace. "[I]t is the gift of God... so that no one may boast." (Eph. 2:8-9) We can only be saved by the Father drawing us to Christ (John 6:44). Conclusion: The very fact that I have truly repented is a result of the work of God. Will God accept my repentance? Of course He will. He's the one who worked in me to repent in the first place.
Salvation is not us coming to God, begging for forgiveness, and God begrudgingly consenting. He doesn't sigh and say, "All right, since you asked nicely." God says instead, "I have called you by name; you are Mine!" (Isaiah 43:1) It is He who comes to us and works salvation in us.
If you are in Christ, "[t]ake courage... your sins are forgiven." (Matt. 9:2)
For Christ,
Daniel
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4 comments:
At first, I read re-animation, which got me a bit excited because my head filled with zombies. And who doesn't like zombies?
What does it mean to be "born again"? or "of the spirit"? This is all a bit confusing. Why is repentance an act of god? What is god exactly?
What is God? That's... a complicated question. God is the only absolute being. That is, everything in the universe is created. At one point in time it I did not exist. Now I do. I am not absolute. God, however, never had a beginning nor will He have an end. He is the original cause of all creation.
As for regeneration, it starts with the fact that we are born dead in our sins. This means that we cannot come to God because we are under the power of our sin (see Isaiah 64:7). The only thing that can be done is for us to receive new life. God said in Ezekiel 36:26 that He would take out our heart of stone (a heart that is dead) and give us a heart of flesh (a heart that is alive). Jesus repeats this concept of new life in John 3:3 when He says that unless one is "born again" he cannot see the kingdom of God. Notice that it does not say that he merely can't enter the kingdom of God, but that he can't even see it. He's spiritually dead. What has to happen is for God to transform that individual. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that if anyone is in Christ he is a new creature.
This is why I believe that a person is first regenerated (i.e. born again) and then he looks upon his sin and for the first time in his life sees it for what it really is: an affront against God. He is then broken by his sin and is lead to confess his sins. Jesus told a parable in Luke 18 about a sinner who came to the temple to pray. He couldn't even look up to heaven but he beat his chest and said, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner!" Jesus said that this man went to his house justified. To be justified means to be declared legally right.
Of course, the question arises: How can God declare this man to be legally right? He's not. He's a sinner. The answer is in the death of Christ. In Christ's death he bore the wrath of God; that is, the righteous punishment that our sin deserves. He paid the price for the sinner's sins so that God can look upon Christ and credit his righteousness to the sinner's account.
I would love to talk to you more about this. Send me an e-mail at nickeldan@gmail.com
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