Regeneration is bigger than we think

Regeneration is bigger than i think. Regeneration is bigger that 'a personal relationship with Jesus', regeneration is bigger than starting to go to church on a sunday instead of watching the Hollyoaks omnibus. Regeneration is bigger than you and me.

Regeneration is global, nay universal. Regeneration is getting in touch with nature (maaan). Paul writes to Titus that: he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. We are saved by the washing of regeneration of the Holy Spirit...we are saved by being made clean and new, by being born of water and Spirit.

But, and here's the huge, heart expanding, humbling news, it's not just us that gets regenerated. The word Paul uses in this verse to Titus for regeneration is palingenesias (according to John Piper anyway), and the only other time that word gets used is in Matthew 19:28 when Jesus says: 'truly i say to you, in the new world (in the regeneration/palingenesias) when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne...'

So what is the regeneration? What gets saved and made new? Creation. You and me, sure, but everything else. The stars, the grass, the oceans, the planets...everything. Jesus is Lord of all, not just Lord of human hearts. This is further mentioned in Romans 8:20 creation was subjected to futility, not willingly but because of Him (God) who subjected it in hope... This was the plan from the beginning, and in the end will lead to renewed men and women, with renewed hearts, living on a renewed earth with Jesus as it's King in glory.

This then makes sense of 'all of life discipleship', of the vision of men like Francis Shaeffer. The church is not a bomb shelter. When we get saved we don't just attend service and mark off days on our rapture wall chart. When we get saved we live! We see what there is of human culture that can be redeemed and we redeem it to the glory of God though Jesus Christ. We don't hide from culture, we engage, redeem what can be redeemed and reject what should be rejected. We rescue people out of slavery to culture by making culture point to Jesus, which is should be easy most of the time, since that's where it's heading anyway!

Will there be art in Heaven? Or music? I really hope so. I really think so. But whether there is or not, Heaven, thank God, will not be sitting on a cloud playing a harp, it will not be some conscious but ethereal state, it will be physical, and real. There'll be rivers, and trees, and goodness knows what else. Christians shouldn't hide from culture, from the material like Gnostics, because culture and the material, like the Christian, is being born again.

A twofold display of grace

Romans is great isn't it? I've had a heart warming, challenging few weeks as i've read through it to close out 2008. I love that it takes Paul eight chapters to get anywhere near what people might call 'application' and even then four chapters more, and the beginning of chapter 12 before he starts to answer the 'yeh but what does this mean for me?' question. Brilliant. 

I love Romans 10:20-21:

Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,

    "I have been found by those who did not seek me;

    I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me."

 But of Israel he says, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people."

Here is a twofold display of grace that Paul spends chapter 11 unpacking. Jesus has been found by those who did not seek Him. Jesus has revealed Himself to a people that were not looking. Salvation has come to the gentiles! Aren't you glad about that? Listen up ethnic factions in the Roman church, the Gospel has come to the Gentiles. And not just to the ones that were looking, Paul quotes Isaiah saying that He's come to a people who did not seek or ask for Him. This is of course true on a micro level as well. None of us were seeking or asking for Him when he saved us...He saved us because He saved us, but here Paul draws it out to it's glorious multi ethnic Gospel level... Salvation has come to the Gentiles!

How has this happened? The gentiles have been grafted in. The wild olive branches have been attached to the natural tree, the original branches cut off. Should this make gentiles proud? By no means it should have us in awe, if God cut off the original branches, will He not also cut off any non abiding unnatural branches? Of course! How is this grace twofold though? How does God 'all day long hold out His hands to a disobedient and contrary people?'

Well in Isaiah's context He sent to prophets, the His Son, and now He has grafted the gentiles in to make the Jews jealous (11:11). Just as there was a remnant in Elijah's day, so there is today. All Israel will be saved. The faithful remnant will be bought in, the Jews with all their natural, historical, covenant advantages will be saved. A partial hardening on Israel, then the fullness of the Gentiles, then all Israel (11:26)

So then. Stand in awe (11:20) Be amazed that branches were cut off that you might, that we might, be grafted in. Don't be arrogant about it, but humbled. Be amazed at God's twofold, complete, grace, He doesn't forget His people, but neither does He forget all who He has made.

Paul is probably addressing a factioning in the Roman church, which is why he goes onto write about fulfilling the law though love.(13:8-14) But there is much for us to be humbled about here as gentiles, and much for us to be excited about as 'all Israel will be saved' will only mean good things for us (11:12). 

Hebrews questions

One of the best things about working in an office full of Christians is the oppotunity to spend time kicking around questions. We were talking about Hebrews 6 and assurance yesterday afternoon. I was too busy peeling tape off a freshly painted wall to think about it properly, but this would have been my answer otherwise!

I'm sometimes slow to answer questions about scripture from scripture, which is a bit silly really since the best way to understand the Bible is under its own terms. I guess it also fails to understand that the Bible is a harmony, not 66 different songs.

I guess the key to the Hebrews 6:4-6 question is: 'what does it mean to crucify again the Son of God, what does it mean to hold Him up to contempt. The writer to the Hebrews is dealing with old Jewish laws which must now be done away with. These have a link to the problem of 6:8 (hence the 'for at the start of v4, but you can read, so you know that!). So perhaps in that context crucifying the son of God again means to go back to elementry Jewish practice. From there it is not possible to come again to repentance. Why? I guess because hearts become lazy, complacent and hardened, and sinful indulgence will always win over against a life of self denial. Our spiritual senses get so dimmed that even the thought of repentance is far from our minds.

What about 1 John 3:6? No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning. This might be the key. To keep on sinning could very well mean the same as crucifying the Son of God again, since it was for our sins He died. i take it that keep on sinning means habitual non repented of sin. So if we continue to sin our hope is gone, and Christs advocacy over us is lost. This is God giving us up to our sins.

He will not be mocked. He did not have His Son killed on the cross that people might sin their lives away, but that we might know Him. If we see Christs death on our behalf as just a reason to keep sinning we may well be 'crucifying the Son of God again'. If we heed the Hebrews 6 warnings and flee to Christ with repentance, He will receive us forever.

Salvation affection

One of the most haunting and difficult questions that i'm asked by students is this 'how do i know i'm saved?' Does the doctrine of perseverance mean that we can pray a prayer when we're fifteen and then not worry about it? Everything in me wants to say a resounding no! The problem with that application is that it often gives younger Christians the impression that all they need to do is pray and then get on with it.

James says: faith, by itself, if it is not accompanied by works is dead...i will show you my faith by my works'. Sure proof texting is an inexact science, but James's message is clear. The best evidence of inward change is outward action. The best evidence of past conversion is present convertedness.

But thats dangerous again isn't it? Works as evidence can easily become, in our fallen hearts, works as justification. So again we need to look at the inward change. What are the best evidences of inward change? A desire to go to Heaven? Surely anyone given a choice between eternal joy and eternal torment would choose the former regardless of the state of their heart. I'm not sure even deep feelings of regret at sin is really evidence on its own of saving faith. Before i was saved i still felt bad when i knew i'd done something wrong, still occasionally wished i wouldn't argue with my parents so much or be such a bad big brother. So how can we know? Is there no evidence that we can look to to know for sure, despite the storms and sin, whether or not we are saved.

Henry Scougal seemed to think so. His book 'the life of God in the soul of man' was instrumental in the conversions of George Whitefield and both the Wesleys. Indeed Whitefield said he didn't know what true religion was until he read it. Piper and Packer rave about it. It's clearly worth some attention. Scougal, who died at the age of 27, wrote with startling awareness for his age, both in terms of his youth and in terms of when he was actually writing (early 17th Century). So here, with really very little apology, i lean on him for an answer.

Scougal talks about our life of faith like a tree, with a root and branches. The root is of course faith. Faith particularly aimed at God's reconciliation though a mediator. Faith in Christ is the root of all our assurance, without faith it is impossible to please God.

Scougal's first branch is love to God, which is defined as a delightful and affectionate sense of the divine perfections. Not, loving God because of what he's done, not for the benefits of loving Him, but simply loving Him because of His perfections. 'Desiring in all things to please Him and delighting in nothing so much as fellowship and communion with Him'

The next evidence is charity to man. Loving your brother. If we don't love our fellow man, we might be able to assume that our love for God is fairly cold, if it's there at all. Scougal says this is because 'of the relation they have to God...having something of His image stamped upon them'. I love how God centred his reasons for assurance are!

Next up is purity, or a 'due abstractedness from the body and mastery over inferior appetites.' A wish to forsake everything that excludes our relish of God, no matter what the cost. I don't think he means anything gnostic by 'due abstractedness from the body', but simply having a mind of faith that controls what we think, and eyes of faith that control what we see.

The final branch of the salvation tree is humility. Which 'imparts a sense of our own meanness, with a hearty affection acknowledgement that we owe all we are to Divine bounty' It is accompanied with what i might call 'big God little me' theology, and the reverent fear of the Lord.

Scougal describes the preceding as 'the highest affections felt by either men or angels'. The word affections is interesting, if only mostly because it reminds us of the Religious Affections where Edwards puts forward love for Jesus and a desire for holiness as two key evidences of salvation. But our affections can't just be emotionalism...feeling nice when a 'good worship song' comes on. It is always accompanied by a change of heart and action.

Not sinless perfection, but a desire, a lustre, a hungering for more of Him and less of me. For more of Him and less of the world, more holiness, less smut, more serious Christ centred joy, less bubblegum worldly happiness.