The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Man-Centered vs God-Centered

Josh,<br><br>Those who reject Him never knew Him.<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]... there is no indication that man must be 'regenerated' before he can hear the God that calls even the dead, for John 5:25 says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. "</font><hr></blockquote><p>Are you trying to prove that dead men can hear without being regenerated by the Holy Spirit? If so how can it be that Paul says, "if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His." <br><br>John says, "The hour is coming, and now is" when salvation will become reality for the believer. It is a resurrection begun already, and further to be carried on, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. I understand it as the power of the doctrine of Christ, for the recovering and quickening of those that were dead in trespasses and sins. Paul tells us in Eph. 2:1, "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins." The hour was coming when dead souls should be made alive by the preaching of the gospel, and a spirit of life from God accompanying it: in fact it was then, while Christ was upon earth. The elect will be effectually called. <br><br>(1.) Sinners are spiritually dead, destitute of spiritual life, sense, strength, and motion, dead to God, miserable, but neither sensible of their misery nor able to help themselves out of it. <br><br>(2.) The conversion of a soul to God is its resurrection from death to life; then it begins to live when it begins to live to God, to breathe after him, and move towards Him. <br><br>(3.) It is by the voice of the Son of God that souls are raised to spiritual life; it is wrought by His power, and that power conveyed and communicated by His word: The dead shall hear, shall be made to hear, to understand, receive, and believe, the voice of the Son of God, to hear it as his voice; the Spirit by it gives life. <br><br>(4.) The voice of Christ must be heard by us, that we may live by it. They that hear, and attend to what they hear, shall live. <br><br>This requires regeneration! Regeneration is the act of God alone, in which He renews the human heart, making it alive when it was dead. In regeneration, God acts at the origin and deepest point of the human person. This means that there is no preparation, no preceding disposition in a sinner that requests or contributes to the new life by God.<br><br>Regeneration is necessary because all descendants of Adam and Eve have inherited their sin and are morally unable to do what is good. Paul wrote to the Ephesians that people are by nature dead in trespasses and sins. In this state, they are without God and without hope in the world. Not in response to their merit, but freely and in love, God speaks the word that raises the dead.<br><br><br>Wes