Calvin has a lovely definition of regeneration.
“It is the actualization in the believer of the life of Christ,” and, “anticipation in conditions of the time of the final resurrection.”
The Issue
“Most of God’s people are contented to be saved from the hell that is without; they are not so anxious to be saved from the hell that is within.”
Robert M. M’Cheyne
Come & Die
“Jeder Ruf Christi fuhrt in den Tod” (every call of Christ leads to death) – Bonhoeffer (modern trans. “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die”)
Sweet Flattery
“Now God’s truth requires us to look for something different when we think of ourselves – namely, a knowledge which banishes our arrogant belief in our own strength and which removes every excuse for vainglory, leading us instead to humility. This is a rule we ought to follow if we want to reach the goal of right thinking and right action. I know how much nicer it is for men to be allowed to recognize their gifts and praises than to see and understand their poverty, shame, vileness, and frailty. There is nothing our mind desires more than to be wooed by honeyed words and flattery…thus because man is so prone to self-flattery, nothing can please him more than to be tickled with empty praise.”
John Calvin (Institutes, French Edition, 1541, pp. 29, 30)
Spiritual Light
Jonathan Edwards distinguishes so clearly in his little sermon “The Reality of Spiritual Light” between real enlightenment for the believer and (any) light that might be given to the unbeliever. He says,
“In this spiritual light…(there is) a true sense of the divine and superlative excellency of the things of religion; a real sense of the excellency of God and Jesus Christ, and of the work of redemption, and the ways and works of God revealed in the Gospel. There is a divine and superlative glory in these things; an excellency that is of a vastly higher kind and more sublime nature, than in other things…He that is spiritually enlightened truly apprehends and sees it or has a sense of it. He does not merely rationally believe that God is glorious, but he has a sense of the gloriousness of God in his heart. There is not only a rational belief that God is holy, but there is a sense of the loveliness of God’s holiness.”
(Works, Vol. 2, p. 14)
Such a sense can only come as a result of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. The reality of it is sweet indeed.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- …
- 43
- Next Page »