| Subject: Ignoring the Holy Spirit |
Author:
Yeager
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Date Posted: 11:57:23 04/16/02 Tue
OK:
Doug, nice job by the way on the commentary. It seems to me that Doug's commentary sends three thoughts or rather questions out: 1)Using the example of the man on a hospital bed with a respirator, if spiritually dead, how can we be made alive? 2)What was the Holy Spirit's role, particularly in the Old Testament 3)(most importantly)Can the Holy Spirit be ignored, especially to that of receiving salvation?
Well, it seems to me that it is clear in Scripture that it IS the Holy Spirit who regenerates us. The question then becomes HOW does he regenerate us and do we have any choice in the matter? I don't believe that any of us will be able to answer HOW he regenerates us because the Holy Spirit is God and we are not. So now, we are left with the difficult question of whether we have any say or not in this decision to regenerate us? It seems like we could go a number of routes from here. First, that of Election. What a dirty word; to some. If we are predestined, or elected than that would mean that God's decretive will or sovereignty will prevail, no matter what. With this choice we are pawns in the chess game of God and have no choice in the matter. The second choice would be that of heralding the thought of "Free Will". Here the idea becomes that it is up to us to choose God's offer by the Holy Spirit. In other words, it puts the ball in our court. The real difficulty now comes the fact that God is omniscient and knows the future and technically what we will choose. So then did we really have any choice at all?
My personal belief with the above two choices is that only God knows the outcome. We could argue that because he knows the outcome and is omniscient than therefore we are predestined or elected in this regeneration process but that would be foolishness. Because the fact still remains that nobody will know or does have the capacity to be omniscient. Therefore, hence comes the idea of what I believe to be the true "free will". It is free will to us today. Meaning that Today, I have choices that I can make. Before I accepted Christ, I had a choice to accept him or not to. Only God knew what I would choose and yet I still, at the time, made a choice. In conclusion, what I find to be the most fascinating phenomenom about this whole issue is how God offers to us equally this "opportunity" without favoritism for us to make this choice to accept him or not to. Even though he knows what the outcome will be. Now that, to me, is unbelievable!
Yeager
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