“Is salvation a cooperative affair, or does God simply intervene to bless us by taking the initiative? Was Lazarus raised from the dead in a semi-Pelagian fashion, with Lazarus pushing and Jesus pulling, or not?” (From The Romantic Rationalist, p. 68).
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God certainly takes the initiative. “We love him because he first loved us.” This does not preclude or obviate our willing response.
Presumably, Jesus restored Lazarus’s spirit to his body. And Lazarus willingly obeyed Jesus’ command to come out.
Who knows how this stuff works, man!
For sure God even makes my willing work.
For sure I’m busted, as I should be, if I’m not nice.
Your actions must have some level of influence over your eventual fate. Otherwise, why do anything?
Arguing about this is like trying to discern the boundary between the human and divine in the Son of God. The beauty of the incarnation is that there is no boundary. There is initiative (objective) and response (subjective), but these are the to-and-fro of the flaming sword of the Spirit. This is why an “objective Covenant membership” post-Pentecost is a ridiculous fantasy. The Covenant is Jesus. He has no dead members. If you are not regenerate, you are still dead, untouched, unclean as a leper. Also, regeneration is not resurrection, so that is a misleading analogy. Regeneration involves an ethical… Read more »
The point is that Lazarus could not come out of the tomb till he had first been made alive. No one denies that he obeyed and came out.
John Barry, in all of your presumption, don’t forget that Jesus also restored Lazarus’ will.
Mr. Bull,
I guess one of our options is to say, as you have, that a dead will is also conscious. ‘Cause, ya know, when we think of dead things we normally think of them as being conscious, which is what makes God’s use of the “dead” analogy work so well…
Ahem.
But another option is to say that the will was actually dead (in keeping with that obscure way of understanding death to be not conscious), and that it was resurrected.
Mike Bull,
Re: your last point, if regeneration is not resurrection, do you prefer another term for that first instant when soul-life is given to the sinner, when he is given a new will, and has not yet responded to it at all? Because that is what I understand regeneration to be.