Authority and Power

As the Church worships God, from Lord’s Day to Lord’s Day, we are making an authoritative proclamation. We are telling a dead world to wake up.

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Eph. 5:14, ESV).

Of course, when the Church is full of corpses, we have a hard time getting everybody on the bus to go out to the world’s graveyard in order to make that declaration. The people are reluctant to go, if reluctant is the word I want.

The doctrine of regeneration is therefore less a matter of orthodoxy than it is a doctrine of life. And the doctrine of life is less important than life itself, while both are crucial. So the fact of regeneration is not a matter of orthodoxy, but rather a question of authority and power.