As the Old Testament saints looked forward into the future, as Abraham did, rejoicing to see the day of Christ, they were looking forward to the times of refreshing, the times of the regeneration. But we must not think of this regeneration simply as an event, or the arrival of an era. There is a sense in which that is true, but there is another element to it all. We need more than just a line of regeneration, descending from Heaven to cross the line of history.
We need an axis of regeneration. From the perspective of the older covenant, there was a time coming when God’s intervention was going to close off the times of unregeneration, and inaugurate the times of the regeneration. This is true. A time was coming when all the bodies in Ezekiel’s boneyard were going to come to life, and were going to stand and live, in accordance with the sovereign Word of the sovereign God. Israel was going to be born again.
But there was always another line, and always will be, equally established in the will of God, a line that ran down the middle of human history, including the middle of the historical church, the covenant people of God. This also was a line of regeneration, separating the sons of Belial from the sons of Abraham.
Now when you come to this Table, you are called to come in true faith. And when you come in true evangelical faith, this Table is, for you, the point of intersection on this axis of regeneration. On the one hand, God’s purpose for all history is slicing clean through it, from top to bottom. Christ is present, here. This Table is life in the regeneration. On the other hand, the fact that you are partaking sincerely separates you from all false and hypocritical professors. The fact that we are in the regeneration does not make being a son of Belial impossible. Far from it.
So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.
Pastor Wilson, I read this four times trying to understand your demarcations. Based on the New Testament, surely the demarcation of “Covenant people” is now the same as the demarcation of the regenerate (and by regenerate I mean that which comes only by repentance and faith, not the fiction of baptismal regeneration). The reason why circumcision and uncircumcision both became redundant is that there is no longer any need for two lines. The “middle wall” is gone. Certainly, sons of Belial have been baptised, but the fruit we are to know them by is the fruit of Spirit, not the… Read more »
Mike, thanks. The point I am making needs to be heard by paedobaptists, but the issue involved is alive and well in baptistic churches — where I have spent a good deal of time. When you have baptized an unregenerate man (which Baptists also do), you have an objective reality in the world — baptized and unregenerate v. baptized and regenerate. The fact that this line would not be there in a perfect world doesn’t keep it from being here with us in this world.