Christian exegetes will often take passages such as Romans 8, which states that those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things according to the flesh, and cannot submit to God's law, nor can it seek after God. I propose that whatever this passage means, it does not mean that the unregenerate cannot submit to God's law, or please God, or seek after God. In fact, the unregenerate have done all of these things, and the proof is in our Bible.
The key to this puzzle is the issue of backward causation, meaning the ability to cause right now something to have happened in the past. Time travel would be one kind of backward causation. The problem with all forms of time travel and backward causation is that they are vulnerable to the bilking paradoxes proposed by Max Black and Antony Flew. An example of a bilking paradox is this.
Let's say I have a light switch that can turn the lights on and off, but when I flick the switch the signal turns the lights on or off 5 minutes in the past. We know that the lights have been on for at least 5 minutes, and have not been turned off. What if I were to flick this light switch. It would create a contradictory state of affairs. The lights, for the past five minutes, would be both on and off. or if I had a gun that killed someone 5 minutes in the past. If I point it at myself and fire, it would kill me, but then I would not be alive to pull the trigger.
No one has ever come up with a refutation of these arguments. Philosophers have argued that one might be able to affect things in the past, so long as they do not create paradoxes, but there has never been any justification of that. What is so special about this backward killing gun that it would work when I pointed it at others, but not if I pointed it at myself? Or what if there were a poison that could kill the victim 5 minutes in the past?
To say that backward causation is possible but the paradoxes are impossible is to say that such a poison could exist but that nobody could take that poison. If I asked for a reason as to why someone could not take that poison, it will not do to say: "because it will create a paradox." We agree on that. It will also not do to say that some contingent cause will swoop in and stop me. For example, I am about to take the poison and it slips from my hand and crashes on the floor. The reason is that the poison slipping from my hand does not explain the impossibility of me taking the poison.
The whole process of me obtaining the poison, putting it in a vial, drinking it, swallowing it, it sending a lethal cause 5 minutes into the past, and my body receiving the signal, and me dying is a chain of causation. We need to know which point in the chain is impossible in order to explain why the chain is impossible. If we deny that backward causation is impossible, then we have an explanation that gets rid of all bilking paradoxes. Otherwise, we we are left with unresolved contradictions.
Therefore if backward causation is possible, then these bilking paradoxes would be possible. But they are not possible, so backward causation is not possible, even for an omnipotent being. God cannot perform backward causation any more than he can create a square circle.
Secondly, the doctrine of regeneration is the doctrine of how we are saved. Titus 3:5-6 states "he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior." 2 Corinthians 5:17 states "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." As Jesus said in John 3:6-7 "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again." There would be little to no purpose to the cross of Christ if we could receive regeneration without it.
Given those two points that the cross is necessary for regeneration, and that the cross of Christ is essential to regeneration, it follows that before the cross of Christ, nobody was regenerate.
Yet, over and over again, the Old Testament states that there were righteous people who sought after God. David was a man after God's own heart. Joseph trusted in the Lord during his captivity and never lost hope. Abel pleased God with his sacrifice. The Holy Spirit even dwelt in people in Old Testament times. Othniel had the indwelling, as did Gideon, and Saul, and David, and many, many others. Hebrews 11 gives a long list of Old Testament saints who through faith became noble, righteous, and powerful servants of God.
Abraham believed God, and He counted that faith as righteousness. (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:20-22, 16-25; Heb. 11:8-19)
ReplyDeleteIn the same way as Abraham, all those Old Testament saints, who lived and died in faith toward God, and looked forward to His fulfillment of His promises of the heavenly Jerusalem, thus believed God, and He counted that faith as righteousness (Heb. 11:6). But they were not completed in their faith, or “made perfect”, UNTIL the culmination of His prophecies and promises (Heb. 11:40), through the perfect death, burial, resurrection, and eyewitness testimonies that He is the risen Lord and Savior (1 Cor. 15:3-8).
So NOW, IN Christ, we are ALL (Old Testament saints and New Testament saints) united as one family of God (Heb. 12:22-24; Eph. 1:10-11, 3-23; 3:14-19), by His love and grace, through faith (Eph. 2:8-9), in the righteousness of Christ (1 Cor. 1:30-31; Php. 3:9; 2 Pet. 1:1; Rom. 3:20-31; 5:17-21; 10:4-17).
So Christ, after His perfect sacrifice, preached to the OT saints in the bosom of Abraham, and declared His perfect fulfillment of their faith in God’s promises, as their faith was finally completed in Christ (Eph. 4:8-10; 1 Pet. 3:18-19; Mt. 27:50-53).