ManleyBeasley
Puritan Board Junior
Maybe you haven't understood what he's saying. Or, maybe you have, you just don't know what to do with it. Because as a Calvinist, you certainly agree that believing is a product of regeneration, and as Protestant, you believe that justification is a product of belief (saving faith). Therefore, regeneration is prior to justification, both logically and temporally.
Therefore, the answer to your question, "Are you suggesting that regeneration DOESN'T happen at the same time as justification?" is: Possibly, sometimes.
How much prior? Well, the answer to that question might be person-variable. Re: your use of the word "apart". It seems that you are using that word temporally. Neither I nor Rev. Winzer. would ever say that an infant is regenerate "apart from believing." The one produces the other as sure as certainly as the Sun's activity warms the earth. However, WHEN a person--whether infant, child, or adult: a) is regenerated, and b) believes unto his justification, has no necessary temporal union or close-connection.
Well, it does help when its explained clearly. If he means what you're saying (I assume he does) then I certainly have less of a problem with it. I wrote a previous post saying that it may be wise to use different terminology then "baptismal regeneration" for this view since others who use it place a dependence on the work. I do agree that regeneration is logically prior to faith but not temporally. Ephesians chapter 2:4-10
"4But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
The passage here says God "made us alive together with Christ" (regeneration) and then parenthetically states that it is saving grace. He then sums this up by stating "For by grace you have been saved through faith". This seems to make the regenerating grace mentioned in vs 4 inseperable from faith here; you can't have one without the other (from what I'm seeing in the text).