Systematic Theology (Volume 3 of 3)Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
Systematic Theology (Volume 3 of 3)
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Baptists -- Doctrines; Theology, Doctrinal
In _Eph. 1:17, 18_, there is recognized the divine illumination of
the mind to behold the truth—“_may give unto you a spirit of
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; having the eyes of
your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his
calling_” On truth as a means of regeneration, see Hovey,
Outlines, 192, who quotes Cunningham, Historical Theology,
1:617—“Regeneration may be taken in a limited sense as including
only the first impartation of spiritual life ... or it may be
taken in a wider sense as comprehending the whole of that process
by which he is renewed or made over again in the whole man after
the image of God,—_i. e._, as including the production of saving
faith and union to Christ. Only in the first sense did the
Reformers maintain that man in the process was wholly passive and
not active; for they did not dispute that, before the process in
the second and more enlarged sense was completed, man was
spiritually alive and active, and continued so ever after during
the whole process of his sanctification.”
Dr. Hovey suggests an apt illustration of these two parts of the
Holy Spirit’s work and their union in regeneration: At the same
time that God makes the photographic plate sensitive, he pours in
the light of truth whereby the image of Christ is formed in the
soul. Without the “sensitizing” of the plate, it would never fix
the rays of light so as to retain the image. In the process of
“sensitizing,” the plate is passive; under the influence of light,
it is active. In both the “sensitizing” and the taking of the
picture, the real agent is not the plate nor the light, but the
photographer. The photographer cannot perform both operations at
the same moment. God can. He gives the new affection, and at the
same instant he secures its exercise in view of the truth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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