From: Pilgrimpub@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2005
10:46 AM
To: Mentonebay@aol.com
Subject: THIS BROTHER
UNDERSTANDS ME [08/03--2005]
THIS BROTHER UNDERSTANDS ME
PERFECTLY
ON REGENERATION OR THE NEW BIRTH [08/03--2005]
The
following email from my longtime friend and acquaintance, Brother Robert
McKay, is representative of the vast majority of the mail I receive in
regard to my view on the New Birth. People do understand what I am saying, and
they do not conclude that I am a "Campbellite."
Brother McKay was
used of the Lord for several years in a ministry devoted to refuting
Mormonism, and that is how he first caught my attention and gained my
respect. Later, I had the pleasure of doing some TV work with him dealing with
Mormonism. That was my only personal meeting with Brother McKay, but in meeting
him I grew in my respect for him even more than I had from his writings. In
recent years, he has gone thru some fiery trials of faith, but the Lord has
brought him thru them. I was glad to receive his recent email, commenting on my
views about the New Birth.
]
In a message dated 8/3/2005 8:31:32 AM
Central Daylight Time, Brother Robert McKay writes:
I am not an expert in your theology (shoot, sometimes I'm not
an expert on *my* theology!<lol>), but I've read several of your books
on Campbellism, the one on the Landmark Baptists (which, BTW, helped wean me
away from the last vestiges of Landmarkism that other study hadn't cured), and
"the cowbell" book, and I flatly can't feature how anyone could come up
with this assertion:
>It is my opinion that
Bob does not understand what regeneration is, he somehow separates being
>made alive from regeneration.
If that is what you
believe - and I don't believe it is - you've very carefully hidden it
from view in everything I've read from your pen. You'd have to be as
good as the Mormon church at pretending to believe one thing while actually
believing another, to hold such a view without me at least suspecting it from
your writings...and while you've good at a lot of things, I don't think you're
quite as good at deception as Mormonism is. :)
As I understand your view, regeneration *is* "being made alive"; it
is the new birth. This regeneration is the work of the Spirit,
*through the instrument of the Scripture*. Your quarrel is not with the
new birth being a divine work, but with the view that it occurs apart from
Scripture.
If that's your view - and I'm sure you'll correct
me if it isn't<g> - then I have correctly understand what you've been
saying all this time. And if it's your view, then how on earth anyone
could get from that to what the brother says above is a mystery beyond my
comprehension.
Robert McKay
Bob's Note: Brother McKay
has understood me perfectly, and how anyone could think that I am a
"Campbellite" on the matter is a great mystery indeed. Campbellism does not even
believe that the Holy Spirit exerts any additional or conjunctive
influence other than what is written in the Bible.
I once asked
Church of Christ preacher David Brown, in our 1992 debate in Houston on the work
of the Holy in salvation, where the Holy Spirit is now, and what is He
doing? Brown said the Holy Spirit is "in Heaven," more or less "retired"
from any earthly work, and He no longer exerts any influence beyond what is
written in the Word. According to Brown, the Holy Spirit supernaturally inspired
the Word, therefore we must now obey the Word to saved, and there is no
additional power of the Spirit exerted in, by, or upon the Word.
-- Bob L.
Ross
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