Many are religiously inclines. There are those who believe that they have all of God’s intentions figured, but can we justify God’s actions as our regeneration? Many know that God can do many things. He has restarted humanity by drowning many, he chooses who is faithful, and God created us. We don’t need people to justify his actions. But in light of art and creation, John Milton’s poem Paradise Lost created a vision of what God does for our world. Although, there are misconceptions in understands God’s actions. In fact, God’s justification can be confused for our regeneration in ways we can’t imagine.
While He is all powerful, there are still tasks that even God won’t perform. One of these has to with the interaction with humans. Many believe that He does a lot, God can decide our life to an extent. There are instances such as creation that God left marks for the world to see such as when he created us into “Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, / Godlike erect, native honor clad / In naked majesty, seemed lords of all”(Book IV. I. 105-107). We know this is God’s doing as there are no other shapes that matches ours’, and we stand tall on two feet instead of four.
We stand above other creature just as God stands above us. By extension, God creating us is a way He has proven that He “works in us by his will”(Slick). This is also indication that he uses us to create a new beginning in a way that He won’t have to interact with us. A way that he uses others to create his image is through Jesus was born of a virgin “mother, but his sire / The power of the Most High: He shall ascend” (Book XII. I. 368-369). Using Jesus, He brought us further away from perdition, but the fact still stands that he can’t fully decide our lives.
There was no way that God could have prevented “Th’ infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile, / Stirred up with envy and revenge”(Book I. I. 34-35). Adam and Eve’s interactions with the serpent wasn’t prevented by God. It happened, and we paid the price for. So in what way can we justify God’s actions for allowing us to fall from grace? Many would argue that this was to allow us to build ourselves up; to prove ourselves. And yet, the serpent was still able to get into our minds. It was able to excite the senses into knowledge that we were forbidden to obtain. (Book IV. I. 03-204).
In what way was this justifiable? It isn’t in anywa justifiable, but many don’t question it as it is “what God wanted”. It could even be a test of faith as God can choose if we are faithful enough to Him. It is through faithfulness that we can be saved, and “To be saved means that God has delivered us (saved us) from His righteous wrathful judgment due us because of our sins against Him. “(Slick). As to many there is no other choice than to please God. Even in the beginning God was our everything as Adam, and by extension Eve, was “for God only”(Book IV. I. 116).
It is through God that we are made and it will be through God that we return. Many believe that God is what matters and many are taught that if we have faith then we are saved (Slick). That eventually God shall return and return the favor of us being faithful, but as he has limited power upon our lives, he shall do so by us. (Book XII. I. 393-395). It is in these ideas that we create belief. Belief that God has created what he wants for us, and the belief that God is our regeneration. If people truly believe that God is our path maker then shouldn’t God’s choices can justify if we gain regeneration?
If that is so then regeneration is constituted by justification. Thus that means that “The only true way to justification is through humbling ourselves in heartfelt repentance before the living God. “(Carter). We need to give ourselves up to God. Prove to Him that we are not insolent children that need sheparding. We must take responsibility unlike Adam who”passed the blame to Eve, who passed the blame to the serpent. They both tried to justify themselves, instead of humbling themselves by admitting their mistakes. “(Carter).
It was true that they both ate the forbidden fruit, but when they were to prove to God that they were trust worthy with that knowledge is the moment where God casted them away, and it wouldn’t be years until there was forgiveness. It is through Adam and Eve that we learn that “Godly justification doesn’t come by giving a quick answer or proving one’s innocence”(Carter). We must accept responsibility so that we can be justified to God, and in the end we can be regenerated. But we must hold the thought that we can’t “Assert Eternal Providence / And justify of God to men. (Book 1. I. 25-26).
For it is not our right to do so. We must stay below God in order to reach our regeneration. Now, one must question is justification from God truly what creates our regeneration? The truth though is that God’s justification is different. There can be many view points of Justification, but it can be used as “a legal term which changes the believing sinner’s standing before God, declaring him acquitted and accepted by God, with the guilt and penalty of his sins put away forever” (Strauss).
While justification does happen by God contributing his opinion, we still have to accomplish it on our own since if we don’t then we won’t appeal to God’s favor. The difference between justification and regeneration is that regeneration is something we accomplish ourselves. While many understand that regeneration is recreating yourself, there are some who are taught “that men are regenerated when they are baptized, a belief commonly referred to as baptismal regeneration. “(Webster). While them they may not be wrong it doesn’t mean that everyone has the same view of baptism.
To many “Baptizing in the profluent stream, the sign / Of washing them from guilt of sin. “(Book XII. I. 442-443). While it is creating a clean slate for the person; baptizing doesn’t recreate us. It has been noted that Jesus has said that we have to be born again for us to enter the kingdom of heaven, but it is fact that the Bible says that water baptism doesn’t recreate us. (Webster). There is no instances that say that baptism will save someone, so “to insist that the new birth occurs as the result of water baptism makes regeneration a matter of external ritualism. “(Strauss).
Regeneration should be done from the inside, and no God or ritual can fix that. Only we have the power to fix what is inside of us. As a result of regeneration having to be done inside of us; God has a small role in our regeneration. Some instances can be argued that regeneration can be affected by God such as when He “supernaturally intervenes in a life, creates a new heart, gives new life and enables one to come to Christ” (Webster). But He doesn’t do the changing. Our lives become supernaturally intervened, and then we do the work ourselves to regenerate ourselves.
While many may state that “Regeneration then, may be defined as an act of God whereby He bestows upon the believing sinner new life. “(Strauss). It doesn’t mean that He recreates us. There will be a specific instant that God did regenerate us, but that was to prove a point to his people. He showed his power when Jesus, “Out of his grave, fresh as the dawning light, / Thy ransom paid” (Book XII. I. 423-424). Never before has his people seen this kind of regeneration, and we may never see it again as now we must work on ourselves to create our regeneration.
We must sew ourselves together to create ourselves in God’s image, so that we may ascend to heaven. Thus we see through trial and error that God’s justification of his actions has little to do with our regeneration. We may get God’s justification so that we may know that we are in his favor, but to claim that God is the one who regenerates us is ludicrous. We regenerate ourselves because it must be done from the inside, and only we can change what is inside of us. No matter what rituals we do to please God there are none that would regenerate us in the way that we regenerate ourselves.
