The Important Thing is to Be Born Again

"The important thing is to be born again, and formulating your views about it correctly is less so..." - Wilson, AC, p210.

With a Canoe Paddle

"...I have in mind parishioners who are rolling around in Galatians 5:19-21 with shouts of libertine joy.  It is time to attack this kind of covenantal presumption, and it needs to be attacked with a canoe paddle.  I wish I could say this is a hypothetical problem, but it has not been." - Wilson, AC, p207

What, not Of

"The glories that are coming will be the result of what we are talking about and not the result of our talking about it." - Wilson, AC, p202.

Heart Conversion, not Conversionism

"Heart conversion is an absolute necessity if a sinful man is ever to see a holy God.  But conversionism is not any such thing.  Conversionism is a set of cultural expressions that grew up around a particular set of the Holy Spirit's movements in history.  But those cultural expressions are not absolute.  No human cultural expressions ever are.  But the Word of God is absolute, and the Spirit's work in the hearts of sinful men never, ever changes." - Wilson, AC, p198.

Two Men

"If two men, one saved and one damned, can enjoy the same access to the same means, then the thing which distinguishes them is the faith of the one and the unbelief of the other.  But that faith is itself a gift, and it is given in accordance with His sovereign will.  The fact that the gift of faith is not inexorably given with every instance of a sacramental gift is what sets up the problem for us, and which is what makes historical evangelicalism a necessity." - Wilson, AC, p194.

In essence, this "problem" is the reason for Wilson's book.

How the Spirit Uses Means

"To claim the Holy Spirit can use baptismal water is apparently superstition, but the use of Bibles and sermons is not - even though material means are equally involved in both.
When the Spirit anoints something, that makes it effectual, and the effect is immediate.  The Spirit's work does not come through the means (the sermon, the sacrament) like water through a garden hose.  Rather, the Spirit's anointing is given on account of the means...But if we show up later with our tiny cages in order to capture those very same means, hoping to chain the Spirit up, we find that He is gone." - Wilson, AC, p 193.

But I Repeat Myself

"If I want to help lead evangelicals back to more respectful worship, and i do, one of the things I must do is demonstrate for them that I understand what drove them out in the first place.  Worship God in a decorated palace tomb without the Spirit?  I'd rather go to Hell, but I repeat myself." - Wilson, AC, p180.

So Why Go On About This?

"So why go on about this (the necessity of the new birth)?  What's the importance of it?  What's the big deal?  I am arguing this way as a pastor, as a shepherd of souls, as a preacher.  I want my people to get their doctrine right, of course, just as I want them to get their worship right, and so on.  But fundamentally, I want them to go to Heaven with me.  This is the goal of all ministry." - Wilson, AC, p176.

And this is why I have, as a pastor, found this such a very important book.

Messy Terms, Messy Evangelicism, Messy World

"There are plenty of born again people who wouldn't call it that, and there are plenty of evangelicals who need to get saved.  Life is messy." - Wilson AC, p175

What the Revivalistic Approach Did Not Overemphasize

"Whitefield remained with in the Reformed and Calvinistic heritage, while Wesley veered from it.  But both pressed the absolute necessity of the new birth.  The negative result of this was a disparagement of the institutional church, while the positive result was that a bunch of people got saved.  Over the next century and a half, the need for personal regeneration came into high prominence in the revivalistic movements that swept certain portions of North America, Scotland and Wales.

This revivalistic approach did not overemphasize personal regeneration; they actually underemphasized everything else." - Wilson, AC, p171.

And this is how I see it as well.  With our well-intentioned efforts to place a high value and return to Mother Kirk, we must never do so at the expense of the necessity of the new birth in an individual man, woman, or child in order to be saved.

And there is no reason to pit the one against the other unless you are listening to the devil who is happy to do so.

How Did We Get Closer to Zwingli than Luther?

"Things began to change among the Reformed.  As the gulf between Lutherans and Reformed grew, an emphasis on personal regeneration began to grow among the Reformed.  In my view, this was the result of the basic disagreement between Reformed and Lutheran on the sacraments.  Calvin was closer to Luther than to Zwingli in his view of the Lord's Supper, but closer to Zwingli in what he believed ought to be the basis of ecclesiastical unity.  That watershed was, in my view, highly significant, and helped to get us here." - Wilson, AC, p168.

That is a helpful summary to a much longer history lesson.

Who is Your Father?

"The issues surrounding regeneration should not be settled by looking at the biblical uses of the word regeneration only.  It needs to be settled by looking at the thought group of generation/regeneration.  Who is your father?" - Wilson - AC, p152.

Is he the first Adam or the second Adam?

Is he the devil or Abraham?

The Best Place to Hide

"Bonhoeffer said that when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.  A gracious heart hears this message and leaps for joy.  An ungracious heart hears it , and looks for a place to hide.  Anything but death.  Scripture teaches us, and history shows us, that the very best hiding places, at least for a brief time, are found in the things of God - the church, the Bible, the sacraments, the catechism, the ministry, the Internet theology debates, the church splits over a bunch of nothing, the mercy ministries, and of course, the venerable tradition of the fathers.  Those fathers, incidentally, can be found both in the Jerusalem chamber at Westminster and in the Syrian desert." - Wilson, AC, p146.

When a Natural Man is Converted

"When a natural man is converted, all of a sudden everything that was an opaque mystery to him before becomes a delight, with light shed all over it.  The Bible turns into English, the worship of God in a way that honors Him becomes a delight, and the poor turn into Jesus Christ, instead of a rung in somebody's heaven ladder." - Wilson, AC, p144.

Describing the Supernatural Work of Regeneration

"It is entirely a supernatural work, as Dort puts it.  It is "most powerful and most pleasing, a marvelous, hidden, and inexpressible work, which is not lesser than or inferior in power to that of creation or of raising the dead.'  It is not a natural work in the sense of continuing our old natures.  Neither is it a supernatural work in the sense that it takes and removes us from the created order.  We are still men and women.  But, as Bavinck says, it "penetrates their inmost being and re-creates them, in principle, according to the image of God.  It is therefore in a class of its own, simultaneously ethical and natural (supernatural), powerful and most pleasing."  and amen to that." - Wilson, AC, p142.

A Sheep is not a Goat is not a Sheep

"These illustrations all come from within nature.  A sheep is a natural animal, as is a goat.  When a man is regenerated, he is not transformed into some kind of angelic demigod from another realm.  No, he is changed into a man, and the material out of which God performed this miracle was the remains of a man, the ruins of a man.  This is not a change from nature into grace; it is a change from broken nature to restored nature, and the change is accomplished by grace.  We are not changed into grace, we are transformed by grace." - Wilson, AC, p140-1.

Ontos

"I have occasionally used the word ontological in describing this kind of change of our nature, and this might mislead some.  But by ontological I do not mean that some kind of ontos chip is embedded deep in our souls, and in regeneration God swaps it out.  Ontos is simply the Greek participle for being, and being a goat is different than being a sheep." - Wilson, AC, p140.

Christ's Bones

"Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35), and this is why the bones of Christ could not be broken (John 19:36) - it was not because the bones of Christ were a fixed point in the created order, made out of celestial titanium.  
"Let all the earth fear the Lord:  Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.  For he spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast" (Ps 33:8-9)."" - Wilson, AC, p138.

Testifying to Real Sight

"There is a pitfall that some have fallen into, the mistake of trying to have faith in their own faith.  Sure, and so let's not do that.  Blind men healed should look at Jesus, and then at the world.  They should spend very little time trying to look at their own eyeballs.  You look with your eyeballs, not at them.  But let us not, for fear of this mistake, make another opposing mistake, equally ludicrous - the mistake of pretending that blind men get to testify to His healing grace and power." - Wilson, AC, p135.

It Was Still Regular Wine

"It was supernatural power that Jesus exercised when He turned water to wine, but the result was not supernatural wine.  It was regular wine." - Wilson, AC, p132.

When we are born again, we do not become "heavenly" beings or supernatural beings.  We become real humans, sons of the new humanity.  It is a supernatural act, but we are still regular humans, albeit transformed, or rather, adopted into a new family with a new Father and a new destiny.