Friday, February 13

Life can only be received.

Life can only be received. Life is offered as sheer gift. In new birth from above, there is no way for those already dead in their sins even to ask for new life, which being dead in sin they cannot even conceive (Rom. 8:10, 11; Eph 2:1–5).

Apart from grace one cannot even pray for or hope for a reborn relationship to God. No one can simply grasp, claim, or seize the new birth of faith, hope, and love. They are gifts of the Spirit which until given, the unawakened sinner cannot manipulate into conception, birth, or growth. Like Incarnation and Resurrection, the new birth comes on God’s own initiative.

— Thomas Oden
The Justification Reader
(Grand Rapids: Eeerdmans, 2002), 85