Social Activism vis-à-vis Spiritual Activism
January 16, 2012 Leave a Comment
Growing up in Texas, I remember public laundry mats, restrooms, and drinking fountains with signs over them stating “Whites Only.” Shocking, I know. But very true and very sad. So much of our nation has been renewed and reformed by the costly efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr. Doubtless we’ve a long way to go for human rights and dignity to manifest more fully, yet so much of the distance we have traveled toward equality and justice for all is the result of the courageous activism of this one man, set off initially in 1955 by the heroic efforts of Ms. Rosa Parks, the same year I was born.
Today our nation celebrates this distance, and rightfully so. Social activism is important and I see no reason to be against it in toto (non-violent forms, that is), in so far as it is grounded in the moral authority that God has set down before us in Scripture. Though this day is a good reminder of what social activism can do for the good, it also reminds me what activism cannot do. It cannot yield eternal change wrought only by God. And so, I publish my statement on what God has actively done for us through the finished and all-sufficient spiritual activism of Christ our Savior. It is this that I celebrate.
Regeneration is that activity of God wherein he radically transforms the moral, mental, emotional, volitional, and relational fiber of a person through the unique work of the Holy Spirit. As in the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus, this transformation is analogous to a new birth (see Jn. 3:3-7; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; Jm. 1:18; 1:Pt. 1:3; 1 Jn. 2:29). Its start and finish is in God the Holy Spirit who alone brings it about without the agency of human activity (Jn. 1:13; 3:8). Value systems are wholly renovated not just altered. Old impulses and habits are replaced with new ones (Gal. 5:19-24; Col. 2:11-12) as a spiritual death takes place of the old self or nature (Gal. 2:20), which was dominated by sinful desires and activities (Rom. 6:1-11), and is replaced with a new spiritual life that is gradually but certainly renewed daily never to be corrupted (1 Pt. 1:4).
Furthermore, regeneration is God’s gracious means of cleansing from sin whereby the Spirit of God purifies the penitent person from moral corruption. The Apostle Paul states that regeneration is a work of God and not of humans (Rom. 4:4-5; Gal. 2:16-17; Eph. 2:4-5, 8-9). This purification or washing is actualized at the time of belief in the Lord Jesus as Savior and King when the Holy Spirit enters a believer’s life and is subsequently symbolized at the time of a believer’s baptism (Acts 10:47; Eph. 1:13; 1 Cor. 6:11; possibly Heb. 9:14; 10:22; 1 Pt. 3:21). Water baptism, therefore, is an expression of regeneration and was never seen as the means of it. We come to God with empty hands offering only our need (Lk. 18:13-14). Scripture affirms that any righteous activity not enabled by God is completely insufficient for acquiring a right standing before him (Is. 64:6; Phil. 3:8b-9).
