The Modern Gospel

[ChristisGod]

continued @Johann

The Reformers sought to return the Church to early Christianity, but actually brought it back to early heresies, because it stopped short at Augustine. The Reformers did not go far back enough. Rather than returning the Church to early Christianity, the Reformation resurrected Augustinian and Gnostic doctrines. The Methodist Quarterly Review said, “At the Reformation Augustinianism received an emphatic re-enforcement among the Protestant Churches.”[82] The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics said, “…it is Augustine who gave us the Reformation. For the Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine… the Reformation came, seeing that it was, on its theological side, a revival of Augustinianism…”[83] The Reformation was to a great extent a resurrection or revival of Augustinian theology and a further departure and falling away from Early Christianity.

Gnosticism, Augustinianism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism have much in common. Augustinianism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism teach Gnostic views of human nature and free will but under a different name. It’s the same old Gnosticism in a new wrapper. Other doctrines also seem to have originated in Gnosticism, from Basilianism, Valentianism, Marcionism, and Manichaeism, such as the doctrines of easy believism, individual predestination, constitutional regeneration, a sinful nature or a sinful flesh, eternal security or once saved always saved, and others. But no Gnostic doctrine has spread so widely throughout the Church, with such great acceptance as the doctrine of man’s natural inability to obey God. Augustine: Gnostic Heretic and Corruptor of The Church

hope this helps !!!

 

[ChristisGod]

augustine who was luther/calvins mentor below

This was calvins mentor below.

“Except for the purpose of procreation, another man would have been a more suitable companion/or Adam or if it was not for help in producing children that a wife was made for the man, then what other help was she made for? If it was to till the earth together with him there was as yet no hard toil to need such assistance; and if there had been the need, a male would have made a better help. The same can be said about companionship, should he grow tired of solitude. How much more agreeably, after all, for conviviality and conversation would two male friends live together on equal terms than man and wife? While if it was expedient that one should be in charge and the other should comply to avoid a clash of wills disturbing the peace of the household, such an arrangement would have been ensured by one being made first, the other later, especially if the later were created from the former, as the female was in fact created. Or would anyone say that God was only able to make a female from the man’s rib, and not also a male if he so wished? For these reasons I cannot work out what help a wife could have been made to provide the man with, if you take away the purpose of childbearing.”
— Augustine, On Genesis, Book IX, 5.9, p. 380.

“How much more agreeable for companionship in a life shared together would be two male friends rather than a man and a woman,” he wrote in “De Genesi ad litteram” (The Literal Meaning of Genesis).”

St. Augustine and St. Leo the Great also both reflected on the Virgin Mary’s importance in the mystery of Christ.

“In fact the former (St. Augustine) says that Mary is the mother of the members of Christ, because with charity she cooperated in the rebirth of the faithful into the Church, while the latter (St. Leo the Great) says that the birth of the Head is also the birth of the body, thus indicating that Mary is at once Mother of Christ, the Son of God, and mother of the members of his Mystical Body, which is the Church,” Pope Francis’ 2018 decree noted. It said these reflections are a result of the “divine motherhood of Mary and from her intimate union in the work of the Redeemer.” Mary, Mother of the Church

We know that calvin was a student of augustine and quoted him more than 700 times in his writings and over 200 times in his institutes.

 

[ChristisGod]

@Johann are you still defending the reformers ?

The Apple doesn't fall far from the Tree !

THERE IS NO QUESTION that Calvin imposed upon the Bible certain erroneous interpretations from his Roman Catholic background. Many leading Calvinists agree that the writings of Augustine were the actual source of most of what is known as Calvinism today. Calvinists David Steele and Curtis Thomas point out that “The basic doctrines of the Calvinistic position had been vigorously defended by Augustine against Pelagius during the fifth century.”1

In his eye-opening book, The Other Side of Calvinism, Laurence M. Vance thoroughly documents that “John Calvin did not originate the doctrines that bear his name....”2 Vance quotes numerous well-known Calvinists to this effect. For example, Kenneth G. Talbot and W. Gary Crampton write, “The system of doctrine which bears the name of John Calvin was in no way originated by him....”3 B. B. Warfield declared, “The system of doctrine taught by Calvin is just the Augustinianism common to the whole body of the Reformers.”4 Thus the debt that the creeds coming out of the Reformation owe to Augustine is also acknowledged. This is not surprising in view of the fact that most of the Reformers had been part of the Roman Catholic Church, of which Augustine was one of the most highly regarded “saints.” John Piper acknowledges that Augustine was the major influence upon both Calvin and Luther, who continued to revere him and his doctrines even after they broke away from Roman Catholicism.5

C. H. Spurgeon admitted that “perhaps Calvin himself derived it [Calvinism] mainly from the writings of Augustine.”6 Alvin L. Baker wrote, “There is hardly a doctrine of Calvin that does not bear the marks of Augustine’s influence.”7 For example, the following from Augustine sounds like an echo reverberating through the writings of Calvin:

Even as he has appointed them to be regenerated...whom he predestinated to everlasting life, as the most merciful bestower of grace, whilst to those whom he has predestinated to eternal death, he is also the most righteous awarder of punishment.8

C. Gregg Singer said, “The main features of Calvin’s theology are found in the writings of St. Augustine to such an extent that many theologians regard Calvinism as a more fully developed form of Augustinianism.”9 Such statements are staggering declarations in view of the undisputed fact that, as Vance points out, the Roman Catholic Church itself has a better claim on Augustine than do the Calvinists.10 Calvin himself said:

Augustine is so wholly with me, that if I wished to write a confession of my faith, I could do so with all fulness and satisfaction to myself out of his writings.11

Augustine and the Use of Force

The fourth century Donatists believed that the church should be a pure communion of true believers who demonstrated the truth of the gospel in their lives. They abhorred the apostasy that had come into the church when Constantine wedded Christianity to paganism in order to unify the empire. Compromising clergy were “evil priests working hand in glove with the kings of the earth, who show that they have no king but Caesar.” To the Donatists, the church was a “small body of saved surrounded by the unregenerate mass.”12 This is, of course, the biblical view.

Augustine, on the other hand, saw the church of his day as a mixture of believers and unbelievers, in which purity and evil should be allowed to exist side by side for the sake of unity. He used the power of the state to compel church attendance (as Calvin also would 1,200 years later): “Whoever was not found within the Church was not asked the reason, but was to be corrected and converted....”13 Calvin followed his mentor Augustine in enforcing church attendance and participation in the sacraments by threats (and worse) against the citizens of Geneva. Augustine “identified the Donatists as heretics...who could be subjected to imperial legislation [and force] in exactly the same way as other criminals and misbelievers, including poisoners and pagans.”14 Frend says of Augustine, “The questing, sensitive youth had become the father of the inquisition.”15

Though he preferred persuasion if possible, Augustine supported military force against those who were rebaptized as believers after conversion to Christ and for other alleged heretics. In his controversy with the Donatists, using a distorted and un-Christian interpretation of Luke:14:23
,16 Augustine declared:

Why therefore should not the Church use force in compelling her lost sons to return?... The Lord Himself said, “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in....” Wherefore is the power which the Church has received...through the religious character and faith of kings...the instrument by which those who are found in the highways and hedges—that is, in heresies and schisms—are compelled to come in, and let them not find fault with being compelled.17

Sadly, Calvin put into effect in Geneva the very principles of punishment, coercion, and death that Augustine advocated and that the Roman Catholic Church followed consistently for centuries. Henry H. Milman writes: “Augustinianism was worked up into a still more rigid and uncompromising system by the severe intellect of Calvin.”18 And he justified himself by Augustine’s erroneous interpretation of Luke:14:23

. How could any who today hail Calvin as a great exegete accept such abuse of this passage?

Compel? Isn’t that God’s job through Unconditional Election and Irresistible Grace? Compel those for whom Christ didn’t die and whom God has predestined to eternal torment? This verse refutes Calvinism no matter how it is intepreted!hunt

hope this helps !!!

 

[Eternally Grateful]

It is the power of the cross that takes away the power of the flesh and makes us able to receive God's grace that makes us holy....and righteous.

The power of the cross paid for our sin

And since our sin is paid for. and the love of God has been given to us, we have the power to overcome sin.

Your modern ideas are so artificial that you can make all this stuff up in your imagination...and then claim you are doing what is says in the bible. Repent before it's too late. The kingdom of God is real.

Non responsive.

I refuse to play your childish games anymore.. Your self righteousness will be exposed. if not in this lifetime, in the next.

 

[Eternally Grateful]

. Turn everything upside down and you might get closer to the truth.

Practice what you preach..

 

[Eternally Grateful]

and don't forget about calvin where many today follow his aberrant doctrines. they were unloving dictators who persecuted those who disagreed with them, hateful men.

Judge not lest ye be judged.

There are others who are just as guilty

Religious legalists who try to enter God by their own righteousness are just as guilty and can be just as angry, if not more.

 

[Eternally Grateful]

@Johann are you still defending the reformers ?

The Apple doesn't fall far from the Tree !

THERE IS NO QUESTION that Calvin imposed upon the Bible certain erroneous interpretations from his Roman Catholic background. Many leading Calvinists agree that the writings of Augustine were the actual source of most of what is known as Calvinism today. Calvinists David Steele and Curtis Thomas point out that “The basic doctrines of the Calvinistic position had been vigorously defended by Augustine against Pelagius during the fifth century.”1

In his eye-opening book, The Other Side of Calvinism, Laurence M. Vance thoroughly documents that “John Calvin did not originate the doctrines that bear his name....”2 Vance quotes numerous well-known Calvinists to this effect. For example, Kenneth G. Talbot and W. Gary Crampton write, “The system of doctrine which bears the name of John Calvin was in no way originated by him....”3 B. B. Warfield declared, “The system of doctrine taught by Calvin is just the Augustinianism common to the whole body of the Reformers.”4 Thus the debt that the creeds coming out of the Reformation owe to Augustine is also acknowledged. This is not surprising in view of the fact that most of the Reformers had been part of the Roman Catholic Church, of which Augustine was one of the most highly regarded “saints.” John Piper acknowledges that Augustine was the major influence upon both Calvin and Luther, who continued to revere him and his doctrines even after they broke away from Roman Catholicism.5

C. H. Spurgeon admitted that “perhaps Calvin himself derived it [Calvinism] mainly from the writings of Augustine.”6 Alvin L. Baker wrote, “There is hardly a doctrine of Calvin that does not bear the marks of Augustine’s influence.”7 For example, the following from Augustine sounds like an echo reverberating through the writings of Calvin:

Even as he has appointed them to be regenerated...whom he predestinated to everlasting life, as the most merciful bestower of grace, whilst to those whom he has predestinated to eternal death, he is also the most righteous awarder of punishment.8

C. Gregg Singer said, “The main features of Calvin’s theology are found in the writings of St. Augustine to such an extent that many theologians regard Calvinism as a more fully developed form of Augustinianism.”9 Such statements are staggering declarations in view of the undisputed fact that, as Vance points out, the Roman Catholic Church itself has a better claim on Augustine than do the Calvinists.10 Calvin himself said:

Augustine is so wholly with me, that if I wished to write a confession of my faith, I could do so with all fulness and satisfaction to myself out of his writings.11

Augustine and the Use of Force

The fourth century Donatists believed that the church should be a pure communion of true believers who demonstrated the truth of the gospel in their lives. They abhorred the apostasy that had come into the church when Constantine wedded Christianity to paganism in order to unify the empire. Compromising clergy were “evil priests working hand in glove with the kings of the earth, who show that they have no king but Caesar.” To the Donatists, the church was a “small body of saved surrounded by the unregenerate mass.”12 This is, of course, the biblical view.

Augustine, on the other hand, saw the church of his day as a mixture of believers and unbelievers, in which purity and evil should be allowed to exist side by side for the sake of unity. He used the power of the state to compel church attendance (as Calvin also would 1,200 years later): “Whoever was not found within the Church was not asked the reason, but was to be corrected and converted....”13 Calvin followed his mentor Augustine in enforcing church attendance and participation in the sacraments by threats (and worse) against the citizens of Geneva. Augustine “identified the Donatists as heretics...who could be subjected to imperial legislation [and force] in exactly the same way as other criminals and misbelievers, including poisoners and pagans.”14 Frend says of Augustine, “The questing, sensitive youth had become the father of the inquisition.”15

Though he preferred persuasion if possible, Augustine supported military force against those who were rebaptized as believers after conversion to Christ and for other alleged heretics. In his controversy with the Donatists, using a distorted and un-Christian interpretation of Luke:14:23
,16 Augustine declared:

Why therefore should not the Church use force in compelling her lost sons to return?... The Lord Himself said, “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in....” Wherefore is the power which the Church has received...through the religious character and faith of kings...the instrument by which those who are found in the highways and hedges—that is, in heresies and schisms—are compelled to come in, and let them not find fault with being compelled.17

Sadly, Calvin put into effect in Geneva the very principles of punishment, coercion, and death that Augustine advocated and that the Roman Catholic Church followed consistently for centuries. Henry H. Milman writes: “Augustinianism was worked up into a still more rigid and uncompromising system by the severe intellect of Calvin.”18 And he justified himself by Augustine’s erroneous interpretation of Luke:14:23

. How could any who today hail Calvin as a great exegete accept such abuse of this passage?

Compel? Isn’t that God’s job through Unconditional Election and Irresistible Grace? Compel those for whom Christ didn’t die and whom God has predestined to eternal torment? This verse refutes Calvinism no matter how it is intepreted!hunt

hope this helps !!!

Your not helping any

This is not about doctrines or groups of people. this is about the word of God. why is it people want to attack other people. and not just discuss the word.

 

[Johann]

Judge not lest ye be judged.

There are others who are just as guilty

Religious legalists who try to enter God by their own righteousness are just as guilty and can be just as angry, if not more.

Well said, powerful.

 

[ChristisGod]

Judge not lest ye be judged.

There are others who are just as guilty

Religious legalists who try to enter God by their own righteousness are just as guilty and can be just as angry, if not more.

Agreed

 

[ChristisGod]

Your not helping any

This is not about doctrines or groups of people. this is about the word of God. why is it people want to attack other people. and not just discuss the word.

The person quoted the reformers defending them.

 

[PS95]

@Johann
I too, had a very messed up picture of the gospel. I'm talking twisted inside and out. I was raised a JW. I am convinced it's a mind controlling cult from some sick realm. Took a lot of time for me to begin to unravel. Lost family and everything because I talked about the Lord Jesus too much.
But Praise God because He came to my aid and taught me GRACE!

 

[Ritajanice]

Judge not lest ye be judged.

There are others who are just as guilty

Yes...and your one of them, stomping over those to don’t hold to your false doctrine of being Born Of The Spirit.

Religious legalists who try to enter God by their own righteousness are just as guilty and can be just as angry, if not more.

You don’t enter God he enters you, when we become Born Of The Spirit.

If anyone promotes religion it’s you...plus you lead yourself through the written word...anyone can see that in the spirit.

You talk in the flesh all over the forum...and God help anyone who doesn’t believe in you and your mates doctrine..,your a clique and you need each other for some reason....I guess to back each other up because of doubt, imo.

No one would ever doubt their salvation if they have been Born Of The Spirit..it’s a spiritual birth..

As for judging you are one of the biggest judge and hypocrite on the forum...now I’m righteously judging you!!..in my opinion of course.

I’ve been building up to speaking this over you and Praise God I finally was able to release it out of my heart/ spirit.....the timing is perfect.

 

[Ritajanice]

Your not helping any

This is not about doctrines or groups of people. this is about the word of God. why is it people want to attack other people. and not just discuss the word.

Are you being serious..you do nothing but attack members if their belief doesn’t line up with yours.

You spiritual understanding is all over the place..

“ ME” is not Born Of The Spirit..

You need heart/ spirit revelation to know that “ ME” isn’t Born Again.

One knows they are Born Of The Spirit in their heart/ spirit ..not in their human understanding and intellect..

Stay strong @Episkopos ...you will if you have the backing of Gods Holy Spirit.

God is very long suffering, but when he sees all this finger pointing at others yet can’t see into their own / heart / spirit..then something needs to be said and I’m only to willing to be God’s spokesperson.

 

[Episkopos]

Well.
I'm certain that you can't put carts before horses!
First is receiving the grace of forgiveness. It's in the realization of just how hopeless and helpless we are, AND seeing just how much love God has for us that is utterly humbling!

Sanctification is next. There is no walking holy in humility without first accepting this incredible grace of full forgiveness! And we have to always remember that it's Christ in us who is sanctifying us.
Lest, you boast of your holiness.

There is no such technique. Things don't happen in reality the way they seem to in our imagination. Does a blind man who approaches Jesus have to realize he is forgiven before receiving his sight? Is there a logical order to have your eyes healed? What if you get the order wrong in your logical assessment? You have joined the ranks of those who think you have to believe in gravity in order to fall properly.

No, everything that is real with God is miraculous. Sanctification is miraculous. Entering into Christ is by translation into the kingdom realm by grace...the power of God. Where God is....there is holiness. A person doesn't grow into holiness. That is a lie from the underworld that a lot of people have swallowed in order to never ever learn what holiness really is. Always learning but NEVER coming to the knowledge of the truth. There is no partial holiness. One is either holy or not at all.

People think that becoming a believer is a one time event and holiness is gradual. But the opposite is true. How many believers are still in unbelief? When Jesus returns will He find faith on the earth? Just look at all the religious hubris here...that seeks to cancel out the miraculous nature of the walk in Christ. Anything to self-justify.

 

[Episkopos]

The Jesus of our imagination VS Encountering the risen Lord.

What I see so much of here is people imagining themselves into the biblical narrative. As in....well, if I'm going to be a believer then I will have to first assume that Jesus forgives me... Of course this is a far cry from seeking FIRST the kingdom of God...I mean, so that we can know what the bible is even talking about.

A cultural Jesus. An American Jesus. A Protestant Jesus. A reformists Jesus. A humanistic Jesus. A spiritualizing Jesus. A snow-flake Jesus. If challenged people will say...that's not the Jesus I know (as if they knew Jesus).

The carnal man wants forgiveness, and immunity from prosecution from sin. It's...how can I exploit this Jesus for myself. Look at how criminals think. Sure, they will help the police, but what do they get in return?? The carnal mind is so focused on survival, self-interest, self-aggrandizement....that no doubt convinces a majority who being presented with a gospel that appeals to the baser human nature will then shout down any truth that threatens their new-found religious enthusiasm. Just look at all the celebrities who are "turning to Christ". If we change the message and alter the meaning of words, people will get more success, more power, more money, more influence. Can you believe that people would avoid such things? Or embrace them? Case in point...people will resist the true gospel, because it costs us everything to enter INTO Christ. The devil whispers...that's a "works" gospel...and laughs at the gullibility of self-seekers.

The devil stands at the center of religious aspirations and like a conductor that orchestrates utter chaos, filters the truth out of the gospel message until anything but that message sounds wrong. People don't know what harmony is...let alone eternal or divine harmony.

 

[Lizbeth]

The cross is about sanctification, not forgiveness.

It's about both, clearly.

But I think you want to make a case that those who don't know Christ can be forgiven apart from the cross and faith.

 

[Lizbeth]

I believe that we need to ask ourselves what the early church believed about Atonement. The following are the early theories until Augustine:

• The ransom theory, which teaches that the death of Christ was a ransom sacrifice, usually said to have been paid to Satan, in satisfaction for the bondage and debt on the souls of humanity as a result of inherited sin.
• The Christus Victor theory, which is rooted in the incarnation and how Christ entered into human misery and wickedness and thus redeemed it.
• The recapitulation theory, which teaches that Christ's life was a recapitulation of the life of humanity, and that his death and resurrection were a victory over sin and death. (AI)

My view is the third I think. Penal Substitutionary Theory came in fully at the Reformation. The idea of a law court was not in the early church. The idea was rather of a hospital where mankind is healed. We cannot fully understand the doctrine of salvation, but we are told that it is the blood of Christ, and our faith in it, that cleanses us from sin. I believe that forgiveness is the result of that. We are cleansed then forgiven.

We are told to forgive others yet we say that God had to allow the savage murder of His innocent Son in order for Him to forgive. I think along the lines of the ability to forgive depends on whether we are in the same standing of the one we are to forgive ie we are both sinners. But God is holy and the person He is forgiving must also be holy, in actuality not as an imputation but don't quote me on that! I have struggled to understand this doctrine fully and don't think it can be.

Don't struggle sister, but be at rest....and just receive. The carnal mind is restless and is a serpentine labyrinth which purpose is just to get us LOST in the weeds when it comes to spiritual things. Read Romans 4 about imputed righteousness prayerfully with eyes of faith and understand where in v17 it says that "God calleth those things which be not as though they were." It's by FAITH, not by sight. All things HAVE been put under the feet of Jesus even though we do not yet SEE all things put under. The carnal mind can't receive this, but it must be received in spirit with the mind of Christ.

 

[Episkopos]

It's about both, clearly.

But I think you want to make a case that those who don't know Christ can be forgiven apart from the cross and faith.

Indoctrination is a phenomenon associated with having a brain and a free will. When The New Covenant is distorted into the religious ideological dimension, it would certainly appear that God was kidding all along about the wages of sin being death.

As in...the wages of sin is death...just kidding...it's all paid for...go right ahead and be free to do as you wish. Why? because the free gift is eternal after-life in Christ! All that matters now is maintaining a religious certainty that says your sins are covered by God's righteousness. Grace blinds God to your true condition. That's your position and others here who think I preach works salvation.

But my actual position is that "the wages of sin is death" ...meaning sin separates us from God...even AFTER Jesus' sacrifice. For saying this, I'm accused of preaching a "works" salvation...because it comes out in real life.

A hypothetical relationship with God means you never know what God is really like...what He thinks, what He says personally to you. Again, to seek to know God is seen as human effort by the orchestrated ones. All you have to do is choose your truth from the bible. Not bible truth...but YOUR truth from the bible.

The Islamic inspired gospel is about heaven and hell...so you hear a lot about that.

The Buddhist inspired gospel is about the Christ in you....as in having a spiritual encounter with yourself...and then building on your ego foundation until you ACHIEVE sanctification. Sound familiar?

My position is that being born again is only a sample of grace. Like the talent in the parable of the talents. The full measure must be bought by selling all and seeking God as for your next breath. I hear Jesus voice...both in reading the bible (parable of the pearl of great price ) AND in my spirit. My position is apostolic and historical. The other positions presented here are johnny come lately... from the reformation/enlightenment humanism....that puts human needs over the will of God.

What does God do with people who abuse grace?

 

[Lizbeth]

But my actual position is that "the wages of sin is death" ...meaning sin separates us from God...even AFTER Jesus' sacrifice.

Yes. If we "keep on sinning wilfully there is no more sacrifice for sins"....that is talking about completely backsliding and choosing a sinful life over obedience to the Christ and the gospel without repenting. That does not include relatively minor things that we might do as human beings inadvertently or in a weak moment and being truly sorry for it. For such things it is "no longer I who sin but sin living in me" and " if we sin we have an Advocate with the Father." Longsuffering (grace) and a Father having pity on His children and remembering that we are but flesh. But if we abuse His grace deliberately as an excuse to sin, who knows how long He would longsuffer that? Because God is not mocked.

But that is not what I was disputing here, as I think you know.

 

[Johann]

My position is that being born again is but a sample of grace. The full measure must be bought by selling all and seeking God as for your next breath. I hear Jesus voice...both in reading the bible (parable of the pearl of great price ) AND in my spirit. My position is apostolic and historical. The other positions come are johnny come lately... from the reformation/enlightenment humanism....that puts human needs over the will of God.

Error-

Your position appears to contain a misunderstanding of the biblical concept of grace and salvation.

Being Born Again is More Than a Sample of Grace:

The Bible teaches that being "born again" signifies a complete and transformative work of grace, not merely a sample. In John 3:3-5, Jesus tells Nicodemus, "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again... no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit." This indicates the necessity and completeness of the new birth for salvation.
Salvation is Not Purchased by Human Effort:

The idea that one must sell all or perform certain acts to achieve the full measure of grace contradicts the core biblical teaching that salvation is a gift of God’s grace through faith, not by works. Ephesians 2:8-9 states, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast."
The Parable of the Pearl of Great Price:

While the parable of the pearl of great price (Matthew 13:45-46) does illustrate the value of the kingdom of heaven, it should not be interpreted to mean that we can purchase grace. Instead, it signifies the supreme worth of the kingdom, for which one should be willing to forsake all earthly attachments. However, the entrance into this kingdom is still by grace, as evidenced by other scriptures.

Hearing Jesus' Voice:

It is commendable to seek to hear Jesus’ voice through scripture and the Holy Spirit. John 10:27 states, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." This indicates an ongoing relationship with Christ, facilitated by the Holy Spirit, given freely to believers (Acts 2:38).
Apostolic and Historical Understanding of Grace:

The early church and apostolic teachings consistently emphasized salvation by grace through faith. For instance, in Acts 15:11, Peter declares, "We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." This predates the Reformation and reflects the original apostolic teaching.
Reformation and Enlightenment Contributions:

While the Reformation did emphasize "sola gratia" (grace alone) and "sola fide" (faith alone), these doctrines were based on a return to the original biblical texts and the teachings of the early church. This was not an introduction of new concepts but a reaffirmation of biblical truths that had been obscured over time.
In conclusion, the scriptural and historical evidence consistently affirms that being born again is a comprehensive work of God’s grace, salvation is a gift that cannot be earned, and the apostolic teaching upholds grace through faith as the foundation of the Christian life. Reformation theology, far from being a "johnny-come-lately" position, seeks to restore these original truths against later doctrinal distortions.

Beginning to understand why my OP is moved to the "Unorthodox section"
J.