When Monergists/Reformed/Calvinists claim that regeneration must precede justifying faith in the Gospel, leaning on a stipulation from 1 Corinthians, they are erring.
1 Corinthians 2
14The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
They err because they somehow miss the fact that what "the natural man does not accept", and considers "foolishness", and "cannot understand", refers to is nothing other than the "wisdom imparted to the mature" 1 Corinthians 2:6.
That does not include the Gospel.
How can I say that?
Paul could not speak to the Corinthians as to spiritual men, but only as to carnal--the result being that he could only share the "elementary principles", the "milk", of Gospel with them:
1 Corinthians 3
1And I, brothers and sisters, could not speak to you as spiritual people, but only as fleshly, as to infants in Christ. 2I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to consume it. But even now you are not yet able, 3for you are still fleshly.
So, carnal men can understand and and accept and believe the basic Gospel--what they'd consider "folly" would be the hidden wisdom, termed "meat", imparted only to the spiritually mature (by which a spiritual infant would be endangered).
1 Corinthians 2
14The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
They err because they somehow miss the fact that what "the natural man does not accept", and considers "foolishness", and "cannot understand", refers to is nothing other than the "wisdom imparted to the mature" 1 Corinthians 2:6.
That does not include the Gospel.
How can I say that?
Paul could not speak to the Corinthians as to spiritual men, but only as to carnal--the result being that he could only share the "elementary principles", the "milk", of Gospel with them:
1 Corinthians 3
1And I, brothers and sisters, could not speak to you as spiritual people, but only as fleshly, as to infants in Christ. 2I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to consume it. But even now you are not yet able, 3for you are still fleshly.
So, carnal men can understand and and accept and believe the basic Gospel--what they'd consider "folly" would be the hidden wisdom, termed "meat", imparted only to the spiritually mature (by which a spiritual infant would be endangered).
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