| This dissertation seeks to advance the contemporary discussion of Christian assurance by exploring the nature and significance of regeneration in 1 John. While recognizing that the Bible uses many metaphors to present a colorful picture of God's historical, redemptive focus, this study is not only interested in a theological understanding of the birth imagery, but it is manifestly concerned with this doctrine set in the larger metaphysical realities revealed in the Scriptures. Therefore, this investigation is conceived as a conceptual study with two components.; The first component seeks to locate John's development of birth imagery for assurance in the First Epistle within his cycle of "tests of life." This imagery becomes a basis for eternal life that is measured by three tests. The upshot of this new life is (1) the believer embraces, through faith, Jesus as the Christ promised in redemptive history; (2) the believer's affections are restored such that he or she loves God, loves Jesus and his people; and (3) the believer desires to obey not only the Word of God, but to do so from his or her innermost being.; The second component strives to utilize the theological constructs of Jonathan Edwards's theocentric, relational metaphysics for a further appreciation of the need for regeneration as the Holy Spirit brings the believer into the eternally existing, loving relationship of the Father, Son and Spirit. More specifically, just as God delights in his own glory and is happy in himself, so the believer is brought into this trinitarian relationship through union with Christ, thereby causing the believer to find one's happiness in God alone. According to Edwards, until God infuses grace into the soul, that is the Holy Spirit, self-love and natural desires are unregulated and bent on locating happiness apart from God. Therefore, as the believer is brought into the complex of trinitarian relations, he or she participates in the intertrinitarian dynamics that cause him or her to embrace Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Christ of the OT, to love God and to obey him (John's tests of belief, love and obedience).; This dissertation concludes that the doctrine of regeneration, set in the context of an Edwardsian trinitarianism, effectively contributes to helping believers locate assurance in an objective faith, as well as, experience assurance through the ontological alterations of the heart. |
