October has been a pretty slow month for writing here, for which I apologize. There have been some extenuating circumstances, though I should have been better about it, especially considering all the fodder from my current readings.
At left is a new link to a friend's blog, written as he goes through the Bible from the beginning. He's only written a few articles, but there should be plenty more in the pipe if he gains steam.
One of my predispositions in studying the Scripture is to look at physical things as a manifestation of the spiritual. We read of a heavenly pattern for the tabernacle, for example (He 8.5), and of the heavenly Jerusalem (Ga 4.25,6). There are many other hints that we're justified in looking at physical things this way, of course; it's one of the purposes of types and the institution of the Mosaic Law.
We're accustomed to looking at miracles as a purely physical phenomena—so the turning of water into wine is a miracle because it circumvents the usual physical requirements for that sort of process. Raising Lazarus from the dead is a miracle, too, hopefully for obvious reasons.
But it seems to me that these miracles in the physical realm—the laws of physics being suspended or contravened—might also be shadows of less tangible miracles. In other words, it really does make sense to use the raising of Lazarus as an example of how we are regenerated because our own regeneration is itself a miracle.
If we can accept this—and I think it is reasonable—I think it is also reasonable to suggest that it is a miracle in a spiritually-similar way: regeneration contravenes a spiritual law. This at its core, I think, denies the (semi-) Pelagian notion that original sin did not irrevocably impair the human will. If regeneration violates some spiritual law, then it stands to reason that the human will should not be able to, any more than I can expect to generate enough lift to fly by flapping my arms.
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