Monergism states that the regeneration of an individual is the work of God through the Holy Spirit alone, as opposed to synergism, which, in its simplest form, argues that the human will cooperates with God’s grace in order to be regenerated. As a Southern Baptist, I am a monergist. Monergism is Reformed theology (in most of its forms). Often times we fail in a consistent presentation of biblical interpretation because we fail to make clear what regeneration actually is. We confuse it with justification. We see where God commands obedience and forget that only living people can obey. If we really want to declare a justification by faith alone we must jettison synergism. That’s ultimately why I love this discussion; I want all the glory to go to God for salvation. I believe that sound theology only comes through addition. What I mean is that we arrive at a truly sound theology by adding various areas of theology together. When we add a sound grasp of the doctrine of sin to the doctrine of God’s sovereignty to the doctrines of regeneration and justification (the latter two being distinct) we arrive at sound theology on soteriology (salvation). Each area of our study must be individually intact. If it is then its addition to other areas similarly strong becomes maturity. In this video series we’re going to talk about regeneration, justification, man’s sinfulness and God’s sovereignty. By the end of it you should be able to identity synergism as false and thus abandon it for the mature gospel. We will examine each of these four areas of doctrine in this video series to explain what monergism is…and also what it is not. I believe synergism is sub-biblical. Not necessarily damnable, just sub-biblical. I believe the main (not only) but main reason it persists even in the minds of truly regenerate people is because men are not well trained to distinguish regeneration from justification. One precedes the other every single time and they are not the same thing. I’ve wanted to do this video series for a long time. I hope it’s a blessing to you.
This is part one of the series.
