Of Regeneration, or the New Birth Shewing

Jakob Boehme (1575 -1624) was a German Christian mystic and theologian. The chief concern of Boehme's writing was the nature of sin, evil and redemption. Consistent with Lutheran theology, Boehme preached that humanity had fallen from a state of divine grace to a state of sin and suffering, that the forces of evil included fallen angels who had rebelled against God, and that God's goal was to restore the world to a state of grace.There are some serious departures from accepted Lutheran...
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Jakob Boehme (1575 -1624) was a German Christian mystic and theologian. The chief concern of Boehme's writing was the nature of sin, evil and redemption. Consistent with Lutheran theology, Boehme preached that humanity had fallen from a state of divine grace to a state of sin and suffering, that the forces of evil included fallen angels who had rebelled against God, and that God's goal was to restore the world to a state of grace.There are some serious departures from accepted Lutheran theology, however, such as his rejection of sola fide, as in this passage from The Way to Christ:"For he that will say, I have a Will, and would willingly do Good, but the earthly Flesh which I carry about me, keepeth me back, so that I cannot; yet I shall be saved by Grace, for the Merits of Christ. I comfort myself with his Merit and Sufferings; who will receive me of mere Grace, without any Merits of my own, and forgive me my Sins. Such a one, I say, is like a Man that knoweth what Food is good for his Health, yet will not eat of it, but eateth Poison instead thereof, from whence Sickness and Death, will certainly follow."A difficulty with his theology is the fact that he had a mystical vision, which he reinterpreted and reformulated. According to F. von Ingen, to Boehme, in order to reach God, man has to go through hell first. God exists without time or space, he regenerates himself through eternity, so Boehme, who restates the trinity as truly existing but with a novel interpretation. God, the Father is fire, who gives birth to his son, whom Boehme calls light. The Holy Spirit is the living principle, or the divine life.