Regeneration

John 1:12-13
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, November 10, 2019
Copyright © 2019, P. G. Mathew
Language [Japanese]

Introduction

What is regeneration? It is being born from above. It is being born of the Holy Spirit. Dead people are made alive that they can repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

Many people who claim to be Christians do not have a correct biblical understanding of regeneration because they do not believe that sinners are dead in sins. Sinners are dead toward God. They can only sin. They believe that a sinner is able to repent and believe in Jesus without regeneration. They do not believe in total depravity. Many evangelicals do not believe in regeneration being antecedent to repentance and faith.

Regeneration is a secret act of God in which God performs a spiritual resurrection in an elect sinner, imparting spiritual life instantaneously. A sinner is not just sick; he is dead spiritually. He can do nothing to please God.

Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin and a teacher of the Jewish people, was unregenerate when he met with Jesus in John 3. We read in Psalm 51:5, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Conceived in sin, born as sinners to practice sin all of life.

I. The Unregenerate Man

A sinner is dead. Non-elect sinners are like Esau whom God hated, and elect sinners are like Jacob, whom God loved: “Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’” (Rom. 9:13). We also read, “What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory” (Rom. 9:22–23).

Only elect sinners will experience regeneration. They produce good fruits like good soil people (Eph. 2:5, 10; Luke 8:15).

Unregenerate people are in the church. They are fruitless. Jesus himself said, “[God the Father] cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit” (John 15:2a). He also said, “If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned” in hell (John 15:6). Such people are not vitally connected with Christ. And in due time, they will leave the church. John says, “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us” (1 John 2:19). They cannot produce any fruit for the glory of God. Jesus said, “Without me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5b). They are as dead as Lazarus in the tomb. Only regenerate people obey, produce fruit, more fruit, and much fruit in vital union with Christ, for the glory of God.

Many professing Christians are unregenerate and therefore unfruitful. They are described in the following verses:

• 1 Corinthians 2:14: “The man without the Spirit 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.”
• Ephesians 2:1–2: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air [that is, the devil], the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.”
• Genesis 6:5: “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”
• Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can understand it?”
• Romans 3:10–18: “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.’ ‘Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.’ ‘The poison of vipers is on their lips.’ ‘Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.’ ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.’ ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’”

They are powerless, ungodly, sinners and enemies of God (Rom. 5). They are under the wrath of God and are given over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done (Rom. 1:28). The unregenerate cannot see or enter the kingdom of God. They are shut out of eternal life. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. They worship money, like Judas. They are unregenerate. Judas betrayed Jesus, the only Savior of the world. He threw away all his money and hanged himself and went to hell (John 17:12).

II. The Regenerate Man

God regenerates dead sinners through the Holy Spirit. A regenerate person has a new mind, a new will, and new affections. He repents truly and trusts in Jesus Christ. He confesses Jesus is Lord and works out his salvation with fear and trembling. So we read, “[God] made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. . . . For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:5, 10). A regenerate person abounds in good works by the Holy Spirit who indwells him. He understands the kingdom of God and experiences eternal life.

The regenerate man understands the meaning of Ezekiel 36:25–27: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” Nicodemus, a Sanhedrin member and a teacher of the Jews, failed to understand this verse.

1. God promises to purify his elect people by the gospel preaching, not by water baptism, which is the sign and seal of our vital union with Christ, and who live by Christ’s resurrection power (Rom. 6:1–4). So we read:

• • John 15:3: “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
  • John 17:17: “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”
  • Ephesians 5:25–26: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word.”

2. God promises to give us a new heart:

• • To think God’s thoughts in Scripture. Second Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
  • To will and to do God’s will, to hear and do the will of God (Matt. 7:24).
  • To feel the way God wants us to feel: “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope,” for the glory of God (Rom. 5:3).

3. God gives us a new spirit.
4. God removes from us the heart of stone, the heart of rebellion, the heart of disobedience.
5. God gives us a heart of flesh to obey.
   • Isaiah 11:2–3a: “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord—and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.”
   • Psalm 1:2: “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”
6. God puts his Holy Spirit in us.
7. God inspires us to do his will joyfully. Paul writes, “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Phil. 2:12–13).

Regeneration is due to divine monergism in which we are passive even as a child is passive when being born. Regeneration is purificatory and renovative. Regeneration makes us spiritual (pneumatikos), Spirit-indwelt, Spirit-powered (1 Cor. 2:15). It is nothing less than a new creation of God. So we read,

• 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
• Galatians 6:15: “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.” Regeneration is sine qua non – an absolute essential condition. Without regeneration, you cannot be a Christian.
• Ephesians 2:5: “[God] made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”
• Colossians 2:13: “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins.”
• John 5:21: “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.” Regeneration of the dead.

R. C. Sproul says, “The [Holy] Spirit recreates the human heart, quickening it from spiritual death to spiritual life. . . . In regeneration, God plants a desire for Himself in the human heart that otherwise would not be there. . . . [Regeneration] is the starting point of our spiritual life.”[1]

Regeneration is instantaneous, not a process. It precedes repentance and faith. Regeneration comes first. As a result, we repent and believe and in Christ. It is as mysterious and inscrutable as conception in the womb. It is necessary because the unregenerate person is dead.

Regeneration takes place in our subconscious. Even infants may be regenerated. For example, it was said about John the Baptist before he was born, “He will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth” (Luke 1:15).

Behind regeneration is the will of God. In John 1:12–13 we read, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” In James 1:18 we read, “[God] chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.”

Baptismal regeneration (ex opere operato) is not biblical. The Catholic church and Orthodox churches teach baptismal regeneration. The truth is, God the Father regenerates the sinner through the Holy Spirit, and the regenerate person will repent and believe in Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44). He also said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him” (John 6:65). This is effectual calling. When God calls you, you cannot come because you are dead. But he regenerates you and gives you the ability to come to him. So this is effectual calling—when God calls an elect sinner, he comes to him because God enables him through regeneration.

Consider the following about regeneration:

1. It is antecedent to repentance and faith; it precedes repentance and faith.
2. It is necessary because we are dead.
3. It is instantaneous.
4. It is due to divine monergism, meaning God alone works to regenerate you.
5. It is mysterious.
6. It is irresistible. People can resist all they want, but God will do what he wants to do.
7. It is visible through good works (see Eph. 2:5, 10). Jesus said, “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).
8. It is radical. It affects the whole person: mind, will, and feelings.
9. It is for the elect alone (Rom 8:29).
10. It is even for infants. Infants may be regenerated, as we read about John the Baptist (Luke 1:15).
11. It is by God’s will (John 1:13).
12. Through it, we are recreated in Christ Jesus: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10).
13. Through it, we become pneumatikos, Spirit-indwelt, Spirit-energized, Spirit-enlightened people (1 Cor. 2:15).
14. Through it, those who are dead are made alive (John 5:21). Colossians 2:13: “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins.”
15. The regenerate will persevere. 

III. The Regenerate Life

Let us now look at the regenerate life. If you are not regenerated, you are dead in sins and trespasses. We must not confuse regeneration with morality. There are many moral people in the world who are spiritually dead. This is called God’s common grace. There is common grace and then there is special grace, which is available only for the people of God who are regenerate.

What, then, are the effects of regeneration?

1. Regeneration changes one’s disposition from being lawless and godless to being lawful and godly.
2. The regenerate person lives by the obedience of faith (Rom. 1:5). Be warned: There is a false faith in which there is no good works, no obedience. Jesus spoke about such people in Matthew 7:21–23. They cried out, “Lord, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity.” In other words, he was saying, “Go to hell. You are wicked.” Many evangelical churches today teach that a person can say, “Lord, Lord,” but need not obey Lord Jesus.
3. The regenerate person is a good person. He was bad; God made him good. So, like a good tree, he will produce good fruit. Like good soil, he hears the word, understands the word, retains the word, and by persevering produces a crop—thirty, sixty, hundredfold. Like a good man, he will bring out good things of the word stored up in his heart (Luke 6).
4. Regenerate sinners will repent and believe in Jesus Christ and follow him. Jesus said, “Follow me.” For regenerate people, obedience is easy and joyful, not legalistic.
5. The Holy Spirit indwells the regenerate person, enlightening, empowering, and guiding him. As you read the Bible, the Holy Spirit will enlighten, empower, and guide you. Romans 8:14 says, “Those who are being led by the Spirit, they are the sons of God.” The Holy Spirit guides every child of God as a father guides his child, especially through the Scriptures. John Calvin, the great theologian of the Reformation, said, “What God demands from us by his word, he likewise bestows by his Spirit.”
6. Through regeneration, the dead lives; darkness is changed to light. We were dead and we were darkness. But now we live, and we have been changed to light. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). Jesus also said, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. . . . In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:14, 16).
7. The born of God person lives to glorify God and enjoy him forever. John in his first epistle says these things about the regenerate person:
   • 1 John 2:29: “If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.” In other words, the regenerate does what is right in the sight of God, which is recorded in the Scripture. The regenerate obeys God in the word. If you do not obey, you are not regenerate. You are dead; you are a son of the devil.
   • 1 John 3:9: “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.” The regenerate will repent. The regenerate will live by faith. He cannot go on sinning. In Acts 26:20 we read, “First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.” It is not merely claiming, “I am regenerate. I am a Christian.” We must live that life by the power of the Spirit. The regenerate will repent like the prodigal son—he will make a hundred-and-eighty-degree change. The son came back to his father and confessed, “I have sinned against God and against you. I am not worthy to be called your son. Make me your slave.” What did the father say? “No, you are my son. Let us celebrate. This my son was dead, but he lives. This my son was lost, but he is found.” What happened? Regeneration, repentance, and faith.
   • 1 John 4:7: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” The regenerate loves God and God’s people sacrificially (see Luke 10:27). John writes, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” (1 John 3:16–17). He is a fake. He is in the church. All four soils are in the church.
   • 1 John 5:1: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.” Christianity is not emotionalism, wherein pastors tell stories. If you are regenerate, you will have correct theology, which you believe and articulate. Those who are born of God will believe in the apostolic doctrine, that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Anointed One of Genesis 3:15, which reads, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he [Jesus Christ] will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” You will believe that Jesus is the Prophet, the Priest, and the King of kings. You will believe that Jesus is God/man, and to him every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
   • 1 John 5:4: “Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.” Faith here means objective faith. The one born of God will overcome the world and the devil whom Christ defeated forever. So we read, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). The devil is greater than us, but Christ defeated him on the cross by his death. In Hebrews 2 we read, “Since the children have flesh and blood, [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb. 2:14–15). And in 1 John 3:8 we read: “He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” Therefore, obey God, resist the devil, and he shall flee from you.
   • 1 John 5:18: “We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him.” Jesus keeps regenerate people safe. (PGM) They are in Christ. They are eternally secure. They are saved. They are in Christ. Christ is in them. God is a wall of fire around you and glory within. So we read,
     • John 10:10, 28–29: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. . . . I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”
     • Romans 8:35–39: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Eternal security.

The born of God are not antinomians whose destiny is destruction (Matt. 7:23). The born of God are not autonomous people. Every person is either a child of the devil or a child of God. A child of the devil keeps on sinning. A child of God keeps on obeying.

We are regenerate bondslaves of the Lord Jesus. We practice what Jesus said in Matthew 7:24: “If you hear these words of mine and do them.” We hear and do because we are regenerate. We are like young Samuel who said, “Speak, Lord, your bondslave is listening” (1 Sam. 3:10, my translation).

Jesus obeyed his Father perfectly, and we are to obey the Lord Jesus. In Hebrews 5 we read, “Although he was Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Heb. 5:8–9, Pastor’s translation). If you do not obey Jesus, you are degenerate, not regenerate. If you do not obey Jesus, he did not save you.

Paul writes, “He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need” (Eph. 4:28). A thief when regenerated:

1. Will stop stealing immediately.
2. Will start working immediately, doing even manual labor
3. Will support his family
4. Will support those in need, especially in the church. The church is the family God—our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers—and we have an obligation to support them. God has a family. It is called the household of faith (see Eph. 2:19 and Gal. 6:10).
5. Will give. Before, he stole; now, he gives.
6. Will make a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree change in his life, like that of the prodigal son. He was dead; now he is alive. He was darkness; now he is light. He was empty of good works; now he does good works.

The regenerate will persevere to the end (Jude 24–25). The regenerate will not leave Christ’s church to sin. Consider 1 John 2:19: “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.”

Conclusion

1. Until regeneration, one’s father is the devil. He is dead toward God and is living in sin. Of such people Jesus said, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). The devil lies; Jesus tells truth.
2. Many people who call themselves Christians are unregenerate antinomians and ignorant of the Holy Scriptures.
3. The Christian life begins with regeneration, which is one hundred percent the work of the Holy Spirit. It is called divine monergism.
4. Elect sinners, because of regeneration, are made able to repent and believe in Jesus Christ when they hear the gospel preached. Paul writes, “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13–14). And in Acts 16:14 we read, “One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” Consider the following points about Lydia:
   • “The Lord opened her heart.” The verb is in the aorist tense, which means past tense. Why? Her heart was closed to the gospel. This is speaking about regeneration. The Lord opened Lydia’s closed heart by regeneration so that she could hear the gospel.
   • As a result, she believed the gospel.
   • As a result, she was baptized.
   • As a result, she did good works. She invited Paul to her house.

Notice, then: Regeneration is the first action; repentance and faith follow. Then baptism follows and then good works follow. How do you know that you are saved? You will do good works. Paul says, “We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has foreordained that we should do them” (Eph. 2:10).

5. The regenerate will live all of life by repentance and faith. They will persevere all of life. Paul writes, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:4–10).

Let me ask you: Are you regenerate, raised from the dead and living by repentance and faith for the glory of God, being rich in good works? If so, praise God! You are elect. You are going to be glorified. The greatest gift God can give you has been given to you. Death is gone, darkness is gone, and now you live eternal life.

But if you are not regenerate, you are still dead, and your father is the devil. I have counsel for you: Cry out to God to have mercy upon you. In Luke 23 we read that one of the two thieves before he died was regenerated and trusted in Jesus and went to paradise to be with Christ.

So, again, I present you hope: Cry out to God. Listen to what Paul says: “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (1 Tim. 1:15–17). Do what the publican did. He cried out, “Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner!” He went home, the Bible says, justified. You can do the same, and go home justified, forgiven, and saved forever.

Jesus came and went out to seek and save a man in whom there were two thousand demons. The Bible says he was naked, restless, and living in the cemetery. But Jesus sought him and found him and saved him. And in Mark 5:15, we see him sitting down, clothed and in his right mind. In the same way, Jesus can save you. May God help you to cry out to him today and be saved.

 

 

[1] R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1992), 171–172.