Regeneration or New Birth
Introduction:
Does believing that Christ finished the work of forgiveness of sins and justifying His people at the cross negate the need for regeneration? This appears to be a misrepresentation being leveled at those of us who do believe and proclaim what the Bible teaches concerning our Lord having come “to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness,” Daniel 9:24.
For any who may be confused, I hope to set the record straight regarding what I know to be true and what is my hopeful experience with regard to the Lord’s dealing in my own heart. May the Lord be pleased to bring comfort to His people through this testimony of His free and sovereign grace!
1. WHAT IS REGENERATION?
Simply stated, I believe that it is the sovereign work of the Spirit of God, in conjunction with the will of the Father and the Son, to give life to all elect, redeemed, and justified sinners, which in turn causes them to hear Christ’s Word, believe on Him as He is revealed in the Gospel, and submit to Him as their righteousness before God, John 5:21, 24-27.
Can any say that Christ has died for them if they have not been regenerated by the Spirit and called out of darkness into light? NO! No more than someone can say that they are elect of God, if they are yet in unbelief. However, just as it is not regeneration that is their election before God, neither is the new birth their justification before God. Their election was from eternity, in Christ, according to God’s sovereign will and purpose and their justification before God was accomplished in time by the blood of the Lord Jesus.
When Christ told Nicodemus “ye must be born again,” He was not giving him something to do in order to have forgiveness of sins or to be justified before God! Rather, He was telling him what the Spirit must do in him in order for him to renounce his self-righteous, works grounded religion, and truly ‘see’ (perceive and know) the kingdom of God- John 3:3,8. As is true of any sinner (depraved, blind, and dead in sin), unless the Holy Spirit reveal to us the deep things of God, we cannot know the things of God in truth, 1 Corinthians 1:9-14.
What is the answer to any who may ask, “How can I know whether I am the Lord’s and whether God has chosen me unto salvation and Christ died for me?” YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN! We do not enter into a relationship with God in our experience through mere intellectual reasoning, but rather the revelation of Christ, by His Word and Gospel, to the heart, and that only after the Spirit of God has made us alive unto God, and given faith to believe on Christ in truth, Ephesians 1:13.
Up until the time of regeneration, even those who are elect of God the Father and redeemed and justified by Christ’s blood, are said to be lost. That does not mean that they are under the wrath of God or that until they believe God’s looks on them as ungodly. To believe that is to deny what Christ accomplished at Calvary in putting away their sin and drinking dry the cup of God’s wrath for His people in His death. If they are lost, it is not that God has lost them, but that THEY are lost, yet unregenerate and without the Spirit of God, and therefore rebels and wicked IN THEIR MINDS- Colossians 1:21. Therefore, it requires that in time, the Spirit of God be given them to turn their otherwise rebellious hearts to Christ, and to learn of the righteousness of God fulfilled in His obedience unto death, and cause them to submit to the ONE righteousness of God imputed there- Romans 10:3, 4. “Christ is the end (fulfillment) of the law to everyone that believeth.” That does not mean that our believing is what fulfills the law and brings satisfaction to God, but rather that all who believe are brought by God’s grace to see, know, believe, and rest in Christ as the ONE who fulfilled the LAW and JUSTICE of God on their behalf in His obedience unto death. If righteousness come by the law (any obedience thereto) Christ is dead in vain- Galatians 2:21.
2. THE NECESSITY OF THE NEW BIRTH
The clear teaching of Scripture regarding regeneration (new birth or being born from above) may be summed up in the following verses:
i. God’s love and affection for His elect is eternal and unchanging because of the work of His Son.
ii. However, in the flesh, none of His elect can please Him by their efforts at satisfying Him, because that is only possible by His Son. It is this truth that He shows them in revealing Christ in them and causing them to renounce their own efforts and submit to the righteousness of God imputed in Christ at the cross.
i. The Apostle Paul speaks of the Spirit of God being given to those for whom Christ died as “the earnest of our inheritance”
ii. In real estate, the earnest is something of value given by a buyer to insure the full realization of the purchase in time.
1. The elect were bought by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ- 1 Corinthians 6:20
2. The Spirit of God is given in time to every blood bought sinner as the guarantee of their full glorification when Christ comes for them.
3. It is the Spirit indwelling the elect of God that gives them assurance that they are the Lord’s, and causes them to look to Christ alone for righteousness, and not anything in them, not even the grace of faith.
3. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ONE IS BORN AGAIN?
Here is the real issue that must be settled with regard to regeneration or the new birth. It is not whether or not the elect must be born again, but rather, what happens when they are born again.
This is a centuries old debate, and one which each one of us must be fully persuaded in our own minds. Is the new birth a matter of the elect being given a new sinless nature as many believe? I do not believe so, either according to the Word of God or my own experience.
1. Romans chapter 7 is not teaching that we have a sinless nature in us combating our sin nature. A careful study of it shows just the opposite. Paul is saying that the good he would do, he does not. If there were a sinless nature in him, as was in Christ, it would never yield to the flesh, would it? In fact, his conclusion is, ‘O wretched man that I am!’ That is all that any regenerated sinner can say about himself. See the testimony of the Publican in Luke 18:13.
Romans chapter 7 is showing what happens when we begin to look away from Christ and His satisfaction of the Law and Justice of God, and think that we can by our obedience to it find acceptance with God. Paul states this premise in the very first verse of the chapter- “for I speak to them that know the law…” It can only condemn. Only Christ has removed the condemnation by His obedience unto death- v. 25.
2. I John 3:9 is being quoted as a proof text of a sinless nature in the believer, but again, a careful study of the context will show that this is not what it is teaching. When the Scripture says, ‘Whosoever is born of God does not sin,’ I have yet to find any professing believer to tell me that they have lived even a moment without sinning, if they are honest. Even our best righteousness is but filthy rags and tainted with sin. Therefore, the only valid interpretation is that one born of God cannot sin, because where the law has already been satisfied for them fully in the death of Christ, that one cannot be considered a transgressor (sinner) from God’s perspective. See 1 John 3:3, 4. God sees those whom Christ redeemed as justified (righteous) before Him- 1 John 4:17. In our experience, we know ourselves to be nothing but sin, but before God, there is no sin committed because there is no law against us in that Christ satisfied it fully.
When John writes of “his seed remaineth in him,” one must also look at the context to see what seed he is referring to. It is not the seed of sinlessness as some would think. Rather, it is the seed of the Word, or the Gospel, as already described in 1 John 2:27- ‘the truth that abides (remains) in you.’ What truth is that? It is the fact that our righteousness before God is in the imputed righteousness of Christ alone as the Just one, 1 John 2:1. When I sin, my conscience would accuse me as being unworthy of salvation, but the seed, the revealed Word, abides in me to remind me where my righteousness is and thereby gives me hope and assurance before God, all the while drawing my heart to Christ once again in repentance.
To do righteousness as described in 1 John 2:29 and 3:7, is not to have a sinless nature, nor to live sinlessly, but rather to live in full dependence and submission to the ONE true righteousness of God in Christ. To live by any other supposed righteousness is a delusion and can only condemn.
Some may ask, “What then changes when a sinner is born again, if we are not given a sinless nature?” The answer is simple:
1. We are given the very Spirit of God to indwell our hearts- John 14:17 “Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
Don’t you get upset when you hear people talking all the time about ‘Mother Nature,’ rather than attributing the works of creation to God Himself? Why would it be any different here when talking of the work of the Spirit in us, to keep referring to some “new nature,” rather than the Spirit of God Himself indwelling our hearts? He truly is sinless, but there is nothing in our nature as falling creatures but deadness and corruption. He does cannot and does not sin, but anything related to our hearts is tainted with sin. Galatians 5:17 “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” The Spirit lusting against the flesh, in that He never allows the regenerated sinner to put any confidence in anything in us but only in the Christ by whom we are justified, saved, reconciled, and kept unto the day of our final redemption when we shall be completely rid of the presence of sin- 1 John 3:1-3
2. We are given life- What is created in us is not a ‘new’ nature; separate from who we are, but LIFE ITSELF! Just as when God created Adam and breathed into his nostrils and he became a living soul, so it is when God is pleased to regenerate one of His elect, that one is given spiritual life. Where the Spirit of God dwells, there is LIFE! The very word ‘spirit’ means ‘breath.’
Here then is the real definition of the place of regeneration with our justification before God. Romans 5:17 declares that the ‘gift of righteousness shall reign IN LIFE by one.’ The gift of righteousness was accorded in the death of Christ, imputed there at the cross, and it is revealed by the Spirit of God in LIFE, when He is pleased to bring the sinner from spiritual deadness to spiritual life. Both are the effect of righteousness being imputed at the cross, not when we believe. The ‘justification of life’ described in Romans 5:18 is stating that God giving life to dead sinners is justified by Christ having removed condemnation in HIS DEATH, v. 18.
Some mistakenly refer to 2 Corinthians 5:17 as proof that there is a new sinless nature given whereby ‘all things become new.’ However, again, CONTEXT is everything. ‘If anyone is in Christ as a new creature (creation) it is BECAUSE old things are (have passed away), not our old sinful nature, but rather the old things of the LAW and its condemnation against us. Christ by His death fulfilled it and put it away once for all. Is this not what the previous verses declare leading up to the ‘Therefore,’ in verse 17? All things are (have) become new in that on the ground of Christ’s righteous obedience unto death, there is NOW no condemnation toward those who are in Christ Jesus, by electing and redeeming grace (Romans 8:1).
Once again, LIFE is given at regeneration, BECAUSE it is not possible for those whom Christ redeemed to be held in deadness, even as it was not possible that Christ should be held in His death, having satisfied law and justice by His death (Acts 2:24).
3. We are given LIGHT- Those who are yet blind, trusting in themselves that they are righteous (Luke 18:9) and despising others, cannot see the light unless the Spirit of God gives them eyes to see. 2Co 4:4 “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. “
It is only as God commands the light to shine out of darkness, into the heart that sinners are made to believe, and submit to the righteousness of God in Christ. This is what is created in the elect upon regeneration- THE LIGHT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GLORY OF GOD IN THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. Those who say that knowledge is insignificant, and relate regeneration to something other than imparting of the KNOWLEDGE of Christ, need to read this verse carefully. The day the light of the KNOWLEDGE of Christ is minimized and mocked, how great is the darkness, as Christ Himself testified in Mt 6:23 “But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! “
CONCLUSION:
I thank God for the light of the knowledge of Christ that He has caused to shine in my heart, by His grace and continue to pray for more light. Don’t be deterred by any who endeavor to dissuade you by referring to this as “new” light. It is as old as the Scriptures, and let us be like the Bereans, not looking to men, but to the Scriptures alone, and weighing every doctrine in the light of God’s Word- Acts 17:11. As we look to the Word, relying only on the Spirit of God as our teacher, and truly rest in Christ alone, and His finished work at Calvary, it brings true unity and oneness of spirit and heart with those who are the Lord’s. They that ‘trouble’ you are those who would have you look within for righteousness, but it is not within, other than in the person of the Spirit of God. But even the Spirit of God would not have us glorify him, but rather HIM who gave him, the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Therefore, being born again, given the very life and light of the Lord Jesus, ALL the focus is on HIM as my righteousness, which He established, and God the Father accepted and imputed to the account of all His elect once for all.
As my earthly pilgrimage passes, and I draw near to the time when I shall stand before a holy God, I have no other plea, than that when He died, He died for me! This is my testimony of grace, and one I believe to be confirmed by the very Word of God HIMSELF! May the Lord grant us all this persuasion!
KEN WIMER
Shreveport Grace Church