Regeneration
Written by Terry Virgo
This article is from Issue 6 of the Reformation Fellowship Magazine. Read now.
The creation of the human race was accompanied by an alarming warning. Humanity, though made in God’s image with a magnificent calling to fill, subdue, and rule over the earth as God’s representatives, was given clear instruction. The fruit of one particular tree was specifically and startlingly forbidden. If that fruit was eaten, death would follow.
Ensnared by Satan’s lies, tragically the first humans ate the outlawed fruit, and death immediately resulted. Fellowship with God was destroyed, and entrance to Eden and God’s presence was shut off. From now on, thoroughly disqualified from God’s favour, human existence was in exile. Men came to birth, but the recurring phrase “and he died” dominates the early pages of Scripture (see Genesis 5). Paul teaches us “just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12, NASB). Although men and women walked the earth, they were “dead in … trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). The plight of the human race seemed beyond hope.
Another Birth Is Needed
Early in the gospel story we are introduced to Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who, on approaching Jesus, was quickly told that if he were to see God’s kingdom, he would need a second birth. No amount of religious observance could meet his needs before a holy God. Only a new birth would qualify him. What was born of the flesh was only flesh. He needed to be “born of the Spirit” (John 3:6). Natural man was thoroughly disqualified. All are “sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2).
Following the failure and limitation of the Old Covenant, Jeremiah promised that God would provide a New Covenant (Jer. 31:33). Ezekiel added that God would “put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezek. 36:26, 27, NASB 1995). External observation of God’s law had proved inadequate in producing a holy people. A completely new start was needed. Paul later argued that “if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law” (Gal. 3:21).
Laws Were Inadequate
The law was holy and good, but it could not produce life. It communicated information. It told us how holy God is and what God required of his people, but acquaintance with the law was not adequate to make people holy. Paul argued that it even exacerbated sin. Strangely, it motivated reaction and caused rebellion. He claims he was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive, and he died (see Rom. 7:9).
So, trying to produce holiness in fallen people by giving them the law proved to be unfruitful. Hebrews tells us that the law made nothing holy and was indeed only a shadow of things to come. A new and better covenant was desperately needed; a sovereign intervention from God to recover lost humanity was required—nothing less than a new birth. The human race, “dead in … trespasses and sins,” needed a radical, creative work of God.
Dead in Trespasses and Sins
Paul says that we were “walking” but were in fact the walking dead (Eph. 2:2). This death was manifested in the overwhelming power of forces far too great for us to overcome. First, “the course of this world,” the power of the culture, the passing age that holds sway over people cut off from God who had chosen to suppress the truth in unrighteousness and, professing to be wise, became futile in their speculations (Rom. 1:18–22). The culture has frightening power to squeeze us into its mould and force-feed us with poison, claiming it to be medicine for our good, exchanging God’s truth for a lie.
Second, not only the world’s culture but a powerful supernatural force, the prince of the power of the air, is at work in us. A hostile enemy of God is also our enemy. Sometimes coming as a roaring lion, other times as an angel of light, he is far too strong and deceitful for us.
Third, we have within ourselves an appetite for sin. Internal lusts of our own flesh provide a further battleground. These enemies of world, flesh, and devil are far too great for fallen man to overcome.
A New Creation
Only a new creation will prevail. As Jesus said, “you must be born again” (John 3:7). Another birth had to take place. As with our original birth, we are actually personally passive in this experience. It is God who, in spite of our death, “made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:4, 5). Though we are dead and unable to initiate anything, God powerfully calls us and makes us come alive, just as Jesus summoned Lazarus out of his tomb and out of his death.
As Peter puts it, God, “according to his great mercy,” has given us new birth (1 Pet. 1:3). This new birth comes with the preaching of the Word of God, so that we read regarding Lydia, “the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul” (Acts 16:14, NASB). Paul was preaching, but God opened her heart to respond. Left to ourselves, “the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him” (1 Cor. 2:14, NKJV), but God opened her heart.
New Worldview and Freedom
Having opened her heart to the gospel, Lydia opened her home to the apostolic team and their gospel work. With her new birth came a new response of openness. So, the new birth does not simply change our belief system; it changes our lifestyle, our values, and attitudes. God begins to be at work in us to will and to do his good pleasure (see Phil. 2:13). A new energy becomes available. Formerly, while under the law, Paul testified that the “willing” to do good was in him, but the “doing” was absent (Rom. 7:18, NASB). He wanted to respond but had no ability. Terrible turmoil followed. Now he celebrates that God is at work in us both to “will” and to “do” (Phil. 2:13, KJV). The new birth provides not only new appetites but also new ability. The truth breaks in and sets us free to live a different lifestyle, empowered by the Spirit of God (see Rom. 8:1–4).
Union with Christ
All this comes from the wonder of our union with Christ. It is in Christ that we have been made alive (Eph. 2:5). We have been raised up with him (Eph. 2:6), so Peter celebrates and magnifies God’s grace: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3, NASB). As we were dragged down in Adam’s sin and death, so we have been raised to newness of life through Christ’s resurrection and triumph over death. We enjoy the spoils of his victory. We are partners with him in his conquest. His resurrection brings us new life.
A New Walk
Having been born afresh, we now need to learn to walk. No longer dead in trespasses and sins in which we formerly walked (Eph. 2:1, 2), now as “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand” (Eph. 2:10, NASB), we need to “walk in them,” no longer walking according to the course of this world (Eph. 2:2) but entering a new walk altogether.
It is not that we simply “let go and let God.” It is not that we simply let Jesus do it for us. The New Testament encourages us as new people to take appropriate action. Having received a new nature through the new birth, we are called to live out our new life. As new creatures, we are simply told not to present our members as instruments of unrighteousness (Rom. 6:13), so we don’t do it. We walk as new people.
In this new walk, the indwelling Spirit comes to our aid, stimulating fresh motives and granting fresh enabling. We are no longer simply left to ourselves with an external law urging us to conform. Ezekiel’s promise is that the Spirit within will “cause you to walk in my statutes” (Ezek. 36:27). He will empower. Paul added such a mighty promise, saying, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16). In the Greek, he actually uses what is called a double negative, something that English grammar forbids. It is emphatic. He forcefully promises us glorious freedom. We shall certainly not be overcome by the power of the flesh but enjoy the Holy Spirit’s releasing power. Fellowship with the Holy Spirit will bring ever-increasing reformation to the heart. We are enabled to walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4)—in newness of the Spirit, not in oldness of the letter (Rom. 7:6).
A New Slavery
The gospel promises true freedom, declaring us to be no longer slaves of sin. God has made us slaves of righteousness (Rom. 6:17, 18). We have been bought by Christ’s blood, ransomed out of our former slavery and brought into his glorious slavery. Owned by a completely new master, we are his slaves: out of one bondage and into another! We are slaves of righteousness with a new ownership.
We were formerly darkness but now are light in the Lord (Eph. 5:8). We have a new identity, and an internal transformation has taken place.
A New Identity
We must never underplay the magnitude of our new birth, our being a new creation. Some believers insist on calling themselves “sinners,” while the Scripture consistently calls us “saints”—holy ones. Of course, we continue to fight with the world, the flesh, and the devil, yet not as those essentially still sinners but as those regenerated, ransomed, and given new identity in Christ. If we insist on clinging to our unregenerate identity, we will find the battle so much harder. We are called to be holy as our Father is holy. If our identity is essentially “sinner” our calling will prove nigh on impossible. A pig may be very happy to be called a pig, contented with his identity. But if he is then told that his calling in life is to fly, he will become a very unhappy pig. Pigs don’t fly.
We have been raised with Christ to newness of life. We share in his resurrection triumph. The spoils of his victory are ours to appropriate. “Go tell my brothers” was his resurrection word (see John 20:17), not “go tell those pathetic failures.” He is not ashamed to call us brothers. We’ve been co-raised with him, are now co-seated with him, and are co-heirs to eternal glory: all this because of his victory and his grace to us. He won the battle alone, but he shares freely his resurrection life.
Regeneration or new birth or new creation must be regarded as a radical life-change. We must beware of using language which we don’t take seriously. In Christ’s resurrection from the dead, there began the new creation, and in God’s mercy we are part of it. We are a kind of firstfruits celebrating the wonder of resurrection life. The whole creation is straining on tiptoe to see the full revelation of the sons of God. Meanwhile, let us celebrate the wonder of what he has done and live as the new creatures that he has made us.