Regeneration—a Primer
Summer 2022
The personal nature of salvation begins with God choosing His people individually, before time began. “For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand… As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” (Romans 9:11-13). We also know that Christ’s death had the individual believer in view. Paul can speak of the “Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
In time, we come to know the grace of God when God works in our hearts individually. This work is regeneration. For any man or woman to be saved he or she must be born again. “Jesus answered and said unto [Nicodemus], Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Christ says we must be born again. It is vital that we understand the rebirth and assess our experience in light of God’s Word.
Sin has so impacted man that he cannot effect the change necessary to be saved and enter the kingdom. “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him…” (John 6:44). Indeed, the sinner is dead in sin and must be made alive, i.e. born from above. “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)” (Ephesians 2:5).
One result of this new life is faith. Faith is like the first breath of the newborn. We leave our sin and trust in Christ alone. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born… of God” (John 1:12-13).
The Holy Spirit is the One who effects this change. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit… The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:6+8).
The Spirit uses the Word. “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures” (James 1:18). “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23).
This rebirth radically changes the individual. The new heart that we are given in our new birth is a heart that loves the law of God. “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you… And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
What happens when an individual is born again? He hears the Word of Christ. He believes that Word to be true and gladly trusts Christ to save Him. That starts him on a path of happy obedience to the Word of God. He is saved and lives in hope of heaven. The newborn believer says with Peter, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3-4).
Rev. Stephen Pollock (Editor)