Jesus Saves! But How? PART 12 Regeneration

This is part 12 in the adult Sunday school series on salvation, from Sunday 15th March 2026.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day that you have made. We thank you that you are God, a God of kindness and power. You like to take dead things and make them alive. You like to take dead people and make us alive in and through the Lord Jesus. So please would you be our teacher? Instruct our minds, warm up our hearts with the good things that you give to those who love you. And we pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Please take a Bible up and turn to John chapter 3. John's Gospel and chapter 3. And in the Black Church Bibles, that is on page 887. Page 887 in the Black Church Bibles. John 3, I'm going to read verses 1 to 15. So let's listen to God's word. Now, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, You must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus said to him, How can these things be? Jesus answered him, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Thanks be to God for his word to us. Remember where we're going these Sunday mornings in Sunday school? Imagine that the Lord Jesus has treasure, he has obtained a treasure through his life, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension. He has a treasure. How do we, how do people like us receive his treasure, all that he has, how can we get hold of it? So that's what we're spending a number of weeks thinking about. And how it is that we benefit from what God has done for us in Christ. We thought last time about, and this was the funny phrase, the funny word we used, we thought about effectual calling and irresistible grace. So we thought about how it is that God powerfully summons people into a relationship with him. But here's a question: How do we respond to God's call? So God issues a call, not just to our ears, but actually to our hearts. How do we respond? Now, there's a really helpful quote to get us thinking about this. It's on the handout from John Murray. An effectual call must carry along with it the appropriate response on the part of the person called. It is God who calls, but it is not God who answers the call. It is the person to whom the call is addressed. So God issues a summons to a person, uh, says, Come to Christ. Come to Christ, receive all the wonderful fruits of everything that Jesus has done. But here is the problem, we we thought about it right back in the very beginning. We are totally unable. It would be easier to swim to the moon than for a person to bring themselves to Christ in response to the call of God. Outside of Christ, and apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, we're dead in transgressions and sins, we're enslaved to sin the world and the devil, and like it, and we are condemned. We are under the right wrath of God. So it is impossible for us unaided to answer the call of God, but it's not impossible for God. And this is the really wonderful thing. God enables us to respond to his call. So his call on someone's heart is an effectual call. It comes with power, intrinsic power. It is a grace that's irresistible. You cannot refuse it. It comes with the power to do exactly what God intends it to do. And this grace we're going to see is the grace of regeneration. That's what we're thinking about today. When God comes to a person with the gospel, the only right response is to repent and believe. Now, in order that we might repent and believe, God must regenerate us. And we're going to think about what that means. Such that our minds and our wills and our hearts can repent, you know, turn from sin and turn to Jesus and believe, embrace the good news of the gospel. And that that diagram in that box there is trying to show if you like the logic of this, there's an effectual call. God does this work, we are passive in it. Regeneration, that's what we're thinking about today. God does it, we are passive. But then, repentance and faith. This is our response. By the grace of God, we are active, very active, uh in repenting and believing. Now, all of those things are kind of glued together, they work together in the saving plan of God. We're actually sort of breaking them up and thinking about them over three weeks. We're just working through it quite slowly. So last time, the effectual call today, regeneration, and next week, um, God willing, repentance and faith. So we're talking today about regeneration or another way of putting it, and this is the Bible's way of putting it, being born again. Now, sometimes people sneer at the language of being a born-again Christian. I guess in culture it has connotations, doesn't it? Sometimes positive connotations, it sort of distinguishes between someone who's just a paper Christian and someone who's a real Christian. You take Jesus really seriously, you're a born-again Christian. Sometimes a born-again Christian is rather lampooned and mocked. Very simply, though, real Christians are born-again people. If you're not born again, by definition, you're not a Christian. So key words here: regeneration, being born again, the new birth, and elsewhere in the Bible, a new creation. Now, all of them, all of these words, these ideas, they convey the same point. A Christian is a new creature. There is a very, very big difference between someone who's not a Christian and someone who is a Christian. Or that person before they become a Christian and after they become a Christian. There is a radical difference. You can talk about being a new creation. It's almost like rewinding the clock back to the first page of the Bible, and there is darkness and there is nothing, and then there is something and there is life. It is that big an order of change. So we should not think about becoming a Christian in small ways. Now, top of the second side of the handout, there's a definition here, and we're going to try and unpack that as we go along. Regeneration is a sovereign work of God accomplished by his Holy Spirit. We are passive in the work of regeneration. By his spirit, God recreates the mind and affections of a person. As a result, that person is able to and will necessarily repent and believe the gospel. So that's what we're going to dig into. Think about some key Bible texts and what they mean. We just read Jesus' wonderful encounter with that man, Nicodemus. I love Nicodemus. You know, came to Jesus by night. He obviously wasn't an open inquirer into the things of God. Jesus was too hot to handle. He had to sort of sneakily come there. But Jesus unfolded to him really the answer to everything. Right at the centre of this encounter is chapter 3, verse 5. Jesus answered, I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. And when Jesus said that to Nicodemus, this was not coming from nowhere. Actually, he's preaching one of the core messages of the Old Testament, you know, summed up in Ezekiel chapter 36. I'll read those two verses. The Lord says, 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. Now, Nicodemus, he was a teacher of Israel. He was a student of the Old Testament. He should have understood this. He was mystified, though, wasn't he, when Jesus came to him and said, You must be born again. It just made no sense to him. He was blind. He actually needed to be born again, didn't he? In order that he might wrap his mind and his heart around what the Lord was saying. What was the Lord saying? Well, two things. First, born of water. Now that has to do with cleansing. It has to do with cleansing, being washed clean. It's to do with our past being dealt with. It's purification. Now, all through the Bible, uh, God is presented as holy, and our sin makes us unclean. And before a holy God, we need to be washed. And so this grace of regeneration, it must deal with us, it must cleanse us, it must cleanse us of our past, of our sins. And that cleansing is provided in regeneration. Now, when in John 3 we read about being washed with water, you know, some people have wondered, is this talking primarily and firstly about baptism? And the answer is sort of no and yes. No, he's talking about an inward work of regeneration, a washing clean of the heart. But indirectly, yes, in that one of the things that baptism is, is a sign and a seal of that washing. It's like an outward sign of this inward reality and need. Born of water, being cleansed. It's one of the most wonderful things about being joined in union with the Lord Jesus. All of the muck and filth that we are guilty of. We don't just sort of pick it up, but we are guilty of, washed away. But second, and connected to that, he must be born of the Spirit. And this is talking about a recreation. A whole new creature is being made here by the Holy Spirit. It's a work of the Holy Spirit. And it's a creation of divine character. This is a God-creating thing. We are sub-creatures, our sub-creators. We kind of create things in an indirect way. We don't create anything out of nothing. There is a kind of creation that only God can do. And this is one instance of it. And in the passage, uh Jesus compares this rebirth to the action of our parents, by which we were born. And his point is this you know, we did not choose to be born. So I don't know, imagine a baby pops out, looks around, and says, Well, I don't really fancy this. You know, it's March. I'll come back when it's summer. I'm off. I'll see you then. Doesn't work like that, does it? Okay, parents give us life. And it's a very simple illustration to show that we are passive in this work of regeneration. The business of being born of water and the spirit, it is done to us. Another illustration that the Lord Jesus uses is in verse 8. It's the wind. The Holy Spirit is like the wind. I mean, he is actually called the breath of God. And here the point is that he blows where he wills. We do not direct the wind. We don't go, we don't say north, uh wind, we'd like you to blow north tomorrow. And then uh tomorrow we'd like you to blow east. We are not in control of the wind. I don't know, wind energy, square brackets, eye roll. Anyway, we're just not in control of it. We're really not. God is entirely sovereign. He blows where he wills. And both of these aspects, you know, cleansing and recreating. Jesus is saying, okay, what the prophets promised, you know, Ezekiel 36, I now offer. It's an extraordinary thing that uh the Lord has done for us, isn't it? Top of the next side of the handout, I've put the a section from the start of the Westminster Confession, chapter 10, that speaks to this. It sort of pulls it all together. So if we're Christian people, this is us. God enlightens their minds spiritually and savingly so that they understand the things of God. He takes away their hearts of stone and gives them hearts of flesh, renews their wills, and by his almighty power turns them to what is good and effectually draws them to Jesus Christ. Yet he does this in such a way that they come most freely, being made willing by his grace. Now, this is what we long for, isn't it? For non-believing friends or family or neighbours or colleagues. And it's therefore what we pray for, and that's why we pray, isn't it? We cannot change someone's heart, we cannot change someone's will, mind, affections, but the Lord can. So we say, Lord, do it. You know, open up a door for the words in this person's heart. You know, give them ears that hear, give them a soft heart. Replace that stony heart, just like you did it for me. Let's go on and think about the who of regeneration. And we're going to use the rest of that uh chapter from the Westminster Confession just to structure this and help us. The who of regeneration, well, it is not because of anything in us. So we we do not regenerate ourselves, nor does God regenerate us because of something in us that in some way merits or answers to regeneration. So this effectual call is from God's free and special grace alone. We're saved by grace alone. Uh it's not 80% God, 20% us. It's not God looking at us and saying, You're not you're 90% a mess, but there's there's a bit of 10% goodness in there, so I'll do it. No. It is of God's free and special grace alone, not from anything at all that God foresees in man who's entirely passive in it, until being made alive and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is enabled to answer the call and embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it. So it's free and it's powerful grace. We're powerless until the Lord makes us new and enables us to respond. And it's that's the point at which someone goes, I really need Jesus. Okay, I Jesus has told me what I am like, I've seen what he is like, I really need him, I want him, and I'm gonna reach out and I'm gonna grab him. And there, that's the first act of the born-again will. Next, there is here hope for a very real grief. The next section in the Westminster Confession, which is a full and long theological document, though it's also much more than that, it might be a surprise to some of us. Here is the next uh section. Elect infants who die in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who works when, where, and how he pleases. So also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word. Now, the people who wrote the Westminster Confession, you know, Christians back in the 1640s, some of the most godly and wise Christian ministers there have ever been. They were of the Puritan movement, they were Puritans. They were not theology machines, they were also pastors, and they were human beings. And here is the point where theology and life meet. One of the contemporaries of the Westminster Confession was John Owen, a great Puritan preacher and theologian. He also buried ten of his eleven children in childhood. So when you write about the new birth, you do so in the context of real life. And these guys, uh, they lived in a world of massive infant mortality. They lived in a world of plagues, of warfare. So as they wrote these words, the English Civil War was raging in the background. You know, terrible, terrible death and carnage. So theology and life meet. They also knew well the reality of people who we would call, I don't know, in some way mentally disabled, so unable to uh respond to the outward calling of the ministry of the word. So they knew that reality uh just as we do. And in teaching us here about the doctrine of regeneration, they wanted to remind us that God helps those who cannot lift a finger to help themselves. So when we talk about the grace of God, the saving grace of God, there's almost no more powerful example than this. How could it be any more obvious that it's all of grace than with elect infants who die in infancy or mentally handicapped people who cannot respond to the outward preaching of the gospel? Now, salvation is in Christ, it's found in no other name, it's granted by the Holy Spirit wherever and whenever He wishes. And here is one of the wonderful graces of God. Keep going though, as we think about the who of regeneration. Regeneration is for no one who is not joined to Christ. So it's really important we see the positive, but also we must see the negative. There is no hope of life outside of Christ and outside of saving faith in him. So, although other persons who are not elected may be called by the ministry of the word, you know, you hear the word with your ears, and may experience some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never really come to Christ and therefore cannot be saved. So think of the parable of the soils. There are some people who experience something of the gospel, but they're not actually real Christians. Much less can men not professing to be Christians be saved in any other way, no matter how carefully they may order their lives by the light of nature and by the laws of whatever religion they profess, to assert and maintain that they may be saved in some other way. Way is very pernicious and is to be detested. So there is life in Christ and saving faith in Christ alone. Now, why does this matter? Sort of the so what of regeneration? Well, it is the source of all saving grace in us. So those things in this in this wonderful plan of salvation, those things that God enables us to do, repenting and believing, we can only do because God has regenerated us. Now, one place in which we see that in the Bible is in the letter of 1 John. So I wonder if you would just turn there for a moment. We're just going to skim very briefly through some references in 1 John. So we're right near the end of the Bible. So John, John, John, Jude, Revelation. So 1 John. And we'll start in chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3. And the point here is that God makes us new creatures so that we can repent and believe. And repentance and belief, it looks like different things. It looks like wonderful things. So 1 John chapter 3, in our Bibles, that is on page, what is it? 1022. 1022. Page 1022, 1 John chapter 3 and verse 9. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. And we'll come back to that verse in just a minute. Just look back a tiny bit. Chapter 2 and verse 29. And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears. That's 28, isn't it? I need new glasses. Verse 29. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. Go on into chapter 4 and verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Well chapter 5, verse 1. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. Chapter 5, verse 4. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. Chapter 5, verse 18. We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. They don't come from us, but we do them. They come from being born of God, being made new. Now just take the first of those references, which at first reading, it feels like a bit of a puzzle, doesn't it? 1 John 3 verse 9. Is it gone? No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. And you think to yourself, hold on, I sin. Okay, I sin. If you're a Christian, you sin. I'm telling you, you do. That's not being bruised, it's just fact. What is John saying? What is he meaning? And it's this there is a radical break with the power of sin in a Christian's life. There is a radical break with the power of sin in a Christian's life. A Christian person has been born of God, therefore we relate to sin in a different way. We're no longer under the mastery of sin. We're no longer under the dominion of sin. That's how the Apostle Paul would put it. That power over us has been broken. Now, till we get to glory and see Christ face to face, the vestiges of sin do remain. But the controlling power of sin over us has been broken. And it's the most marvellously liberating thing. We don't have to sin. We can sin less. We won't be sinless, but we can sin less by the grace and mercy of God. That little diagram at the bottom hopefully makes the same sort of what that same sort of point. God takes a will that is bound in sin. By his grace, he frees it and he recreates it. So that bit of me that uh chooses things, loves things, hates things. That's my will, that's your will. Well, through the grace and mercy of God, he makes it new. And God willing, next time we're going to think about repentance and faith, these fruits that flow from this wonderful tree of regeneration. Now, we've got uh we've got about 10 minutes. Why don't we take three minutes? Just turn to a neighbour, share something that's encouraged you, share any questions you've got, and then in a in a moment we'll take five, six minutes to try and field some questions together. Go for it. Yes, that's a great that's a great question. So uh Old Testament is Yeah, so Old Testament believers. So how does how does this work with you know the saints in the Old Testament? And I think the answer is they're they're saved in exactly the same way. There are there's only one way to be saved, yeah, through faith in the Redeemer and through the gift of the Holy Spirit of God, and they they exercised their faith. Um I suppose the outwards outwardly it looked a little bit different. They didn't trust in the cross of Christ, they they knew that redemption and atonement came through things like the sacrificial system, and that's where they went with their sins. Um and wonderfully, the the power of Christ on the cross, it it works back kind of retroactively as well as prospectively. So it's an a it's an amazing thing. So saved in exactly the same way. Um it says Abraham was righteous through his faith. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And so and when New Testament believers were told, right, let me show you what saving faith looks like, they go, all right, let's let's go to the Old Testament. Here's here's Abraham. It's not, and there's never been, there are two ways to be saved. Uh terrible mistake if you if you ever think, okay, Old Testament saints were somehow saved, maybe through grace and a bit of works. I sometimes wonder whether some of us think that. No, that's always and only by grace through Christ, through faith. Yeah. There's another question. Thank thank you. That's it that's a really good question. So under that third heading. Yeah, I'll repeat the question. So under the under the third heading, uh, the idea of you know elect infants, uh the mentally handicapped being regenerated, where do we get that from uh biblically? Is this just putting it really bluntly, is this just the sentiment of people who had lived very up close and personal with this? And we're just sort of I wish this were so. Yeah, okay, just a just a couple of just a couple of pointers on that. Firstly, just take infants for a minute. God saves infants not because they are infants, but because of his mercy. That's the first thing to say. In every single person from conception, we are in Adam. Okay, we are we are in Adam. So Psalm 51, from my mother's womb I am sinful. Okay, so so we are we are all in need of a redeemer. There is nothing sort of intrinsically innocent about children, there just isn't, because we are all born in Adam. So if anyone is saved, it is because of the mercy of God. Second, that there are a few scriptures that I think help us uh very much, actually. You have the uh example of a couple of individuals, you know, John the Baptist, the prophet Jeremiah. There are very clear indications that the Holy Spirit was in work, was at work in them, even in utero. Now we could say that they are special cases given the offices to which God called them, but at the very least, that would show that this is not an impossible work for God. And then elsewhere in scripture, you read things like 2 Samuel 12, 23, which is a really interesting scripture. So it's King David, uh he's committed adultery, uh, the child born to Bathsheba becomes exceedingly ill, and he is distraught, and then he uh dies, the child dies. And David's response, well, his his servants think he's going to kill himself, they're very fearful, actually. And what happens? Uh, well, he says this: While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live? But now he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not, but he will not return to me. And when you contrast that with his his dismay at the the death of his adult son Absalom, who apostasized, he gave up on the faith, he walked away, and he was absolutely distraught because he knew that that is the road of death. But with this little one, okay, I will go to him. He was very confident that there was life for this little one. And it fits with other bits of scripture that actually describe for us what the church down the centuries has called um infant faith. So you can't you can't be saved without faith. A child cannot exercise full, sort of a full active faith, but you do read uh scriptures like um Psalm 71, uh verses 5 and 6. You know, upon you I have leaned from before my birth. And that has to mean something. It doesn't mean nothing, it's got to mean something. Upon you have I leaned from before my birth. And the church, down the centuries, as it's looked at these scriptures and the kind of God who speaks them, has reasoned very much that actually, you know, for say take a Christian family who loses a little one, uh, the only word that God would speak is a word of hope. And it's not beyond the bounds of a Holy Spirit who blows where and when he wills to save that little one. So those, I guess those would be the kinds of uh scriptures that would point us in that direction. Um, if you wanted to read a fairly heavyweight chapter on this, just Google um uh what is it? Uh turretin, seed of faith. So turretin, t-u-r-r-e-t-i-n, turretin, seed of faith. And um you'll find a chapter. He was a he was two on from Calvin in Geneva, and they he wrote very very carefully on this. Go on. Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, the the greater knowledge, the greater responsibility. So, some people, the Bible would say them, they don't know their left hand from their right hand. Yeah, it's a sort of uh a kind of very limited moral responsibility. Last word, brother, go for it. Yeah. Doesn't he pop up again at the end of um end of John's Gospel? I'm pretty I'm pretty hopeful about Nicodemus. There'll be lots of wonderful surprises in heaven, but I think there will be good reasons for yeah, that he was he was, you know, by the grace of God, yeah, he was he was regenerated, his eyes opened, and yeah, we we find we find him there at the end, I think. Shall I pray? Let me pray. Father, um, we've thought of wonderful things, um, your work in taking the dead and giving life, and we pray that in this we would find much joy uh and encouragement. Uh we pray for our praying as we think about um a world around us full of many dead people, and we pray for you kindly to grant uh life to the dead and to use us in that. And we ask that for your son's name's sake. Amen.