Order of Salvation - 4. Regeneration

or the Order of Salvation. Hopefully it'll help you follow along well. Thus far in our series, we've looked at the doctrine of election, which I defined as God choosing some for salvation before the foundation of the world. We also took a week to think about free will and what does that even mean? And basically, I said, well, our will is free in the sense that we're free to choose according to our desires. We make real, willing choices. But scripture repeatedly emphasizes the way that our will is bound, in that our hearts were corrupted by sin from the fall. So our desires are perverted and distorted. And so scripture emphasizes the way that we are slaves of sin. Then next we talked about the gospel call. So the next item in this order of salutis, And I divided that further into general calling, which is the free offer of salvation to anyone who repent and believe in Christ. And then there's effectual calling, which is the spirit causing someone to respond positively to the gospel. It's the Spirit of God using the general call, typically the preaching of the gospel, but the Spirit of God using those words to speak powerfully and effectually to someone to bring about a response. I think a good picture of this would be Jesus speaking to Lazarus as he lies dead in the tomb. Lazarus, come forth. Or we looked at John chapter 5 verse 25 last time where Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the son of God and those who hear will live. So his voice will be heard and effectually call people forth to faith and salvation and life in him. And I just briefly mentioned last time how experientially, I think this is especially evident in the case of the person, maybe they've heard the gospel a thousand times, but then suddenly, finally, they believe. And you ask, well, why did you believe at this time? And many times people will say things like, it was like I was hearing it for the first time. Or they'll say something like, it was like I couldn't help but respond. There was this new power, this persuasiveness. It was just like, in light of everything that Jesus has done for me, how could I not follow him? That's the effectual calling of God. Now, today we're gonna look at the next item in the Ordo Salutis, which is regeneration. You'll see there listed under at conversion. And this thing at conversion, that whole list, these things are all things that happen simultaneously in time, but there's a certain logical dependence. So there's a reason for the order. It's not a chronological ordering, as if there's time gaps between, but there's a logical ordering. And so when we talk about regeneration, If effectual calling is God calling someone forth to himself, well then regeneration explains why that person would suddenly become willing to come to Christ. In other words, it's the means through which effectual calling works, or at least a key part of those means. So maybe to illustrate this, that'll be helpful. Last week I used a buoy illustration. So if you imagine that you're on a boat and your boat sinks, and you're on the ocean, and then you drown, and you're just floating there dead in the ocean, and then the Coast Guard shows up and they try to rescue you, you know, they throw you a buoy. Well, the Coast Guard in that illustration would represent the evangelist. The buoy would represent Jesus. Grabbing hold of the buoy would represent faith. And the general call of the gospel is like the Coast Guard yelling, grab the buoy. But of course the problem is if you're dead, you're unresponsive, right? That alone is not going to evoke a change or a response. Effectual calling would be if the Spirit of God somehow used the words, grab the buoy, to actually speak to you. and cause you to hear and respond, right? It's powerful and effectual. But how does it happen? You know, how is it that the spirit actually would cause his word to be heard and responded to by a dead person? Well, it's enabled through the miracle of regeneration, which at least in that illustration I just had, it would be you being brought to life. so that suddenly you can hear, you can realize the danger you're in, and you can respond by grabbing hold of the buoy. The only difference is that when we're talking about regeneration, we're not talking about a physical resurrection, but a spiritual one. And so what is regeneration? Well, I've defined it as an inward work of the spirit producing a new heart and new spiritual life. And where do we see this in scripture? Well, just very briefly, I'm gonna highlight three passages. There's actually a lot more we could look at, but I think these three are a good starting point. We see that scripture talks about this God-giving of a new heart. In Ezekiel chapter 36, verses 24 to 27, God says, I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. I will cleanse you and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. So in other words, in those verses, we find out that the people of Israel were previously characterized by hearts of stone, hearts that were cold, dead, hard. spiritually unresponsive that that's why they had broken the covenant and found themselves exiled to Babylon and Ezekiel here is saying that God will one day replace those hearts of stone and his covenant people with hearts of flesh hearts that are living spiritually sensitive and responsive and And he says the result of this is that they will be careful to walk in God's statutes and obey his laws. And as you read through that text, in fact, if you read the whole chapter, you will hear again and again, I, and it's God speaking. I will take you. I will sprinkle you. I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart. I will cause you to walk in my statutes. It's emphasizing this is a great and a mighty sovereign work of God. So this promise of a new heart points to regeneration. And interestingly, Jesus himself very likely is referencing that text when he begins speaking of a new birth in John chapter three. So, you go to John 3, especially verses 3-8, this is Jesus speaking with Nicodemus, and in that conversation it says, 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 to be born? Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, and there's been a lot of debate, okay, what does he mean by water and the Spirit? I think most likely he means the water and the Spirit that Ezekiel 36 was talking about, where God said, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and I will put my Spirit in you. I think that's probably what Jesus is referencing. Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. And then Jesus says, 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 it 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. Right? So Jesus says there, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. All of us are born of the flesh. But then he says, but there are those who are born again of the spirit, right? There's this new birth, which is pointing to a miraculous beginning of spiritual life. You know, apart from this new birth, we have the hearts of stone. We are spiritually dead and unresponsive. We, we can't even see the kingdom. Jesus says, nonetheless, enter it. But there is this new birth given as a gift of the Spirit. And once again, Jesus emphasizing God's power and His initiative here. First, I think He does that just through the metaphor itself. The idea of, you need to be born again. I mean, we all know that we did not cause ourselves to be born in the first place. That was something we were just passive in. And so if we are to be born again, well, it doesn't give you the idea. This is something you cause. It's something that happens to you. It's God's work, God's initiative. And then I think Jesus explicitly says that in these comments about the wind. So he says at the end there that the Spirit's regenerating work is like the wind that blows where it wishes. God, in the power of his Spirit, is the one who blows where he wishes, who regenerates whom he wills. We don't know where he comes from or where he goes. We just hear the sound and see the effects by seeing the transformation of lives. And then very briefly, a third passage that I want to draw your attention to. This is the one place where the actual word regeneration is used. And so we see that regeneration is a new beginning. This is Titus 3 verse 5. We read there that God saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. Now the Greek word there that gets translated as regeneration is a compound word in Greek. that takes the word palen, which means again, and then genesis, which means beginning. So it's literally an again beginning, you know, a new start. And it's described as the washing of regeneration. I think this is a picture of the inner corruption of our heart being washed away. There's an inward renovation and restoration that's taking place. That's why when we think about regeneration, we think about how we are new creations in Christ. We're not who we used to be. God has done something radically new in giving us a new heart, a new birth, a new beginning, a new life. Regeneration is an inward work of the spirit producing a new heart and new spiritual life. Any questions about the definition or just what regeneration is? Yes. So is, I don't know that you've really addressed it specific or directly yet, but is this the idea that God has changed us before we can make a profession of salvation, or make any effort of faith. Yeah, so we'll get to this a little more explicitly when we think about the results of regeneration. But yes, I would say regeneration is, again, the illustration of someone floating dead, not responding. Regeneration is this gift of spiritual life that makes us responsive, that changes our very will. Before, we didn't want Christ. We loved sin. And now, after regeneration, we have a new love for God, and we run to Christ. We willingly embrace him because of this. Yeah. Katie? But this is distinct from what the Bible calls renewing our minds, right? Great question, yeah, so, yeah, theologically, typically, when we're talking about regeneration, we mean sort of a one-time instantaneous work that happens at conversion. So this is a one-time thing that happens in a moment that, Again, there's not a time gap. It's not like you're regenerate, and then sort of months pass, and then one day you believe in Christ. Regeneration is happening simultaneously with repenting and believing in Christ. Then, of course, we'll talk about sanctification, which, as believers, we still need to grow. But, yeah, this is a momentary thing. Good question. like gospel of restoration of the idea that the whole point of Christianity is that we are restored to God, is the regenerative the same term saying that we are now restored to God, that we can pursue sanctification, or is this a separate topic? I'm not sure, I guess I don't have enough context about sort of what all maybe is behind the word gospel of restoration. It's certainly true that the gospel is a holistic restoration of us to God and so this is a key part and so we'll talk about like justification and the importance and centrality of that but yeah this this God is actually transforming us and regeneration is I think the initial kind of decisive change but then we'll talk about there's this whole process of sanctification that climaxes in our glorification when that process is kind of completed. But yeah, is that helpful? Yeah, no, I was just trying to look up, or trying to think of this like a, if I'm thinking of two different theologies that I need to fix. OK, yeah. Alright, well let's look next at, just think a little bit more about the results of regeneration. I've already said that it produces a new heart and new spiritual life, but what exactly does regeneration result in? The first thing we see is that regeneration results in a hatred of sin. We know that before we're regenerate. I mean, fundamentally we love sin. That's why we don't repent and follow Christ. But, but in Ezekiel 36 verse 31, right after God says, I'm going to give you a new heart, listen to what he says. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good. And you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. There will be a new attitude towards sin that is produced by this new heart. And so this is why regeneration actually produces repentance. It produces a turning away from sin because we don't love the sin that we used to. We now hate it. A second thing that regeneration produces is spiritual understanding. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul talks about how there's a veil over unbelievers' hearts. In 1 Corinthians 2, he says that the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he's not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned. The one who's born of the flesh, the one who's natural only, doesn't receive, doesn't understand, just views it as foolishness. But then Paul says, now we, believers, have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. Instead of the gospel being foolishness to us, it becomes the very power and wisdom of God, as God changes our heart, which enables us to see and understand with spiritual eyes, truly, for the first time. A third thing, regeneration results in a willingness to trust in Christ. In Acts 16, verse 14, we looked at this last week, thinking about effectual calling and Lydia, but there it says, the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And it's a fascinating verse, because you have the gospel call, you have Paul preaching, And then you have the Lord effectually using that gospel call to call Lydia to himself, but how does he do it? By opening her heart. I think that's another picture of regeneration. He opens her heart to be receptive and then to be willing to actually trust in Christ. Similarly, in John chapter 6, in verse 44, Jesus says, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, right? None of us are willing to come to Christ unless God does something first. And then in John 6, 37, he says, all that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. So there's a reference to all the Father has given me, and this, we talked about election, there's some that God has chosen, He has given them to His Son. And Jesus says all of them will come to Him. Well, why? Well, He already told us in verse 44, He says, because the Father draws them. We wouldn't come if the Father didn't draw us, but the Father does draw us. And how does the Father draw us? Well, it's through effectual calling and regeneration. Through this inward renovation and change of our heart. And then fourth and finally, regeneration results in love for God and obedience. We already saw this in Ezekiel 36, how God says, I'm going to put a new heart and spirit in you and cause you to keep my statutes and obey me. Also in Titus chapter 3, listen to the flow of that. In verse 3, Paul picks up saying, For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy. hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. Right? And so the point here is he's saying, look, before you knew Christ, you were slaves of sin. You lived in all of these evil ways, but now you're not. Why? Well, because God saved us by his mercy and grace through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. Regeneration has washed us. It's changed us within so that we're not slaves of sin like we used to be. Now we actually love God and obey him at least much differently than before. So that's what regeneration results in. Any questions about any of those things or other questions about regeneration itself? All right, well if not, I do wanna spend at least the time we have left Think about application tonight. And I have two application questions in particular. The first is, how should understanding regeneration affect our approach to evangelism? David? It's just on us to share the gospel. We don't have to feel a weight of being witty or quick or perfect. Yeah. Great. Amen. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. Yeah, we share with everybody indiscriminately because, yeah, it's not like I can predict, well, this person, they seem responsive, that person, their heart's too hard. No, it's a miracle for anyone. Yeah, yeah. Amen. Good. Other thoughts? How does this apply? We don't have to, kind of similar to what David was saying, we don't have to do, because God is sovereign in it, we don't have to do, like, carnal things. Yeah, yeah Yeah, I mean it it's really gonna reorient What we're relying on for effectiveness in evangelism but like if I think that you know this person's decision to accept or reject Christ is Sort of fundamentally the same kind of decision that they make when they decide to buy this car and not that car this house and at that house well If that's how I think it works, I mean, just think about, OK, what's going to make this effective? Well, I'm going to think, man, I can learn a lot from marketing strategies. Maybe if we play the right music or we kind of are emotionally compelling enough, like we can sort of get them to make the right decision. Maybe if we do some statistical tests and we try a bunch of different approaches and we just compare them, we can kind of figure out what works the best. I mean, all of that makes a lot of sense if it's just a matter of making a decision like any other decision of life. On the other hand, I think regeneration, if we understand that, we're really going to go forth as evangelists, viewing ourselves kind of like Ezekiel in the Valley of the Dry Bones. It's like, can these bones live? Lord, you know. In that situation, I'm not going to be very optimistic that any of my own creativity or winsomeness or any of those things are going to make the difference. I'm going to realize it's ultimately in God's hands. And therefore, it doesn't mean what I do is irrelevant. What it means is what matters preeminently is I just need to be faithful to doing exactly what God says. That's what I'm going to hope in that's going to produce effectiveness. I'm just going to say, okay, God, you tell me in your word, what do you want us to do? And we're going to trust that if we just do that, you know, proclaim the truth of your word. We love people sacrificially like you call us to. We try to live a life that's holy, that would accurately reflect the gospel. We try to love one another and be a church that is like the New Testament commands. Well, we're gonna trust that those are the things that God is gonna bless, that God is gonna use to save, because he's the one who does it. And then I think related to that, We understand the need for regeneration. I think it should make us especially dependent on prayer. If you think at the end of the day it's just a matter of sort of the free human will, well yeah, then there's a lot of other things that you can kind of rely on to try to make the difference. But on some level, why even pray? It's like, Lord, we pray that you would just respect this person's freedom and let them make the choice that they really want. No, when we pray, it's like, God, please save them. Lord, please change their mind, open their eyes. That's how we pray, because we're looking to Him to intervene. And I think understanding regeneration actually motivates us to say, We want to be especially given to prayer because we think God is the one who saves. Any other thoughts about that application point? That is a great question. And kind of transitioning into this next application question, which is, how should understanding regeneration affect our approach to sanctification? And I think in an important sense, the answer to that would be yes. I mean, Jesus says, you know, he who sins is a slave of sin, but if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I mean, he's saying you're not gonna be enslaved to sin anymore in the way you were if I set you free. So yeah, I think the answer to that would be yes. And how should that affect our approach to sanctification? Katie? Well, from what you were just saying, maybe you can give the passage in relation to I think where he says, yeah, but do not use your freedom, you know, for evil, but like use it, you know, to love one another. And so now that we've been given this freedom, acting out of gratitude to God and using it to glorify God. Yeah. Amen. It gives us hope for change. Yeah. Which we desperately need. Right. Amen. Yeah, I mean, it affects the way we think about our identity. Like, do we view ourselves as sort of fundamentally, I am a totally depraved sinner? I mean, if that's where we stop, that's probably how we're going to live. But I think in many places in the New Testament, Paul reminds us, no, you're a saint. Like, you are not who you used to be. Your heart is new. God has actually changed you. Now, that doesn't mean that we're not gonna be tempted to sin. It doesn't mean we don't still have the flesh that is dragging us down, but we can live differently. We're not a slave of sin like we used to be, and therefore, there should be sort of an optimism. Like, I can grow in Christ. This is a foundation on which sanctification is built, right? We can grow in our sanctification because we've been regenerated. We have a new heart. One thing related to this, I've got a couple questions about it. We've learned about, Keith has preached on it recently, about good trees produce good fruit, bad trees produce bad fruit. What is the Christian? Well, I think in an important sense, in regeneration, we are transformed from a bad tree to a good tree. Now, there's a little bit more complexity there because we also have the flesh and our heart is not totally perfect, I think it's sort of looking forward in glorification, we will be a truly, perfectly good tree. But even now, I mean, our heart of hearts is good if we're a Christian. That's what regeneration has done. And in an important sense, when we choose sin, we are sort of acting out of character. We're leaning into these competing desires that should not be the desires that control us anymore. God has begun a new work. So regeneration means that we have no excuse for just continuing in sin. We can't just be comfortable living a life of sin, but also the option, we don't have to live in sin. We can live new lives because of that. So we've, Come to a time now, so I'm gonna go ahead and close in prayer, but I'd love to continue talking with any of you offline more about this. Let's pray. Oh God, we do praise you tonight for the miracle of regeneration, the gift of new life that you give through the power of your spirit and all based on the work of Christ. on the cross and in his resurrection. Lord, we pray that you would give us grace to walk in that truth and to be bold, faithful evangelists because of that. And Lord, we do just thank you again for this time. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.