The Bible’s teaching about how Jesus’ death provides us salvation from sin and death is pictured in ‘parable’ comparisons to things in our everyday life. “The work of Christ is kinda like when . . . .”
The picture of Regeneration is seen as the starting point of our faith journey. When God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, it made him a living soul. Eve was likewise shaped into form and made alive as a separate being.
But when they sinned against God’s wisdom, love, and command, they died. It was not immediately a physical death, but they lost the life of God. They were designed to live on God’s life and now were dead in sin. All of their descendants are born in this spiritually dead condition.
New Life Given by God
Jesus said in John 3:3, “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Regeneration is the picture of God putting his life into us from above. The popular use of “born again” as someone rebranding themselves is never what it means in the Bible.
The image of rebirth comes from the mystery of new life coming into existence in a newborn baby. It compares salvation to the begetting and birthing that generates life in reproduction. In human physical reproduction the father begets or plants the sperm that fertilizes the egg in the mother's womb. The Bible uses the words both of begetting and of bearing in drawing this picture. Bible references to becoming "children of God" are related to this picture.
In the spiritual reality there is no hint of sexual activity. Nor is there a hint that spiritual rebirth includes a gestation period of waiting between the begetting and the birthing. It is a contrast to physical reproduction, as much as it is a comparison. The similarity is that new life begins in the image of the Father.
Those of us who have experienced this birth from above know we are children of God, even if we don’t comprehend the mechanics of it.
The word and the doctrine of being born again tell us that God the Holy Spirit plants spiritual life into us, where there was not any life before. Like our physical birth, we bring nothing to our spiritual birth. God does it.
Elaboration of the Picture
The “seed” of the new birth is described in 1 Peter 1:22-25 as the word of God, written in the Bible. When we hear the good news and understand it, the life of God is planted. Ephesians 1:13-14 confirms that hearing the good news and responding in faith is connected to the work of the Holy Spirit guaranteeing our spiritual life.
The work of regeneration is not based on or accomplished through any good works of our own. Titus 3:4-7 emphatically attributes it to the work of the Holy Spirit alone. This scripture also relates the new birth to other salvation concepts that we will look at separately: cleansing, renewing, justification, adoption.
Regeneration is authorized to those who receive Jesus and believe on his name, according to John 1:12-13. But the birth is not the result of a human choice or any natural process. We can only be born of God.
Most of our specific teaching about regeneration comes from the New Testament writers. But we know that it happened to God’s people throughout the Old Testament times. Jesus, in talking to Nicodemus in John 3, expected him to know about regeneration. No one can have salvation without being born again.
Zephaniah 3:9 gives us a clue about how it was understood prior to the coming of Jesus into the world. “I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that they may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord.” God’s breath is given to people who are spiritually dead, enabling them to have his life. Those who have his life can respond to him with pure speech. The speech that responds to God is “calling on the name of the Lord.”
This phrase (calling on the name of the Lord) echoes through the ages and the pages. From the lifetimes of Adam and Eve, throughout the Old Testament scriptures, and into the church era, calling on him is the faith confession that saves sinners.
Moses in Deuteronomy 30 and Paul in Romans 10 both indicate that (1) the ability to believe is put into the heart and (2) the breath to confess is put into the mouth, enabled by a new God-given life. Faith is our response to that ability.
Regeneration is God’s way of putting life where it was not before. Kinda like when a new person comes into existence as a baby. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1).
So beautiful & helped me very much! Thank you!