Conversion as a Newly Born Again Child of God

On February xv, 2015, I wrote a tweet in which I said, "Nosotros're born again in lodge for u.s.a. to repent & believe; & not that nosotros repent & believe in order to be born once again. Regeneration comes outset!" This acquired quite a stir and a lot of discussion ensured from it. 1 person asked me to explain and I promised to exercise then. This is what I am doing now.

Start, let us get our vocabulary direct. There are many words that are used both in the Bible and in normal Christian vocabulary to refer to the new birth. These are words like "born again", "built-in from to a higher place", "born of the Spirit", "given nascence to", "fabricated live", "regenerated", etc.  They all refer to the thing that nosotros are dealing with in this blog mail.

The new nascence secures conversion

The new birth is an act of God whereby he infuses spiritual life into spiritually dead sinners. Information technology is this spiritual life that enables sinners to sense the danger they are in (i.e. the wrath of God) and to encounter the sufficiency of the Saviour to save them from sin. These two realities become as truthful to them as the physical world that they encounter around them.

When a person senses his danger and sees the sufficiency of the Saviour, he subsequently repents from sin and calls upon the Lord Jesus Christ to save him. So, in the order of salvation the new birth precedes conversion (i.due east. repentance and faith). Rather, information technology secures conversion, which is something nosotros exercise. We repent. We believe.

The Bible too says, "As for you, yous were expressionless in your transgressions and sins… But because of his great love for u.s.a., God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions… For it is by grace you take been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:1-9).

This must be obvious. Without this deed of God, we cannot believe the gospel. The Bible says, "The human being without the Spirit does non accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:fourteen). A man must have the Spirit first in club to have the gospel message. This happens in regeneration.

In the Gospel of John, the Bible says, "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born non of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, only born of God" (John 1:12-13).

Detect the order. The ones who were given the legal right to become children of God are those who received Jesus Christ and believed in him. Yet, they were not born by a human conclusion. They were already built-in by a divine conclusion. They were born of God!

The analogy of physical nativity

The use of the give-and-take "nascency" in the Bible should be sufficient to convince usa of this order, that the new nascency precedes conversion and is not a product of conversion. Fifty-fifty in the physical world, we exercise not do something in order to be born. It is our parents who practise something that results in our conception and our birth occurs nine months later.

It is because a baby already has life that it cries for oxygen upon being given nativity to. We call it "the cry of life". This cry is inevitable because the babe is already alive. If a baby does not cry at birth information technology ways that it is born dead. It is not the cry of life that gives it life. It is because the baby is already alive that it cries.

This is why when Nicodemus asked whether he should enter his mother'south womb in social club to be built-in again, Jesus said that the new birth is not something a human being does. Jesus said, "Mankind can merely give birth to flesh. It is the Spirit that gives nativity to spirit" (see John 3:6). The new birth is something y'all feel, not something yous do.

And, every bit if that was not enough, Jesus went on to say that in this affair God is totally sovereign. We cannot predict whom he is going to give the new birth to. "The current of air blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, simply you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So information technology is with anybody born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).

The instrumentality of the Word

The means that God uses to bring about this new birth is the Word of God, the gospel of our conservancy. Thus nosotros read in James 1:eighteen, "He chose to give us nativity through the word of truth, that we might exist a kind of firstfruits of all he created" (NIV). It is a sovereign act of God ("he chose") but information technology is through the instrumentality of "the word of truth".

This is non something that only James taught. The apostle Peter says, "For you take been born once again, non of perishable seed, only of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God... And this is the word that was preached to you" (i Peter 1:23-25). Cipher can exist clearer than that!

Even an Arminian similar Charles Wesley believed and taught this when he wrote in his famous hymn, "O for a thousand tongues to sing".

      "He speaks, and listening to his voice,
New life the dead receive,
The mournful broken hearts rejoice,
The humble poor believe."

Detect the order. Jesus speaks. New life comes into sinners. We rejoice and believe. This is why salvation is all of grace. Information technology is because God makes us alive while we are dead (and cannot practice anything for ourselves). Then as a result of this being made live we are enabled to repent and believe. Salvation is the work of God and non of ourselves.

Some implications for preachers

Since God uses his Word every bit an instrument in his regenerating work, it does not render preaching irrelevant. We do not sit dorsum equally preachers and say, "Well, since God regenerates those whom he wills and whenever he wills to do information technology, at that place is no demand for us to preach the gospel." No! We pray to him before and afterwards nosotros preach that he may use the preached word to give life to the dead. When he does so, we know they will believe.

Since the new birth is an human action of God, it keeps those of us who preach the word of God apprehensive fifty-fifty when many people get converted through our ministry. We realise that the power to convert sinners is neither in u.s. nor in our preaching. As Paul puts it, "I planted the seed, Apollos watered information technology, merely God made it grow.  So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but just God, who makes things grow" (i Cor. iii:6-7).

Over again, since the new birth is a sovereign human activity of God, information technology keeps those of united states of america who preach the word of God from using tricks—dimming lights, playing music that can cause a rock to shed tears, etc. As Paul puts it in ii Corinthians 4:1-6, nosotros have renounced secret and shameful ways; nosotros exercise non utilise charade, nor do we distort the word of God.

On the contrary, nosotros know that (i) Our gospel is veiled to those who are perishing because the god of this historic period has blinded the minds of unbelievers and then that they cannot see the light of the gospel, and (ii) It is God who said, "Allow light shine out of darkness," who makes his calorie-free smooth in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the confront of Christ. So, all we do is to preach the gospel faithfully, pleading with sinners to be reconciled to God. God will infuse life into those whom he pleases to salvage!

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Source: http://www.conradmbewe.com/2015/04/the-new-birth-and-conversionwhat-comes.html

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