Daily Devotional

Regeneration

"Ye must be born again."
John 3:7

Charles H. Spurgeon

Regeneration is a subject which lies at the very basis of salvation, and we should be very diligent to take heed that we really are "born again," for there are many who fancy they are, who are not. Be assured that the name of a Christian is not the nature of a Christian; and that being born in a Christian land, and being recognized as professing the Christian religion is of no avail whatever, unless there be something more added to it.

Being "born again," is a matter so mysterious, that human words cannot describe it. "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." Nevertheless, it is a change which is known and felt: known by works of holiness, and felt by a gracious experience. This great work is supernatural. It is not an operation which a man performs for himself: a new principle is infused, which works in the heart, renews the soul, and affects the entire man.

Arrogance and Irrelevance

Born That Way

It never ceases to surprise how many Unbelievers fail to understand Christians and the Christian faith.  Clearly there are exceptions--some signal and helpful.  But most Unbelievers cannot escape the cocoon of their own Unbelieving perspectives.  When they confront Christians their arguments amount to a bewildered and annoyed "why can't you think and act like everyone else--that is, like us"?

Why indeed?  Homosexuality right now is a touchstone for highlighting the ignorance of Unbelief when it comes to the Christian position, doctrine, and teaching on homosexuality, in particular and sexual sin, in general.  Unbelievers almost universally assert that homosexuality is genetic: people cannot help be what they are born to be.  To oppose or resist homosexuality is as foolish and blind as opposing blue eyes or red hair.  They cannot conceive why Christians do not grant this.  They are take offence at Christians because they refuse to think in the categories and gratuitous assumptions of Unbelief.  A most bizarre situation.

We will attempt a Christian reply to such nonsense shortly, but firstly, here is an example of that which we speak.  The Guardian, ever a champion of Unbelief, carries a column by Peter Omerod on why discrimination against "Christian homosexuals" must stop!

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Ugly Dies 

Theology - Life in the Regeneration
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, 05 June 2012

George MacDonald once famously said that obedience is the great opener of eyes. But obedience has to come from an obedient heart, and in order to have obedient hearts, we must have new hearts. This brings us (yet again) to the foundational necessity of the new birth. Without that reality, there is absolutely nothing we can do to make the Christian life work. Whatever we try to make it work, without the new birth, we are like monkeys pushing buttons on a broken cash register. Nothing happens.

Can We Prepare Our Culture to Receive the Gospel?

[A powerfully prophetic call from J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937) for intellectual engagement in the culture as a means of pre-evangelism--Ed. Hat Tip: Justin Taylor]

We are all agreed that at least one great function of the Church is the conversion of individual men. The missionary movement is the great religious movement of our day. Now it is perfectly true that men must be brought to Christ one by one. There are no labor-saving devices in evangelism. It is all hard-work.

And yet it would be a great mistake to suppose that all men are equally well prepared to receive the gospel.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

One Vast Boneyard

Life in the Regeneration
Written by Douglas Wilson
Sunday, October 23, 2011

The end of October approaches, and as we mark and celebrate the great Reformation, our heart's desire and prayer should be for future historians to be able to describe it as the first reformation, as the small one. "Small" does not mean insignificant, but in this case it does mean early on. Eye has not seen and ear has not heard what God has prepared for those of us who love Him. As we emphasize the five solas (as we should), let us exult in the one which is the true intersection of all of them -- solus Christus.

Christ died for the world, and if we are to follow the apostle Paul's argument, this means that we have an obligation to see that world differently.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

No Root in Himself

Theology - Life in the Regeneration
Written by Douglas Wilson
Sunday, January 23, 2011

One of the reasons why we talk past each other on the question of apostasy is that we succumb to the common mistake of choosing which verses are the "clear" ones. A hermeneutical rule of thumb (quite a good one, I should add) is that unclear verses should be interpreted in the light of the clear ones. But however wise this is -- and it is wise -- we also have to distinguish between verses which are unclear, and verses that are excruciatingly clear but which conflict with the received interpretation.

It is this latter situation which causes Christians to arbitrarily dub these as the clear verses, and those other verses as the ones which must be massaged. On this question of apostasy, both Calvinists and Arminians do this. Calvinists take the verses outlining God's sovereignty at face value (which they should do), and explain away the apostasy passages. Arminians take the apostasy passages at face value, and explain away the glorious promises of a guaranteed perseverance. Thought experiment. What would happen if you took them all at face value? You would get in trouble with everybody, like the guy in the Civil War who tried to make peace by walking in between the armies with a blue coat and gray trousers.

The Bible emphasizes, through some of its illustrations, a certain continuity of type between the converted and unconverted covenant member. In the parable of the sower, the converted and unconverted both spring from the same seed, and they are both wheat. The Bible emphasizes, in other illustrations, a radical discontinuity of type between the two -- a sow that is washed is always a sow. Tares are not wheat -- they are an alien plant in the wheat field. We should take both kinds of illustration at face value. In one respect, there is a radical gulf between converted and unconverted covenant members, a gulf as wide as the distance between Heaven and Hell. In another respect, there is a shared covenantal identity of some sort. Fruitful and fruitless branches are found in the Vine, although the fruitless ones are not found there for long. Fruitful and fruitless branches are found in the olive tree of the true Israel -- although the only way to remain in that tree is by having the faith of Abraham.

So much is a statement of the problem. What is the solution to the problem? How can we take both kinds of passages at face value? There is only one way -- and that is by emphasizing, in its right biblical balance, the absolute necessity of the new birth for every last human being, not excluding those who are baptized Christians.

Even in the parable of the sower, note how Jesus explains the difference between different kinds of wheat. The wheat in rocky soil sprang up quickly. It sprang up from the seed that was sown. It was wheat, but it was wheat that died, wheat that did not persevere to the harvest. And why? Jesus says that it was because that man had "no root in himself" (ouk rhitzan en auto). This wheat did not have within itself something that the abundant wheat did have (Matt. 13:21). You must be converted to God.

Jesus told a teacher in Israel once that he needed to be born again. Israel today, the new Israel, is filled to overflowing with that same kind of teacher.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Your Doctrine is Too Small

Theology - Life in the Regeneration
Written by Douglas Wilson
Thursday, July 08, 2010

J.B. Phillips famously wrote the book Your God is Too Small, and I would like to do a little riff off of that. Your doctrine is too small.

What is that supposed to mean? Often particular Christian doctrines are set forth in a way that contains enough of the truth to annoy unreasonable people and not enough of the truth to answer the concerns and objections of reasonable people. Let's take three examples -- the sovereignty of God, the necessity of the new birth, and the potency of the Incarnation. In each case, when the doctrine is stated in its small version, the reaction is to fix the problem by reeling it in, by making it smaller.

When Jonathan Edwards was struggling with the doctrine of God's sovereignty, he found the solution where it ought to be. Learn to see God's sovereignty as "bigger than that." If the sovereign God is simply an omnipotent Zeus, contained together with us inside the universe that is, and he goes around making people do whatever he wants, then the freewillers are right -- he is just a bully. Not only are the freewillers right, they are often courageously right.

But the problem here is that he is seen as a bully because he is seen as too small, and it is no solution to make him smaller. A Calvinist (who has made this mistake) agrees that God is like this, but argues a theology of prudence. "Look, go along with the bully, wouldja?" The Arminian resists this, but does it by preferring to see the bully as a kinder, gentler Zeus. The end result of this business is a wimp subbed in for the bully. But the triune God of Scripture is the Creator of all that is, and there is a Creator/creature divide. To attribute exhaustive sovereignty to any entity on this side of that divide (apart from the humility of the Incarnation) is to ask for, and find, monstrosities in your theology. But the solution is not to be found by dragging the whole thing down to a religion just above tree top level. God dwells in the highest heavens. He does what He pleases, and what He pleases is righteous, holy, and good. 

While evangelicals have rightly seen the need to be born again, this too can be seen in a way that is far too small. If the old nature/new nature question is seen as a toggle switch somewhere down in your heart, and at some time in your life you have to pray a prayer that makes God flip that switch, and if you don't do that you are going to go to Hell, this truncated vision is going to lead to extreme sectarianism. Evangelicals will become star-bellied sneetches, and this one isolated experience is the point of their distinction. Lack of regeneration is seen as the switch in this position, and you have to have it in the "on" position. Now when people see the spiritual pride that often arises from this kind of thing, the temptation is to back away from the evangelical position -- well, maybe being born again is not all that it is cracked up to be. Regeneration is seen as too small, and the reaction is to make it smaller. The movement is from a message preached by a narrow hot-gospeler to a broad latitudinarianism that walks away from the little bit of truth that was there.

But when a man is born again, all of him is. Regeneration commences at the point of conversion, and this principle of new life then grows and spreads everywhere. Regeneration is not a little toggle switch, but is rather the main power breaker. And after it is flipped, there are still five thousand other switches to find and adjust before this new life spacecraft is ready to fly again. And that is what is happening -- we are readying a spacecraft to fly to the heavens. We are not changing a light bulb in the barn. Don't see regeneration as a little thing -- there is no way to do that and maintain the necessity of it without that position degenerating into a doctrine that insists that God has no sense of proportion whatever.

And, then, the Incarnation.  When the eternal Word of God became a man, He thereby honored the material world, and did so in a very permanent way. This has always been embarrassing to the Hellenistic mind -- this has been seen as a doctrine that maintains that God abandoned His spiritual dignity. No, this actually is the divine glory. But once the doctrine is stated, if it is limited to the body of Jesus, it remains too small. Incarnational heresies take something that is true as far as it goes, but is still too small, and then try to whittle away at it, making it smaller.

The orthodox should not try to hold the line by holding the line, but rather should move on to the other outlandish ramifications of this truth. If Christ is the groom, and the Church is His bride, His body, what does this mean? We have not understood the Incarnation unless we have come to understand that at some point in the proceedings, the incarnational power that God has placed in the world runs amok. And when it runs amok, this has ramifications for beer, sex, mowing the lawn, planting hedges, gravy, beekeeping, driving on the freeway, and diet soda. And no, those ramifications do not mean pantheism.

Just as grace does not mean antinomianism, but will always provoke charges of antinomianism, so also an understanding of the incarnation as God's reckless grace to the whole universe will provoke charges of some heresy or other. And perhaps some will veer off into those heresies, but it cannot be unorthodox to say that our orthodoxy has been too small, and that we need a whole lot more of it.

"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" (1 Cor. 2:9).