God Loves… Himself

John 1:13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” James 1:21 Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.

Human beings are born with a nature. Scripture tells us several things about what that nature is, which should teach us something about what must happen to a human being for that human being to be converted. We also know that Paul spoke of a believer (one in Christ) as a new creature (II Cor 5:17). So if a person is born with one nature and then in salvation one is a new creature, this tells us something vitally important regarding salvation. The salvation of a human being is not because a person makes a choice, but it is when God changes the nature and heart of that individual. A person without Divine creative power cannot give self or anyone else a new nature, but the new nature is vital to being a true believer. This is the work of God.

John 8:44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 “But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.

Jesus was speaking to the most religious people of His day (on earth) and He was quite clear as to a real problem with them that they did not want to accept. In the Garden when Satan deceived Adam and Eve and they fell into sin, all fallen creatures were now seen as the seed of the serpent. Enmity was put between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, and that enmity was seen in the first murder (Cain and Abel) and then throughout the history of Israel coming to be a nation and then during the history of that nation.

The Pharisees thought of themselves as the elect because they were born Jews and not Gentiles, but also because they followed the Law (at least in their own minds). When Jesus told them that their father was the devil and that they did the desires of the devil, they would have been utterly shocked. Jesus then went on to say why they were children of the devil and described the devil to them:

1. They did the desires of their father
2. Their father was a murderer (and a few verses later they tried to kill Jesus)
3. Their father did not stand in the truth
4. Their was no truth in their father (Jesus was the Truth and they hated Him)
5. Their father told lies and those lies came from himself
6. Their father was a liar and the father of lies (and the Pharisees lied a lot about Jesus)
7. The Pharisees did not believe Jesus precisely because He spoke the truth (like their father the devil)

The absolute and utter necessity of regeneration is set out with stark clarity in looking at the Pharisees and the nature of the Pharisees (who were like the father of their nature, the devil). Believers are to seek the will of God and to pray for His will to be done. How can one be changed from doing the desires of the devil to doing the will of God? The only way is by regeneration and a change of nature. How can one be changed from a murderous (hating) heart to one of love? The only way is by regeneration and a change of nature. How can one be changed from one that does not stand in the truth to one that loves the truth? The only way is by regeneration and a change of nature. How can one be changed from one that there is no truth in him to one have Jesus the Truth taking His throne in that heart? The only way is by regeneration and a change of nature. How can one be changed from being a liar to one who loves truth even at personal costs? The only way is by regeneration and a change of nature. How can one be changed from being one who does not believe Jesus because He speaks to the truth to one who loves to hear Jesus because He speaks the truth? The only way is by regeneration and a change of nature.

No one can be converted apart from a change of nature. Human beings are born as children of the devil and they live like the devil even when they are moral and attend church (as demonstrated by the Pharisees). People must not be content to attend church and be moral, but rather they must be born from above and this must happen by the grace and power of God. The Gospel is perverted when regeneration is not stressed and taught. It is that important and it is that vital. Morality and correct doctrine will not change a heart, only God can.

John 1:13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” James 1:21 Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.

When Jesus uttered the words to Nicodemus that one must be born again, His words were universal in nature and stated an absolute must. His words did not say what human beings can do, but instead they pointed human beings to what must happen to them. His words do not include the possibility that this is something that may happen but does not really have to happen, but instead they declare an absolute necessity. In the modern day it appears to be the popular stance by far to dismiss these words or try to get around them, but that is to do nothing more than twist the words of Scripture which is the Word of God.

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

If we look with some degree of care and thought at the words of Jesus, the absolute and utter need of regeneration stands out in with extraordinary clarity. The first two words that Jesus spoke in answer to Nicodemus (“truly, truly”) clue us in that He is about to say something that needs to be listened to. The word “truly” is used 85 times in the New Testament with all but two of those used in the Gospels. Of the remaining 83 times, all but one is used by Jesus. No other writer by John records Jesus in the double “truly, truly” and he does so 25 times in the Gospel of John. However, each time Jesus is stating something of vital importance. When Jesus started off a statement with “truly, truly,” it was time to pay close attention to what He said.

After Jesus, who was the Truth, told Nicodemus and all who follow to wake up and pay attention (by saying “truly, truly”), He then said “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This points to an absolute necessity of what must happen to a person if the person was going to see the kingdom of God and then enter the kingdom. In John 3:5 Jesus uses the “truly, truly” again to point to the need to be born again to enter the kingdom. Here is a very literal translation of what Jesus said: “If not the begetting from above, you have no ability/power to see the kingdom of God.”

While we live in a world that rushes from point A to point B and does not take the time to think deeply, this verse requires us to look at it and think deeply for a period of time. We have in these words of Jesus a basic if…then statement. Then point of this type or form of statement is to put the stress upon what must happen for something else to happen. But the point is that the “if” statement must happen for the “then” condition to happen. For example, if you want to lift heavy weights, then you must train with heavy weights. Again, if you want to get very good at basketball, then you must practice basketball. Jesus, however, put it in a negative form. He said that if you are not born from above, then you have no ability/power to see or enter the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus tried to tell Jesus that he knew that Jesus was a teacher sent from God because of the signs (miracles) that He had done. Jesus, then, was telling Nicodemus that he could not see the kingdom of God though he (Nicodemus) had viewed the miracles and saw that Jesus was a man sent from God. There is a spiritual sight and a spiritual entry into the kingdom and those will only happen to those born of the Spirit. Nicodemus was befuddled to hear that he was not in the kingdom of God and that his natural birth as a Jew was not enough. The point, however, is that regardless of a person’s status in the outward things of religion, a person absolutely must be born from above and by the Spirit to have a spiritual sight and entrance into the kingdom of God. No one has any spiritual ability or power at all unless that person has been born of the Spirit of God. When Jesus used the word that is translated as “cannot”, He chose the word that has the idea of capability, ability, or power. It sets out the clear and unmistakable teaching that no one has any power or capacity to see or enter the kingdom of God unless that person is born from above (by the Spirit). The new birth is an absolute and utter necessity. Jesus made it quite clear that it was and is an absolute and utter necessity. No one should be deceived and think otherwise.

John 1:13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” James 1:21 Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.

The doctrine of regeneration cannot possibly be overstated in terms of its importance. Unless a person is born again (from above, regenerated) that person will spend eternity in everlasting torment. Preachers can go on and on about how a person should pray a prayer or walk an aisle, but that is really more deception than truth. According to Jesus, as He was speaking to a person who was part of the religious elite of the day, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This great truth must be declared to people because this is an absolute must for each and every soul. As long as people think they can just say a prayer and that means that they will be saved, they will think that salvation is in their own hands. But when the truth of the doctrine of regeneration is set out, people can see that this is far beyond the power that they have.

One thing that people hate about the doctrine of regeneration is that it linked with the total depravity of man and the sovereignty of grace. Men hate the idea that they have no power to give themselves a new heart and no power to contribute to their own salvation in any way. Men hate the idea that they can obtain no merit in the slightest and that they are in the hands of God who can show mercy and grace to them as He pleases. But despite what men say and the hatred men have of it, that does not change the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. This truth is certain and it cannot be overturned.

In the late 1730’s a pastor in Scotland named William M’Culloch started a series on regeneration in his church. IT is reported that he preached on this for a year, but before he stopped a true spiritual awakening occurred in the church. In 1740 a friend of M’Culloch, James Robe, also began a series of discourses on regeneration. In 1742 an awakening occurred in the church he was pastoring. He traced the preparations for this revival back to his discourses or a series of sermons on regeneration. In other words, while it is not clear just how long he preached on regeneration, but it was most likely well over a year.

George Whitefield preached across Europe and America and he preached on the new birth over and over. Jonathan Edwards greatly stressed the sovereignty of God in giving a new heart and stated that he saw more conversions when he preached on the sovereignty of God than any other subject. This great and grand doctrine of the new birth was preached in the Reformation and then afterward during the times the Church spoke with spiritual power and had spiritual awakenings. The professing Church must get back to this core doctrine of it will continue its downward path into formalist at best.

John 8:44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

When Jesus spoke this ringing indictment to the Pharisees, He was not telling them something to tickle their ears and it was not an effort to water anything down so that they would come hear Him again. The Pharisees claimed to be the children of Abraham, but Jesus told them who their real father was. The meaning of this statement to the Pharisees was enormous. They could not depend on being born of Jewish descent as a way of salvation. If they were indeed children of the devil who lied because he spoke from his own nature, then they also had no truth in them as well. A simple change of outward forms or morality would not do. They must be born again.

The same is true in the modern day as well. Our churches are being filled with religious people and perhaps moral people, but they are children of the devil as well. They must be born again (from above, regenerated) or they will continue in their religion, whether liberal or conservative, and be just like their father the devil. This great teaching of Scripture is not mentioned a lot today much less stressed and taught extensively. But until it is set out as vital to true Christianity, the professing Church will continue professing but do so with no power and no vital truth in it.

John 1:13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” James 1:21 Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.

The doctrine of regeneration by the sovereign hand of God is an absolute truth that needs to be taught over and over. It is true because it is taught with great clarity in the Scriptures and it is true because of how it ties in with the other doctrines of Scripture. The doctrine of regeneration by the sovereign hand of God is absolutely true because the doctrines of total depravity and total inability are true. The doctrine of regeneration by the sovereign hand of God is absolutely true because there is only one kind of pure and holy grace and it is sovereign grace. The doctrine of regeneration by the sovereign hand of God is absolutely true because the doctrine of unconditional election is true. The doctrine of regeneration by the sovereign hand of God is absolutely true because the doctrine of irresistible grace is true. The doctrine of regeneration by the sovereign hand of God is absolutely true because the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone is true.

Isaiah 53:6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.

Isaiah 53:6 tells us the nature of sin. All human beings have gone astray by turning to his or her own way. What can turn a person from following themselves and turn to the LORD? Can a person turn himself from following self to following the LORD? No, this simply cannot be and it cannot be in the slightest sense. The nature of sin is such that a person cannot be turned from sin unless the debt of sin is paid. There is no freedom from sin until a person is turned from the debt of sin and the power of sin. There is no freedom from sin until a person has the debt of sin paid for and is transferred from the reign and rule of darkness into the kingdom of the Beloved Son. But until the debt has been paid and applied, each person will continue to follow his own way and will be enslaved to self and pride. But no one can pay his own debt and free himself from the bondage to evil and the evil one.

It takes Christ to step in and to take the iniquity of all those who would be saved upon Himself. Note that it is the LORD who has caused the iniquity of us all (all who would believe) to fall on Him. This Christ had to suffer in order to satisfy the justice of God and to satisfy the debt of the elect. This Christ was the Divine Son of God and He took human flesh to Himself in order to live a perfect life and then go to the cross in order to be a perfect sacrifice to God for the sins of His people.

What we must see is that Christ has taken the sins away from His people and yet has purchased the Holy Spirit for His people (Galatians 3:13-14). When Christ purchased the Holy Spirit for His people, this shows that He has also purchased all that the Spirit would do to and in His people. The new birth or regeneration is true because it was necessary for Christ to suffer and die so that His people could be regenerated. This glorious doctrine of regeneration by the hand of our sovereign God is true and utterly necessary because it is a Divine work and beyond the power of any man. When our Lord Jesus told Nicodemus that one must be born again to enter the kingdom, He also told him that this was a work of the Spirit of the living God who did that as He pleased (John 3:8). This glorious doctrine of regeneration by the hand of our sovereign God has to be true because God has elected His children, the Son has purchased what it takes to be a child of God, and the Spirit works this life in the soul of the elect. This is absolutely necessary.

This great doctrine of regeneration by the hand of our sovereign God stands in perfect accord with the whole of sound doctrine. It is not just a prayer by which a man can change himself or move God to change him, but it is God that changes the heart as He pleases. Oh how we must urge men to look at their hearts and see how much they are trusting in themselves rather than Christ. Oh how we must urge men to seek the Lord for hearts that are broken from pride and emptied of self. The doctrine of regeneration is also tied in with Christ living in the hearts of His people and having His throne there. Christ will not dwell in a proud heart and a heart full of self. So we must urge men to seek a broken heart by grace and to seek humility from God because those are the hearts He renews and dwells in.

John 1:13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” James 1:21 Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.

In John 1:13 it states that the new birth or regeneration is by the will of God. That must be an axiom in the doctrine of regeneration. John 3:3 teaches us the utter and absolute necessity of the new birth before one can see the kingdom of God. I would argue that the idea of “see the kingdom” would include the nature of true faith. But the language here sets out with absolute clarity that one must be born again. While today we tell people that they must believe or walk an aisle or say a prayer, Scripture tells us that we must be born again. That is to go from what is perceived as an act of man (faith or believe) to an act of God. The difference is enormous. The James 1:21 passage tells us that we should put aside all filthiness and wickedness and in humility to receive the word implanted. This last passage gets at the idea of what must happen in the soul, but also how an unconverted person may seek the Lord. We also see the utter need of humility. Later in James he also tells us that the humble receive grace while the proud are opposed by God.

A lot of stress should be put upon the necessity of the new birth. Again, in the modern day people put a stress upon believing some facts and a prayer, but in the days when God worked in power in His Church the stress was upon the new birth. By putting the stress on the new birth men were taught that God must do the work and not themselves. This is a very important point. Men must see that they must be born again and that they must be in utter dependence on God to do that, which implies that man cannot do that. So it was also taught to men that they were depraved and could not make themselves born a second time and that they had no ability to do so. This would leave men in the hands of a sovereign God to do as He pleased and not as men pleased and not when they pleased. Not only did it take grace to save them, it took grace to bring them to the point of salvation.

Genesis 3:5-6 points to us the virtual opposite of the new birth. “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.” These verses show us a lot about the nature of sin and why man must be born again. The tempter (Satan) in essence tempted Eve not to look to God in absolute dependence, but to look to herself. The essence of what she was told was that she could be her own god in determining what was good and evil for herself. She was turned from being God-centered to self-centeredness. She was turned from a love for God to self-love. She was turned from depending on God for all things to depending on self. Adam quickly followed.

Sin is not just an act that people do, but sin is intertwined around the heart (so to speak) and is of the very nature of a human soul. It is correct that people do not believe (have faith) and must believe (have faith), but it goes deeper than that. People must repent from an unbelieving (unfaithing) heart to a believing (faithing) heart. This is not just an act of the human will, this is an act of God in changing the very nature of the soul. A human being cannot change his or her own nature, but instead that is clearly the prerogative of God alone. He is under no obligation to do this work in anyone other than if He has covenanted with the Son to do so. There is nothing in the power and ability of man to manipulate God or move God to do this.

Because of the nature of man who is born in sin and has a sinful nature the new birth is an absolute necessity. There can be no entrance into the kingdom of God without this new birth. There can be no faith in the soul without this new birth. This new birth must happen to a human being, yet this can only happen if God does it. This new birth will only happen if the soul is leaving sin and is humbled. What can a human being do in this area? A human being can flee from the commission of outward sin knowing that sin hardens the soul while s/he must have a humbled and tender heart. The human being can use the means of grace (Scripture reading, meditation, prayer, hearing preaching) and pray that God will give a new heart. The soul must have this new birth or it will perish, yet it is in the hands of sovereign grace to bestow it. We must seek Lord in the ways He has set out.