Many theologians believe that Jesus alludes to Ezekiel 36 when teaching Nicodemus about his need for the new birth. Human birth is a complex miracle, but the New Birth is a far more complex miracle. Any person who is truly saved and who sincerely wants Gods will shall have it. When William Carey was pleading for missionaries to carry the Gospel to unevangelized peoples of the world, a group of preachers in England tried to silence him with the words, If God wants to evangelize the heathen He will do it without your help or ours. It was true, and still is, that God can reach the heathen with the Gospel without the help of any of us. You cant train a bird to crawl, for the same reason you cant train a snake to fly. Much more then, being now justified by His (Christs) blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him (Romans 5:9). Regeneration gives the gifts of repentance and faith. There is no other way of one getting into Christs Church apart from the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit. . All born again persons have God as their Father; therefore they are one in Christ, sharing a mutual love. No one naturally seeks after God (Rom. The mother said nothing but felt keenly disappointed with the pastors remarks. Hitchcock's Bible Names. He prayed to the Father, Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth (John 17:17). When a man is justified by faith, good works are sure to follow. In at least two Epistles, according to the Authorized Version, Christians are addressed as those who are called to be saints (Romans 1:7; I Corinthians 1:2). This is not a work in which man contributes but is a work of God alone. It was no mere incident when I enrolled as a student in The Philadelphia School of the Bible in 1935. In the second most important passage on the means of Regeneration, we find our answer. 10:1; 1Peter 3:1820). In all of the above passages the meaning of the word Sanctify is to set apart for holy purposes. If my reader will heed my plea for charity, I promise not to be quarrelsome. Paul then distinctly teaches that thus is a new life in store for those who have been spiritually dead. (2) Man has fallen from his virginal and divinely-appointed sphere, the realm of the spirit, the Kingdom of God, living now the perishing earthly life. But the moment we receive Gods Son we are said to be in Him, a phrase used more than seventy times in Pauls Epistles denoting the believers unaltered and unalterable position. We read, And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. In other words, when God called us it was with the view that we should obtain the glorified state. Justification cannot be on arbitrary grounds. I can testify with Paul that God put me into the ministry and has enabled me to continue (I Timothy 1:12). When we were saved we became partakers of the Divine nature (II Peter 1:4). And again the point should be made that this fellowship is a spiritual one, having its roots in Jesus Christ (I John 1:3). Put God into a miracle and doubt gives way to faith. Also, sanctification is the work of God in us to make us more like Jesus. It is found in Titus 3:5 which, without absolute certainty as to its meaning, is generally interpreted in agreement with the numerous nouns and verbs which have given the dogmatical setting to the doctrine of regeneration in Christian theology. The church redeemed and regenerated is to be a special "possession," an "heritage" of the Lord (Ephesians 1:11,14), and the whole creation is to participate in the final redemption and adoption (Romans 8:21-23). The prodigal is declared to have been "dead" and to be "alive again" (Luke 15:24). And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. Now I am aware of the fact that this attempt to expound Sanctification places me on controversial ground. It is not the tranquility and quietness of our own feelings and emotions. Verse 5 tells us that only one kind of man can be justified; not the self righteous worker, but the ungodly man who believes, for, says Paul: . Somewhere I heard or read of a tragedy at sea in which a young fisherman was washed overboard and lost. When the Apostle Paul used the word regeneration, he wrote, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost (Titus 3:5). The glory of the revelation of the Lord from heaven will be shared by Christs Church at that day (Colossians 3:4). As to the nature of the change, it consists in the implanting of a new principle or disposition in the soul; the impartation of spiritual life to those who are by nature "dead in trespasses and sins.". Basically, Gods will is found in Gods Word. Many persons have been led astray because they substituted some personal experience for the teaching of the Word of God. Pauls summary of his argument of this great truth lists the blessings which accompany it. Scripture teaches that regeneration Following are other Scriptures which exhort the Christian to self-sanctification: But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy (I Peter 1:15, 16). As a matter of fact, I have never met an advocate of the death to self movement who could tell me how I might die to self. Only He who gave life at the beginning can give the (spiritual) life necessary to do God's will. Only by having a new spiritual nature imparted to him, by being "born anew" (John 3:3, the Revised Version margin "from above," Greek anothen), by being "born of the Spirit" (John 3:6,8), can he live the spiritual life which God requires of man. These Scriptures do not promise an eradication of the sin nature nor a state of perfection of this life, but they do exhort the believer to self-dedication and surrender to God. we have boldness and access (Ephesians 3:11, 12). This is the God-ward aspect of justification, but like all the blessings of salvation, the sinner cannot receive it until he accepts it, and this he does when he acknowledges his guilt and puts personal faith in what God has done for him in Christ. It may be said in general that the teaching of the apostles on the subject of regeneration is a development of the teaching of Jesus on the lines of the adumbrations of the Old Testament. The moment of the Spirits regenerating work in me climaxed His work of Positional Sanctification. Your cry for salvation comes as a consequence of your new birth, and never could be the cause of regeneration. WebRegeneration is a Biblico-dogmatic term closely connected with the ideas of justification, Divine sonship, and the deification of the soul through grace. So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). According as He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love (Ephesians 1:4). Sanctification, then, is that sovereign act of God whereby He sets apart a person, a place, or an object for Himself in order that He might accomplish His purpose in the world by means of that person, place, or object. Men have varying standards of righteousness, and they are sometimes sincerely zealous, but not according to knowledge. That which is born of the flesh is flesh (John 3:6). And if you are wondering how the Word of God quickens faith, the answer is, By imparting knowledge. We will not mature spiritually if we labor under the false idea that the Christian is free from temptation. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His (Romans 8:9). The Word of God presents to us the fact of our sin and condemnation, that without Christ we are without a Saviour and with no hope. . Upon this foundation God goes into action. All the doctrines of the Bible are important, but none is more vital to the peace and rest of the child of God than the Bible truth of Justification. . (ie Christ) (Romans 6:6). Regeneration is to Paul, no less than to Jesus, connected with the conception of purity and knowledge. People universally re-write You must be born again so that the phrase reads instead, You must born yourself again! Not only does this mis-interpretation make no sense grammatically (an intransitive verb has no object); it makes nonsense of a profound spiritual truth. For one thing, growth takes time. And such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God (I Corinthians 6:11). And Moses said unto the LORD, The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai; for Thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the Mount, and sanctify it (Exodus 19:23). The Cross And Separation From The World (1 Peter 4:1-6), 7. Those who hold this view are in error. The Bible warns against this false view where it says, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (I John 1:8). In the Latin version the word freely is gratis, being justified gratis. Gods method of justifying men gives us a glorious demonstration of His sovereign grace. He makes his point clear by use of illustration: Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? (James 2:21). Only the high priest could come before the Divine Presence, and that only once each year, and not without blood. Nor can it disclose its process; the "underlying laboratory where are wrought radical remedial processes and structural changes in the psychical being as portrayed in explicit scriptural utterances: `Create in me a clean heart' (Psalms 51:10); `Ye must be born again' (John 3:7 the King James Version); `If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new' (2Corinthians 5:17 the King James Version), is in the region of subconsciousness. Christs resurrection was as necessary for our justification as was His death. This includes even that little member (James 3:5) which too often hurts the membership. This is Perfect Sanctification. Inasmuch as our Lord said, Ye must be born again, you better believe it! The Holy Spirit is the active Agent in regeneration. By faith power is received which enables the sinner to overcome sin, to "sin no more" (John 8:11). It was Abrahams faith that was reckoned unto him for righteousness. The question of mans justification before God was raised early in mans history. In Titus 3:5 it denotes that change of heart elsewhere spoken of as a passing from death to life ( 1John 3:14 ); becoming a new creature in Christ Jesus ( 2Corinthians 5:17 ); being born again ( John 3:5 ); a renewal of the mind ( Romans 12:2 ); a resurrection from the dead ( Ephesians 2:6 ); a being quickened ( Ephesians 2:1 Ephesians 2:5 ). However, our Lord said to Nicodemus, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:5). The preparatory work has been going on for some time according to Divine plan, but now that work becomes effective in the life of the individual person. In summing up the regeneration of the earth, it is that time still future when Christ shall rule on the throne of David (II Samuel 7; Luke 1:32, 33; 2:11), Satan will be incarcerated (Revelation 20:2), Israel will be spiritually re-born (Isaiah 66:8; Ezekiel 37; Matthew 24:8; Romans 11:1, 2, 26), peace, prosperity, social justice and equality will prevail (Isaiah 42:1-4; Micah 4:1-7). Both the carnal and the spiritual are included in the sanctified saints. Paul wrote, . How often have the clear words of Jesus been misunderstood! For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication (I Thessalonians 4:3). Neither the universe nor anything in it is self-originated. It seems quite clear, then, that Sanctification in these instances does not mean a state of holiness in which it is not possible for sin to enter. This life can be received on the condition of faith in Christ or by coming to Him (John 14:6). Regeneration is the implantation of a new life. 37:114). The fact that He is in you is the plain teaching of Scripture. And yet they were instructed that each believer in the assembly was indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The verb sanctified means set apart, and the corresponding noun saints are those persons who have been set apart, the set-apart ones. Justification is something for nothing. Jesus Christ made peace through the blood of his cross . Though conversion and regeneration, in real-time, appear to God Himself is the Source and Bestower of His life, so that believers are said to be partakers of the Divine nature (II Peter 1:4), created in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:10), born of God (John 1:13), born again (John 3:3, 7), a new creation (II Corinthians 5:17).
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