Now thus far in our series on
the fundamentals of the grace of God, we have looked at man's
nature and shown that he is incapable of doing anything good at all. That is natural man, man as he
is born is utterly incapable of doing anything good or even
positive toward God. And then we have looked at the
work of God in ordaining, organizing salvation, and choosing those
upon whom he will bestow it. And then we have looked at the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is what we might call the
mechanism of grace, his substitutionary sacrifice, which is for us a
redemption. the debt we owed and thus set
us free from our bondage to the law, sin, and death, that's redemption,
and it's an atonement. An atonement is a sacrifice that's
offered to someone who's offended in order to put away the offense
and restore the relationship. Now, these aspects of the grace
of God in his ordaining, choosing, predestinating works which were
before the foundation of the world, all of them, and the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ is our substitute. These are things
done outside of us. They are done without them having
any immediate effect on God's people. Now we're getting to the point
where God's grace touches us, actually enters our lives and
our experience and begins to transform us and work in us the
very things that God ordained for us and Christ bought for
us. And this is the subject of the
Holy Spirit's call. Now, God's gracious purpose for
his elect is that they be saved from their sins. When the birth
of our Lord Jesus Christ was announced, the angel said, you
will call his name Jesus for he will save his people from
their sin. Now, nearly everyone would be happy
to be saved from hell, but not everyone wants to be saved from
sin. because they like it. They don't have a problem with
it. You know, only believers have a problem with sin. The
rest of the world is quite happy with it. And I'm not saying that
they'll not experience problems because of their sin, but it's
not like they have a problem in themselves. If they have a
problem with sin, it's in their conscience which restricts them
from doing all the sinning they would really like to do. But
the believer has a problem with sin. He himself does not like
his sin. And therefore, or Actually, that's
a result of God's beginning this work of salvation in them because
he is saving them from their sins in every aspect of it. He is disconnecting them from
sin in every sense in which you might think of sin being connected
to an individual. He will save them indeed from
the punishment of it by enduring that punishment. But our sin
is not only a matter of what we do and what happens to us
because of what we do. Sin is a nature within us. And
we are not saved from sin unless and until that nature is changed. If all that salvation is is to
be delivered from hell, then that just leaves us as criminals
who have not been justly punished. That's all we are. But God's
salvation goes much farther than that. In Romans 8, 29, it describes
our salvation this way, that he predestined us to be conformed
to the image of God's Son. Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
we know that our Lord Jesus Christ is the God-man. As much God as
He is man, as much man as He is God. A mystery beyond our
comprehension, but it's so. This does not mean that we're
going to be made into God. That can't be. For one thing,
nothing can be made into God. God may become man, but man can
never become God. speaking of Christ in His humanity
as the man. The Bible says there is one God
and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. And God is going to make all
of His chosen people like the man, Christ Jesus. This work is begun during our
natural lives and it will perfected or completed in us when God,
or when Christ returns and He transforms our lowly bodies so
that they will be like His glorious body. You find that in Philippians
chapter 3 verse 21. I've heard people say, and I
understand what they mean, but it's not precise. When they say things like, when
Jesus Christ said, it is finished, salvation was fully done. No,
it was not done. It won't be done until all of
us who were chosen by God before the foundation of the world are
made to be like Jesus Christ. Now I know that what they mean
is, is that all the work of sacrifice, of bringing in an everlasting
righteousness, of suffering for sin, all of that was done. But
saving a sinner is not only, or God saving a sinner, is not
only a matter of those things he does for them, it's also a
matter of what he does to them and in them. Back when I was in, probably
a young adult, I don't know if it showed up in my teen years
yet, but they used to have a, you could wear a bracelet, and
it was one of these things, you know, it was just the first letter
of a whole bunch of words. You remember the WWJD, what would
Jesus do? And, well, they had one, except
it was a lot longer, and it'd take me a while to come up with
all of them, but it represented this. Please be patient. God is not finished with me yet. And they may have used that in
a bit of a frivolous way, but the fact is, that's the truth.
He's not done. He has begun a work in us. And we are assured that because
he has begun it, he will perfect it, but it's not perfected yet. The work for us is perfected
and finished. The work in us has just begun. Now, the beginning of this work
to us and in us is called, at least in theological circles,
they'll call it regeneration, which is just another way to
describe what our Lord teaches here in John chapter three. It's
called being born again or the new birth. Now, In verses 1 through
12, and we're not going to take the time to read them, we'll
just note a few points from them, but there's this meeting between
the Lord Jesus Christ and a man named Nicodemus. Now, God designed
this encounter between Nicodemus and himself and the Lord Jesus
for the express purpose of revealing this vital doctrine, this vital
fundamental of the grace of God, to fully understand God's grace. And understand, I'm not saying
that a person has to understand all these things before he experiences
God's grace, but if you want to understand God's grace, at
least as much as He has revealed to us, you've got to understand
this point of how it is that this grace is worked in us. set
up this encounter, God set up this encounter between the Lord
Jesus and Nicodemus to teach that very point. Now it's natural
for men to think that religious and morally upright people have
within themselves the knowledge of the truth or at least the
capacity to learn the truth. So God arranged for a man of
the highest moral character greatest religious zeal, this man's a
Pharisee. Now, we get the impression he
was not a Pharisee of the same personality of Saul of Tarsus.
He was not one of these angry Pharisees that was out to destroy
everything that had to do with Christ. He actually sought out
the Lord Jesus Christ. But he always did so in the shadows
because he didn't want to get caught. He came by night, it
seems, all the time. But he was a Pharisee by religious
conviction, which meant that he was very well trained in the
Scriptures. He was among those to whom the
Lord says, you search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have
eternal life. And he knew them, he had memorized
vast portions of the scriptures. Not only this, he was so devoted
to this religion that it consumed his life. And also, these Pharisees were
very big and not only obeying the law as they perceived it
in the Old Testament, but they added hundreds of little details. They were very scrupulous people.
So when the Lord Jesus Christ is going to teach us about the
necessity of being born again. He does not go and pick someone
whom anyone would realize, boy, something has to happen to this
person before they're made right with God. He chooses someone
that almost everybody thought was already right with God. And he said to him, unless a
man, and this is verse 5 of John 3, I tell you the truth, no one
can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and
spirit. Flesh, I'm sorry, I got too far
down. Verse three is what I wanted
to say. I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of
God unless he is born again. Now, this Greek word translated born
again. Once again, it's a Greek prefix
put in front of one of the common words, a word that means born,
or it's used to talk about creating things. And it can be translated. If the, if the word standing
all by itself, you could have translated this born again or
born from above, because that prefix could mean either one. But it's kind of obvious, and
I mention that because there are some translations who will
say born from above instead of born again. But it's rather obvious
what our Lord intended. In fact, the Lord was not likely
speaking Greek. He was speaking Hebrew or Aramaic
or the other. But Nicodemus took it up. He
understood the Lord's words as meaning again. says in verse
4, how can a man be born when he is old? Nicodemus asked. Surely he cannot enter a second
time into his mother's womb to be born. So, the Lord is talking
about here another birth different from our natural births. That's what He's speaking of.
But even though he was speaking in Hebrew or Aramaic, when the
Holy Spirit inspired John to write down this particular encounter,
he inspired him to use a word that can be taken both as born
again and born from above. Because in this, the Holy Spirit
is relating to us by the use of this word even more than what
the Lord Jesus Christ said at that point. And it's all right
for the Holy Spirit to do that. He can inspire John to write
this in a way that it contained more content than what was originally
said. Now, let me qualify that statement. Our Lord goes on to make the
point, the further point, that this is being born from above.
But the Holy Spirit used a word that gives us both because we
must be born again. And this new birth is something
from above. Both are true. Both are essential
to an understanding of the working of God's grace in us. It is a
birth. It's not just a transformation.
It's a birth that results in a transformation. But the concept
of being born again addresses us as those who are
dead. Living people don't need to be
born. Our Lord said, I have come that
they might have life and have it more abundantly. And in the
religion in which I was raised, there were so many of these upbeat,
overly cheerful preachers that would get in the pulpit and say,
God wants you to have the abundant life. And to them, the abundant
life was to be full of bubbly joy. And, you know, there was
even one preacher, his name was Charles Jones, but he He would
bill himself as Charlie Tremendous Jones, because no matter what
you'd tell him, oh, that's tremendous, you know? And so it was a psychological
thing. Well, our Lord did not say, I've
come that they might have life more abundantly. He said, I've
come that they might have life. Why? Because they don't. And
then this life that he has, will be to the full, this new life. And that's what's being spoken
of here. And so he's saying to Nicodemus, well, to us certainly,
but you need another birth. Your first birth didn't get you
what you need. Your first birth got you a dead
spirit and a dying body. And that dead spirit and dying
body are incapable of doing anything in reconciling you to God. Now Christ's death reconciled
God to us, but we need to be reconciled to God. So something's
got to be done to us. And this thing that must be done
is the imparting of a new life, not a transformation of the old
one. imparting of a brand new life that was not there before. Our new birth or this new birth
is completely distinct from our first birth or our natural birth. No one is naturally born with
spiritual life or even the tendency toward it. Now, covenant theology,
which is the foundation of the Reformed faith. And I know that even Reformed
people differ on this, on the significance of this. But if
you follow what they say and do, you must come to this conclusion. They believe that the children
of believers come into this world with a leg up on eternal life. through their baptism. Now many
of them will deny this is what they're saying, but to deny this
is to be inconsistent with some other things they're saying.
Their baptism into the Church puts them in a covenantal relationship
with God that others do not have. But what the Scriptures teach
us is that No matter who your mom and dad is, your great, great,
great, great so forth mom and dad is Adam and Eve. And that
means you come into this world a sinner, dead in trespasses
and sins, dead to God. And there's nothing that you
nor anybody else can do to you, for you, in you, or anything
that changes that. That is no human being. Just as the first man, Adam,
was a direct creation of God himself. So any of us who are
made to be in the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, we are
a direct, direct creation of God. A brand new birth. Now, this
new birth does more than give us life. Remember when we talked
about our great sinfulness, we said our sinfulness lies in three
things. It's in our nature, and most
people would say, yeah. I hear people say, I believe
folks are basically good, but then they still lock their doors
and do all these things that kind of deny their belief in
the essential goodness of man. We know we do bad things, but
the Scriptures also assign our sin to something that is utterly
impossible for us to change, and that's our ancestry. We are
born of Adam. And anyone knows you can't change
history. Some people think you can change
your nature. Some people think you can change your conduct.
But I don't know of anybody that thinks you can change your ancestry.
I can't, you can't, God can. And the way he does that is have
you born again under another Adam, under another head, under
another representative. And so this new birth not only
makes us alive spiritually, it makes us part of a different
family. To be born again, John describes
it in, if you go back here to John chapter one, verse 13, Well, verse 12 says, yet to all
who receive him, to those who believe in his name, he gave
the right to become children of God. Now that word become
is a translation of the second part of that word, born again. Become the children of God. Now
notice this, children born not adopted, as we think of the word
adoption, not simply legally connected to God, born not of
natural descent, had nothing to do with who your natural parents
are, nor of human decision. That means you weren't born again
by your own decision. husband's will. Nobody else could
make that decision for you. The word husband, caretaker.
So your parents couldn't make that decision for you. Your preacher
can't make that happen. It says they are born of God. Being born again is to be born
from above which means born of God. How did our Lord Jesus Christ
come into this world? Remember how When the angel announced
to Mary that she was going to give birth, she said, how can
that happen? I haven't been with a man. And
the angel said, the spirit of the Most High shall come upon
you, shall overshadow you. And that thing created in you
shall be called the Holy One. Now that was the miraculous,
direct work of God in creating a new person within the womb
of Mary. And all of his other sons are
created in a similar fashion. It is a direct work of him by
which his Holy Spirit comes down, overshadows them, and creates
in them a new person. I know we use the word change,
transform, and all that, and in certain contexts it's okay
if you're not trying to pin down doctrine real carefully. But
friends, he isn't just transforming us. He's making something brand
new. Remember? that he said, behold,
I create new heavens and the earth and the old heavens and earth
will pass away. Everything that you were when
you came into this world naturally is going to be destroyed for
it is part of the old heavens and earth. But if you are among
the elect of God, everything that you were when you were naturally
born is going to be born or created again and be part of the new
heaven and new earth wherein dwells righteousness. And that
work begins during the time of our natural lives. A believer never does this particular metaphor
apply more than in the believer. He has a foot in two worlds. In our flesh, our foot is still
in the old world, firmly planted there. In our spirit, our foot's
already in the new earth. new heavens, new earth, we're
already there. And that's why even as our flesh
does all it can to stay here, our spirit longs to be there. That's why in our flesh we grasp
and reach for the things of this world including the sinful things of
this world. I mean, our flesh, this is our
native world right here, the one we see. But the native world
of our spirit is the world to come. And in our spirit, we reach
for those things. And so we're pulled in two directions
all the time. And we're never satisfied, and
we won't be here. We will be eventually. because
this work that God has begun, he will perfect it until the
day of Christ. And then these bodies that are
still, you know, we got our, it's got the foot in this world,
they're going to be changed. They're going to be made new.
They're going to be made new to be like Christ's glorious
body. You know, our Lord Jesus Christ,
when he raised from the dead, he raised in a body that looked
like the body he had before. But that body was not part of
the old creation into which he was born. That body never got
tired, never got hungry. His old body did, didn't it?
Why? He was born under the law. As Philippians says, he came
down here and became one of us. And that meant that he entered
into this world, and if I put it in scientific terms, this
world of entropy, this world of everything put together falls
apart. And even though he was the son of God, miraculously
created within the womb of his mother, yet he had a body made
of the things of this world. Consequently, after so much time,
he'd have to He had to be renewed by eating, but not when He raised from the
dead. When our Lord ascended on high do you think you know
every 24 hours, well Father I'm going to have to leave the throne
here for a minute and go take a nap. Nothing about the new world wears
out. Nothing in the new world gets
old. And we got one foot in each world. But the new birth is another
birth, and it's something that happens during the span of our
natural lives. We're born dead in sin, but something
during the course of our natural life makes us alive again. we pass
from death unto life. Now this experience of the new
birth, and while we wanna talk about, and we'll next week, we'll
talk about the vital importance of this new birth. You know,
you must be born again. You can't understand the kingdom
of God, you can't enter the kingdom of God unless you've been born
again. This experience is not something
that can be described in fleshly terms. And there are many who
try to do so and say, if you haven't experienced this, you've
not been born again. For some, this experience of
being born again is such a radical and sudden confrontation with
God, say like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. I mean, you know, it bowls them
over. And there are some who, though they are just as
dead, yet God raising them to life was such a gentle experience,
they may not even be able to tell you exactly when it happened. You know, everyone here has been
born, and not a one of us remembers it. The only reason we know what
day we were born on is because somebody told us, right? And
yet, there are people saying, unless you can point to the time
when you were born again, you haven't been born again. There
are some whom God blesses with the new birth so early in their
lives, they can hardly remember a time when they did not believe
God. Now a child in that state, now
they're every bit as sinful, every bit as dead, but sin has
not borne so much fruit in them as it has in older people. It
has not instilled such rebellion in them, and therefore the process
goes much easier for them. It's as much an act of God's
power, but it didn't hurt them as much,
if that's the word you can use. Others, oh, they were in such
open rebellion against God when God deals with them. It's like
Jacob wrestling with that man all night long. He walked away from it, but he
walked away limping. So don't look for in the flesh some indication of what happened
in the spirit. The experience of the new birth
is a spiritual experience. and how the flesh reacts to it
is different among men according to their personality, their age,
their experience, all those things. So that's as far as we're going
to be able to get to today. But the new birth, it is the
same thing as being born from above, being born of God, And
next week, we'll begin with the subject of the necessity of the
new birth.