Introduction
We have seen that Christ has been calling and calling for you to repent and believe the Good News that Christ has died for us in our place. Repentance means to turn about and change your mind from loving your sin and indulgence to abhorring it and turning from it. It is a change of attitude towards God and His Holy Word. Then you can believe and be saved. God's Call to you and ‘Being Born again’ are very closely linked together.
What does it mean to be Regenerated or To Be born Again?
The word ‘regeneration’ in a broad sense means conversion. Here it means
The Act of God by which New Life is implanted in man, and the governing disposition of the human soul is made holy... It means New Birth or the first manifestation of new life. L. Berkhof p.126
There is a fundamental change in the very basic principle of life and the governing disposition of the soul, and therefore affects the whole man.
1Co 2:14 The unspiritual man rejects the things of the Spirit of God, and cannot attain to the knowledge of them, because they are spiritually judged.
2Co 4:6 For God who said, "Out of darkness let light shine," is He who has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory, which is radiant on the face of Christ.
Php 2:13 For it is God Himself whose power creates within you the desire to do His gracious will and also brings about the accomplishment of the desire.
1Pe 1:8 Him you love, though your eyes have never looked on Him. In Him, though at present you cannot see Him, you nevertheless trust, and triumph with a joy which is unspeakable and is crowned with glory,
1Pe 1:9 while you are securing as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.
It is completed in a moment of time and is not a gradual process like sanctification.
Through Regeneration we pass from death into life.
1Jn 3:14 As for us, we know that we have already passed out of death into Life--because we love our brother men. He who is destitute of love continues dead.
This whole New Birth can be seen in its effects upon the life of the Individual.
2. The Author of the New Birth.
God alone is the author of Regeneration. This in the Bible is shown to be the work of the Holy Spirit.
Joh 1:12 However, he gave the right to become God's children to everyone who believed in him.
Joh 1:13 These people didn't become God's children in a physical way-from a human impulse or from a husband's desire to have a child. They were born from God. GW
Act 16:14 Among our hearers was one named Lydia, a dealer in purple goods. She belonged to the city of Thyateira, and was a worshipper of the true God. The Lord opened her heart, so that she gave attention to what Paul was saying.
Act 16:15 When she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, "If in your judgement I am a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house." And she made us go there.
Joh 3:3 "In most solemn truth I tell you," answered Jesus, "that unless a man is born anew he cannot see the Kingdom of God."
Joh 3:4 "How is it possible," Nicodemus asked, "for a man to be born when he is old? Can he a second time enter his mother's womb and be born?"
Joh 3:5 "In most solemn truth I tell you," replied Jesus, "that unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
Joh 3:6 Whatever has been born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever has been born of the Spirit is spirit.
Joh 3:7 Do not be astonished at my telling you, 'You must all be born anew.'
Joh 3:8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So is it with every one who has been born of the Spirit."
The Implanting of New Spiritual Life in the heart of man is the Work of the Spirit of God.
SO BEING BORN AGAIN IS AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY IF WE ARE TO BE SAVED.
Have you been born again?
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