Regeneration = A new spiritual birth

When Jesus told Nicodemus, ‘You must be born again’ (John 3:7), he was speaking of the need of regeneration. 

The gospel addresses itself to sinners whoa re dead in sin (Ephesians 2:1). ‘Dead’ is a very strong word. There are no degrees of deadness. Despite the popular phrase, you can’t be ‘half dead.’

If you’re dead, you are totally unable to do anything to change your condition. A dead man in a coffin can’t do a thing to prevent burial. So when Paul says we are dead in sin, he means we’re unable to change our spiritual condition.

We’re spiritually helpless and hopeless and if our condition is to change, God has to do it because we can’t. We need to be ‘born again’.

Regeneration Precedes Everything

Regeneration isn’t the same as conversion.

The New Testament theology of salvation teach us that there are different steps in salvation. These steps must start somewhere, and regeneration is where the work of grace begins in a sinner’s life.

To repent and believe are things that God demands we do. They are our responses to the gospel. But we can’t do them if we’re still dead in sin. In order to respond to the words of the gospel, we need to be born again first.

This precedes everything and is the work of God through the movement of the Holy Spirit alone. It has to be. So being born again is the initial step in salvation.

Jesus is telling us that people in sin don’t need patching up with religion or morality or education. They need a complete new beginning. We had a benning one in Adam. That was good but it was ruined by sin.

We need to be born again and given an ability again to respond to God. This is exactly what the gospel offers us and only the gospel can do this. Sometimes you hear of someone making a new start in life. They change where they live, their job and say they’re making a new start. But they’re not. They can change as much as they want to on the outside, but they can’t change their nature.

Spiritual new birth gives the sinner a new start with a new nature, a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26-27). This can only be done by God.

Spiritual Birth

The new birth is a spiritual birth, it’s not physical, but it’s interesting to parallel the two.

In our physical birth we contribute nothing. It’s a result of a process initiated by our parents. So too is spiritual birth – it’s initiated by God the Father.

Without physical birth w could have physical existence. So too, without a spiritual birth we have no spiritual life.

Humanity is born in sin, already set apart from God, we’re spiritually dead. New birth give us a spiritual existence.

A Necessity

When Jesu told Nicodemus he must be born again, he was peeking to a very religious guy. Often religious people say they can see that criminals and drug addicts, etc. need a new beginning because of the mess they’ve made of their lives.

But they themselves aren’t like that – they’re honest, hard working, respectable – they don’t need to be born again themselves.

But as far as Jesus is concerned there aren’t any exceptions. Without spiritual birth there is no spiritual life.

There can be religious life and moral life, but there will be no spiritual life.

It’s the work of the Holy Spirit to regenerate us. This he does by bringing sinners under the sound of the gospel. ‘Faith comes through hearing the message.’ (Romans 10:17)

Through hearing the gospel message, the Holy Spirit show us our true condition. All have sinned – the good respectable people and the moral outcasts.

The Spirit convinces us that we need to be born again, and then brings us to repentance and faith in Christ.

‘Regeneration is the beginning of all saving grace in us, and all saving grace in exercise on our part proceeds from the fountain of regeneration. We are not born again by faith or repentance or conversion; we repent and believe because we have been regenerated.’ (John Murray)

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For more on what Christianity teaches, check out the other topics in our ‘Bitesize Theology’ series:

God; Jesus; The Holy Spirit; The Trinity; Sin; Atonement; Grace

Inspired by Peter Jeffery, ’Bitesize Theology’, Evangelical Press, 2000