Download as ODP, PPTX
Uploaded byGrace (Rural Wales) Partnership - Y Grwp
Christian Experience - 3. regeneration
The document discusses the concept of 'regeneration' in the Christian faith, describing it as a divine act that imparts new spiritual life. It emphasizes the inadequacy of mere belief, illustrated through the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus, highlighting the need for a spiritual rebirth to understand the kingdom of God. The text underscores the transformative power of grace and the necessity of being born anew through God’s truth.
More Related Content
Similar to Christian Experience - 3. regeneration
More from Grace (Rural Wales) Partnership - Y Grwp
Christian Experience - 3. regeneration
- 1. Welcome to Grace! “ButHe said to me ‘My grace is enough for you, For my power is made perfect in weakness’ So then I will boast most gladly about my weaknesses, So that the power of Christ may reside in me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
- 2. The Christian Experienceof God- ‘Regeneration’• Introduction
- 3. The Christian Experienceof God- ‘Regeneration’• Introduction “Regeneration is a secret act of God in which He imparts new spiritual life to us.” (Wayne Grudem)
- 4. The Christian Experienceof God- ‘Regeneration’• Introduction “Regeneration is a secret act of God in which He imparts new spiritual life to us.” (Wayne Grudem) “The unbeliever does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:14
- 5. The Christian Experienceof God- ‘Regeneration’• Introduction “Regeneration is a secret act of God in which He imparts new spiritual life to us.” (Wayne Grudem) “The unbeliever does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:14 “You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and enduring Word of God … the Word of the Lord endures forever, and this is the Word that was preached to you.” 1 Peter 1:23,25 “By His Sovereign plan He gave us birth, through the message of truth, that we would be a kind of first fruits of all He created.” James 1:18
- 6.
- 7. John 3:1-12 • Introduction •Context: Inadequate faith John 2:23 ff. “Now while Jesus was in Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover, many people believed in His Name because they saw the miraculous signs He was doing. But Jesus would not entrust Himself to them, because He knew all people …”
- 8. John 3:1-12 • Introduction •Context: Inadequate faith John 2:23 ff. “Now while Jesus was in Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover, many people believed in His Name because they saw the miraculous signs He was doing. But Jesus would not entrust Himself to them, because He knew all people …” • Context: getting to the heart of the person • Nicodemus (3:1-15) • The Samaritan woman (at the well – John 4:1-26) • The Gentile Official (4:43-53) • The man at the Pool of Bethesda (5:1-15)
- 9. John 3:1-12 • Introduction •Nicodemus’s inadequate ‘faith’, vv. 1-2 • Pharisee • Sanhedrin member • At night • ‘Rabbi’ • God’s man
- 10. John 3:1-12 • Introduction •Nicodemus’s inadequate ‘faith’, vv. 1-2 • Jesus speaks straight to the heart of the man, v. 3 “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
- 11. John 3:1-12 • Introduction •Nicodemus’s inadequate ‘faith’, vv. 1-2 • Jesus speaks straight to the heart of the man, v. 3 “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” • Nicodemus shows he really doesn’t get it, v. 4
- 12. John 3:1-12 • Introduction •Nicodemus’s inadequate ‘faith’, vv. 1-2 • Jesus speaks straight to the heart of the man, v. 3 “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” • Nicodemus shows he really doesn’t get it, v. 4 • Jesus explains: Nicodemus, please remember Ezekiel, vv. 5-7
- 13. John 3:1-12 • Introduction •Nicodemus’s inadequate ‘faith’, vv. 1-2 • Jesus speaks straight to the heart of the man, v. 3 “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” • Nicodemus shows he really doesn’t get it, v. 4 • Jesus explains: Nicodemus, please remember Ezekiel, vv. 5-7 • Conclusion
Editor's Notes
- #3 Sometimes you come across somebody who seems to want to believe, but they can’t. Why is that? More positively, you sometimes come across someone whose faculties are seriously impaired, either through congenital defects, general learning difficulties or some acquired mental illness … any number of such things and you wonder how on earth in their situation they could ever come to so clear, simple and profound a faith … but they have. How do you account for that? In fact, how do you account for these phenomena in general? That you come across people you’d have thought would’ve been saved by now and people you never thought would but the salvation thing has (or just hasn’t happened) and you can’t fathom it – fancy that! Why is this? It’s the case because of the doctrine of Regeneration … which describes an early, basic, fundamental part of Christian experience. The basis of faith we work to describes (rather grandly in the manner of these things)“The total depravity of human nature in consequence of the Fall and the necessity of regeneration.” What on EARTH is that going ON about?! We know what ‘regeneration’ is about in Dr Who, but most have a less clear an idea what it means in the Bible … and I’m not sure Dr. Who helps us much with this!
- #4 Called in the Bible ‘being born again’ (John 3:3-8) But in the church … and in much Christian preaching … oh dear, this doctrine gets MAULED! So, regeneration is one of the elements that is essential to the application of Christ’s work of redemption to any saved human being. There are ACTIVE elements in this: Conversion Repentance Sanctification (etc.) But regeneration is utterly passive, that is to say that it is 100% an act of God. Human passivity in this is seen at least two ways … The choice of metaphor: you do not give birth to yourself, but are passive in the process John 1:13 then makes this explicit:“born, not of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Now, this God doing it all Himself FOR us is not some late patch up job dreamt up when humans proved to be utterly incapable. It was prophesied in Ezekiel 36:26-27, for example … speaking of a time when God’s people will have wandered from Him but when He will take them from amongst all the Nations … “I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you; I will take the initiative and you will obey my statutes and carefully observe my regulations.” And THAT’s what it takes. It needs to happen before we can respond positively to God’s generally issued call of salvation for ourselves. Here’s how Paul works it out to help us understand things …
- #5 So until you are born again you may hear the Gospel, you may think it makes commendable sense and get on well with the people at church … where you quite like to go from time to time on a Sunday morning if there’s nothing else too pressing … but until the Spirit gives you new birth into a living hope through the Word of God by means of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead – you won’t do the active bits of what it takes for redemption to be applied to you. When He does, then you’ll see it, you’ll GET it, and you’ll be ready to sell everything to buy the field that contains the pearl of great price!
- #6 So – as the Gospel call is issued indiscriminately to all, God gives spiritual life which enables sinful human beings who haven’t really ‘got’ it before to respond to His effectual calling (another Christian experience of God we’ll come to later!) And THAT is what enables us to respond to the Gospel’s call, repent, believe and follow (which makes us fishers of men). Salvation is of God – when He gives us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3) It comes as regeneration bears fruit in faith (the gift of God) when the Word of God is heard, and it is by faith from first to last. But spiritual things are not discerned by the carnal man. None of it happens without regeneration. And THAT gives us the theological context – the preceding and the following context – to Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus the Pharisee.
- #7 So we all know what John 3 is about … right?It’s all about ‘The Four Spiritual Laws’, or A,B,C,D (Acknowledge, Believe, Confess, Do), or the Bridge Diagram, or Two Ways to Live … right? Because that’s how you get to be ‘Born Again’ … isn’t it? No. See. There’s the thing. John 3 follows John 2 … and that’s a fairly important matter.
- #8 These people have seen the miracles and have great enthusiasm on the basis of what they have seen, but there’s something wrong … Jesus doesn’t trust them. Carson:“Sadly their faith was spurious.” The context of this first time we meet Nicodemus in John’s Gospel is the context of inadequate faith. In fact, the Jesus that ch. 2 just told us ‘did not need man’s testimony about man’ because He ‘knew all men’ now enters into a series of conversations with a very diverse group of people with very different backgrounds and needs and demonstrates in these conversations that He instantly gets to the HEART of a person and isn’t thrown off course by mere appearances. So in comes a leading Pharisee … who really had things sorted out theologically, or so you’d think.
- #9 These people have seen the miracles and have great enthusiasm on the basis of what they have seen, but there’s something wrong … Jesus doesn’t trust them. Carson:“Sadly their faith was spurious.” The context of this first time we meet Nicodemus in John’s Gospel is the context of inadequate faith. In fact, the Jesus that ch. 2 just told us ‘did not need man’s testimony about man’ because He ‘knew all men’ now enters into a series of conversations with a very diverse group of people with very different backgrounds and needs and demonstrates in these conversations that He instantly gets to the HEART of a person and isn’t thrown off course by mere appearances. {Work through list … So at the start of this sequence, in John 3:1, in comes a leading Pharisee … who really had things sorted out theologically, or so you’d think.
- #10 Here comes theologically astute Nicodemus, marching onto Jesus’s screen, dropping clangers left and right like a non-starter. Check this out. Pharisee Sanhedrin member At night ‘Rabbi’ – teacher come from God God’s man – ministry accredited by God But all the while Nicodemus is the wrong side of Ezekiel 36:26-27 … God has NOT removed his old heart of stone and given him a heart of flesh. Yes Nicodemus is a resurrection, spiritual world-believing religious teacher and theologian. But he’s not yet been born again the way the Bible puts it … and he surely won’t have been spoken to like this before, especially when he’s being extremely polite and giving Jesus a great deal of credit, not in a VERY long time!
- #11 As a leading Pharisee and theologian, Nicodemus was HUGELY big on looking for the coming Kingdom of God … sold out on it. He was keeping the Law, every jot and every tittle, flat out for the coming Kingdom of God – or so he seemed. Jesus told this man of huge personal religious attainments and efforts, at the heart of the formal religious structure in Israel, you can forget it – you will not get there – unless you are born again first. You need to get the blessing of Jeremiah 31:28 ff. and of Ezekiel 36:25-27 You need that or you simply won’t see it –when the Roll is called up yonder, you won’t BE there! You MUST be born again – you can’t see it unless you are born again … we’ve seen already that’s the whole teaching of Scripture from the prophets through to the Pauline epistles. Without a new heart – essential person – given you by God, you can’t even see the Kingdom of God.
- #12 His mind runs on earthly fuel and human understanding … he cannot perceive the spiritual because he’s carnal … and carnal’s where he takes the conversation! Jesus comes back to explain the thing again firmly, from another direction, dropping some clues along the way …
- #13 In Ezekiel 36:25-27, water and Spirit come together incredibly forcefully … the first to depict cleansing from impurity and the second to depict the transformation of HEART that will enable folks to follow God WHOLLY. And it’s no minor matter that the Valley of Dry Bones where Ezekiel preaches and God gives life to dry bones follows hard on Ezekiel’s Spirit/ water passage in ch. 36. The language is utterly reminiscent of Jeremiah 31, :29 ff., with its ‘new heart’ expressions around the promise of the New Covenant. It’s all about a new birth that cleanses and renews, in line with the OT prophets and the New Age/ New Covenant stuff that makes Nicodemus & Co. buzz … Jesus is pushing buttons on their biggest theoretical theological aspirations. Please be sure of this. Jesus is NOT demanding that Nicodemus experience the new birth this very moment. He is not demanding ANY particular action from Nicodemus … you cannot ‘new birth’ yourself – it’s simply not YOURS to do! Jesus simply forcefully articulates what it is necessary for GOD to do (that passive, secret work of God) if anyone’s to act in such a way as to have redemption applied to them by repentance and faith. V. 7 has it, it’s not for you to do but you MUST be born again to be in a position to repent and to believe the Gospel … God needs to give YOU a new heart. O Nicodemus, you are the Reverend Professor and Doctor … and you STILL don’t understand your long-past Ezekiel and Jeremiah Sunday School lessons? You people with all your religious sophistication, you still do not understand THESE things?
- #14 Today’s not the day to roll on into serpents on poles … the burden of the up-coming verses, immensely great stuff that it is. Here’s the fundamental New Covenant creating, redemption enabling, fundamental CHRISTIAN (but not ‘religious’) experience of God. You must be born again and it comes NOT from you it comes from above. If today you’ve salvation REJOICE over this, the only way you could turn from sin and trust Christ for salvation was for God HIMSELF by the Spirit to give personally to you, His gift of new birth and of life. The implications for us are immense. It once again for me puts a huge question mark of relying on arguing people into faith using Apologetics. Of COURSE there are reasons for faith, but salvation (Eph. 2:8-10)’s the gift of God … and by the Spirit He personally gives it, with the New Birth, to you and me and others as individuals. If any Christian felt they weren’t very special, the answer to that one’s right there! 2. Praying for people to be saved …. It is ALL His work, by the Spirit 3. Sandemanianism …