Regeneration

Greg

​The Lord Jesus Christ has made provision for the salvation of mankind by his voluntary death on the cross for our sins.  A person receives forgiveness for his sins and acceptance with God when he admits to God that he is a sinner, and when in godly sorrow he turns from his sin-filled and self-ruled life to follow Jesus Christ as Lord (Luke 18:22; Romans 10:9-10; Hebrews 5:9; Romans 6:16). Christ’s death makes salvation possible for all, but his death makes salvation automatic for no one.  A person must repent and be converted (Acts 3:19).  To be converted is to be born again.  The new birth is not the imparting of new abilities or enabling capacities, as if we are not naturally able to obey God.  We are not held responsible for what we cannot do, but for what we can do, and should do, but are choosing not to do.  Sinners are not unable to follow the Lord, they are unwilling.  God does not force people to follow him, therefore regeneration is also the responsibility of the sinner.  We are saved by grace (God’s influence on the heart and his kind favor when we yield to him) through faith (submission to Christ).  This is why God commands: “Make you a new heart and a new spirit” (Ezekiel 18:31), and why the salvation call is to deny self and to follow Christ (Mark 10:17, 21). This means “being dead in trespasses and sins” is not an inability to follow Christ, it is being relationally and proleptically dead, for the sinner is separated from God and is under the sentence of eternal death. To be born again is to repent, to turn to the Lord, to submit to his rule, to choose obedience to him over self-rule and self-gratification.  Therefore, regeneration is not a change in the abilities of a person, but the beginning of a person rightly using the abilities God created him with.