(upbeat music) - Good Monday morning to everyone out there listening. Thanks for listening to the podcast. We're gonna start this week with a question from an anonymous listener who writes in to ask this. Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for APJ. My question is this. Can you tell me if Paul says in Colossians 2.12 that faith causes regeneration, or is it the other way around?

Does regeneration, the new birth, cause faith? I can't seem to make sense of this text, but it seems to answer the question. I'd love your help. Thank you. - Well, Colossians 2.12 is a very precious verse for me personally, not because it describes how I was raised from spiritual death to life in Christ, but because it became a crucial text for me at a moment in my life in Germany, 50 years ago this year, in a time of controversy over baptism, this verse, Colossians 2.12, shed light for me on the question, would I be a Baptist and continue to believe that only believers should be baptized, or would I shift and embrace infant baptism?

Colossians 2.11 and 12 say, "In Christ, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were raised with him through faith." So underline that phrase, through faith. In baptism, you were raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

So baptism represents death with Christ in burial and new life in Christ through resurrection as we come up out of the water. And verse 12, it says, "This resurrection with Christ in baptism happens through faith." And that little phrase, through faith, is one of the decisive reasons why I remained a Baptist, though I was the only Baptist in the class among Lutherans in Germany, and I've remained so all my years, and why I do not think the New Testament teaches the baptism of infants who do not yet exercise faith.

But the person asking this question, we're not sure who it is, but I'm glad they asked it. The person asking this question is whether Colossians 2:12 teaches that this faith causes regeneration, that is, causes the new birth. And the answer to that is, no, it doesn't teach that, and it doesn't teach the opposite, namely that the new birth causes faith.

That question is simply not addressed in this verse, not as far as I can see, anyway. You have been buried with Christ in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God. It's not addressed. It's like saying, "I was buried after a cave-in in the mine, and I got out through a tunnel." But that statement, "through a tunnel," doesn't tell you who built the tunnel, right?

Did I dig it, or did someone dig it for me? None of that is addressed in this verse. But I assume the person asking this question wants to know more than just, "Nope, the verse doesn't have anything to do with that. See you later." That's probably not why this person wrote to us.

They're interested, I assume, in the doctrine, that is the teaching, the reality, not just the verse, namely, does faith bring about regeneration, or does regeneration by the Holy Spirit bring about faith? Now, here's my answer. I don't think there is a single verse, a single passage in the Bible that teaches that faith causes or brings about regeneration or the new birth.

But I think there are many texts that teach that the new birth precedes and brings about faith. In other words, texts that teach that the new birth or regeneration is the gracious, free, sovereign work of God prior to our new life in Christ, which creates that life and brings about faith.

So let me give some passages that teach this and then say why I think it's so important. First John 5, one. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Not everyone who believes will be born of God, but everyone who is now believing has, by virtue of that, you can see that, you see it in that effect, has already been born of God.

It's the new birth by God that brings about the believing. Or John 1, 12. To all who received Christ, who believed in his name, he gave the authority to become the children of God. Now, then he explains what he just said, how that believing came about. In the next verse, verse 13, quote, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

In other words, the new birth, he wants to underline several ways, did not come about from the powers of the flesh, nor from human willing. It came about from God. We didn't will ourselves alive. God, not man, brings about the new birth, which provides the spiritual life, which believes.

Or Acts 13, 48, when the Gentiles heard Paul's gospel, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. And it says, as many as were appointed to eternal life, believed. Not the other way around, not as many as believed were then appointed to eternal life, but as many as God had already appointed for eternal life, those are the ones who believed because God grants his elect the gift of faith.

Or Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. And if we had time, we could look at Philippians 1, 29. I'm gonna list these so that people can just stop the recording right here and look them all up.

'Cause I said there were many, and I've only given what? One, two, three, four, five, four, five. Philippians 1, 29, 2 Corinthians 4, 4-6, John 3, 7-8, John 6, 44, and 65, 2 Timothy 2, 25, 1 Corinthians 1, 23-24, and so on. But I think I will let folks do their own work on that, track those down, decide if they agree, and close by giving some reasons, maybe three, why this is so important.

'Cause some people may say, "Good grief, isn't it? "What difference does it make? "Believe and have life either way, first or second." Well, here's why it matters. Number one, it makes us realistic and sober-minded about the power of sin if we believe that we must be raised from the dead before we can believe.

If we think that we can provide the decisive power in the moment of our conversion, if we think that we can provide the decisive power in the moment of our conversion to pass out of spiritual death that cannot please God into spiritual life that sees and treasures Christ in faith, we simply do not yet have a right view of the power and depth and horror of our own sinful depravity.

Paul says in Romans 8, 7, "The mind of the flesh is hostile to God. "It does not submit to God's law. "Indeed, it cannot. "And those who are in the flesh cannot please God." In other words, the fallen condition of every human is the frightening, desperate, moral inability to change his own nature.

Left to ourselves, apart from sovereign grace decisively changing us so that we treasure the glory of Christ, we will be dead and blind forever. We do no one any service by treating the condition of the fallen human heart in a way that's not true, by implying people can create their own faith when they are dead in their trespasses and sins.

Here's the second reason this really matters. Unless we realize that God takes the initiative and provides the decisive power for us to wake from the dead and see Christ as true and glorious, we will never sing amazing grace with the kind of understanding and affection that we ought to.

We'll never know the greatness and the sweetness of the grace of God unless we know that new birth was his totally sovereign undeserved gift when we were dead. We just won't know what it means to be saved. And here's the third and the last one I'll mention. Really it's two, but I'm combining them into one.

If you know that the new birth is the sovereign work of God, a gift of grace, you will have both hope in your praying and hope in your personal witnessing. So prayer and evangelism, you will have hope to pray as you ought and witness to lost people as you ought.

You will realize that you cannot cause anyone to believe who is dead in their trespasses and sins and who's blind to the glory of Christ, but if you believe that God has ordained prayer and witnessing as the means of his own sovereign act in raising people from the dead, then you will be able to pray and to share the gospel with hope and with earnestness.

So no, Colossians 2.12 does not teach this. Nor does it contradict this, but many other passages of scripture do teach the glorious truth that God is the one who regenerated dead sinners and who gave us faith. - Thank you, Pastor John. And if you want more detail on Pastor John's debates with Lutherans over baptism 50 years ago, back in his studies in Germany, and particularly over this text of Colossians 2.12, we covered that period of his life in two past episodes.

Both can be found in our archive, ABJs 305 and 1372. Go into those details, ABJs 305 and 1372. Check them out. And thanks for joining us today. You can ask a question of your own, search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast, all at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. Well, if you are God's blood-bought child, God makes much of you.

He does, he really does make much of you. In fact, he makes more of you and more of me than we could ever dare imagine that he would. How so? Pastor John is going to list the ways he does it. You won't wanna miss this one coming up next time on Wednesday.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we will see you back here on Wednesday. See you then. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)