Does Faith Cause Regeneration?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Good Monday morning to everyone out there listening.
00:00:06.900 | Thanks for listening to the podcast.
00:00:08.720 | We're gonna start this week with a question
00:00:10.560 | from an anonymous listener who writes in to ask this.
00:00:13.040 | Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for APJ.
00:00:15.800 | My question is this.
00:00:16.840 | Can you tell me if Paul says in Colossians 2.12
00:00:20.520 | that faith causes regeneration,
00:00:23.520 | or is it the other way around?
00:00:24.800 | Does regeneration, the new birth, cause faith?
00:00:30.000 | I can't seem to make sense of this text,
00:00:32.080 | but it seems to answer the question.
00:00:33.960 | I'd love your help.
00:00:35.400 | Thank you.
00:00:36.560 | - Well, Colossians 2.12 is a very precious verse
00:00:40.960 | for me personally,
00:00:43.000 | not because it describes how I was raised
00:00:46.360 | from spiritual death to life in Christ,
00:00:49.480 | but because it became a crucial text for me
00:00:54.480 | at a moment in my life in Germany,
00:00:59.640 | 50 years ago this year,
00:01:01.640 | in a time of controversy over baptism,
00:01:06.280 | this verse, Colossians 2.12,
00:01:09.160 | shed light for me on the question,
00:01:13.120 | would I be a Baptist and continue to believe
00:01:16.360 | that only believers should be baptized,
00:01:19.920 | or would I shift and embrace infant baptism?
00:01:25.280 | Colossians 2.11 and 12 say,
00:01:29.720 | "In Christ, you were circumcised
00:01:32.960 | with a circumcision made without hands,
00:01:36.920 | by putting off the body of flesh
00:01:39.200 | by the circumcision of Christ,
00:01:42.320 | having been buried with him in baptism,
00:01:46.040 | in which you were raised with him through faith."
00:01:49.920 | So underline that phrase, through faith.
00:01:52.800 | In baptism, you were raised with him through faith
00:01:56.880 | in the powerful working of God
00:01:58.680 | who raised him from the dead.
00:02:00.120 | So baptism represents death with Christ in burial
00:02:06.080 | and new life in Christ through resurrection
00:02:10.760 | as we come up out of the water.
00:02:12.400 | And verse 12, it says,
00:02:17.200 | "This resurrection with Christ in baptism
00:02:21.240 | happens through faith."
00:02:23.920 | And that little phrase, through faith,
00:02:27.160 | is one of the decisive reasons
00:02:30.840 | why I remained a Baptist,
00:02:34.720 | though I was the only Baptist in the class
00:02:36.440 | among Lutherans in Germany,
00:02:41.000 | and I've remained so all my years,
00:02:43.320 | and why I do not think the New Testament
00:02:46.080 | teaches the baptism of infants
00:02:48.200 | who do not yet exercise faith.
00:02:51.760 | But the person asking this question,
00:02:55.160 | we're not sure who it is,
00:02:57.120 | but I'm glad they asked it.
00:02:58.240 | The person asking this question
00:03:00.640 | is whether Colossians 2:12 teaches
00:03:02.560 | that this faith causes regeneration,
00:03:07.080 | that is, causes the new birth.
00:03:09.200 | And the answer to that is, no, it doesn't teach that,
00:03:12.480 | and it doesn't teach the opposite,
00:03:14.320 | namely that the new birth causes faith.
00:03:17.960 | That question is simply not addressed in this verse,
00:03:22.000 | not as far as I can see, anyway.
00:03:24.240 | You have been buried with Christ in baptism
00:03:28.640 | in which you were also raised with him through faith
00:03:33.640 | in the powerful working of God.
00:03:35.400 | It's not addressed.
00:03:36.280 | It's like saying, "I was buried after a cave-in in the mine,
00:03:41.280 | and I got out through a tunnel."
00:03:45.920 | But that statement, "through a tunnel,"
00:03:48.960 | doesn't tell you who built the tunnel, right?
00:03:52.360 | Did I dig it, or did someone dig it for me?
00:03:56.360 | None of that is addressed in this verse.
00:03:59.960 | But I assume the person asking this question
00:04:03.760 | wants to know more than just,
00:04:07.480 | "Nope, the verse doesn't have anything to do with that.
00:04:09.400 | See you later."
00:04:10.240 | That's probably not why this person wrote to us.
00:04:14.800 | They're interested, I assume, in the doctrine,
00:04:17.280 | that is the teaching, the reality,
00:04:19.400 | not just the verse, namely,
00:04:21.960 | does faith bring about regeneration,
00:04:26.960 | or does regeneration by the Holy Spirit bring about faith?
00:04:32.080 | Now, here's my answer.
00:04:34.080 | I don't think there is a single verse,
00:04:38.080 | a single passage in the Bible
00:04:42.320 | that teaches that faith causes
00:04:46.080 | or brings about regeneration or the new birth.
00:04:50.080 | But I think there are many texts
00:04:53.840 | that teach that the new birth precedes
00:04:57.920 | and brings about faith.
00:05:00.000 | In other words, texts that teach that the new birth
00:05:04.360 | or regeneration is the gracious, free, sovereign work
00:05:11.360 | of God prior to our new life in Christ,
00:05:16.360 | which creates that life and brings about faith.
00:05:21.880 | So let me give some passages that teach this
00:05:27.000 | and then say why I think it's so important.
00:05:30.300 | First John 5, one.
00:05:33.960 | Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ
00:05:39.540 | has been born of God.
00:05:42.520 | Not everyone who believes will be born of God,
00:05:47.260 | but everyone who is now believing has, by virtue of that,
00:05:52.180 | you can see that, you see it in that effect,
00:05:54.900 | has already been born of God.
00:05:57.100 | It's the new birth by God that brings about the believing.
00:06:01.920 | Or John 1, 12.
00:06:04.100 | To all who received Christ, who believed in his name,
00:06:09.580 | he gave the authority to become the children of God.
00:06:14.140 | Now, then he explains what he just said,
00:06:18.120 | how that believing came about.
00:06:22.100 | In the next verse, verse 13, quote,
00:06:24.480 | who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
00:06:30.380 | nor of the will of man, but of God.
00:06:38.880 | In other words, the new birth,
00:06:41.300 | he wants to underline several ways,
00:06:44.500 | did not come about from the powers of the flesh,
00:06:49.400 | nor from human willing.
00:06:51.900 | It came about from God.
00:06:54.840 | We didn't will ourselves alive.
00:06:57.600 | God, not man, brings about the new birth,
00:07:02.840 | which provides the spiritual life, which believes.
00:07:07.180 | Or Acts 13, 48, when the Gentiles heard Paul's gospel,
00:07:12.180 | they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord.
00:07:17.460 | And it says, as many as were appointed
00:07:21.340 | to eternal life, believed.
00:07:24.900 | Not the other way around, not as many as believed
00:07:28.620 | were then appointed to eternal life,
00:07:30.660 | but as many as God had already appointed for eternal life,
00:07:34.960 | those are the ones who believed
00:07:37.460 | because God grants his elect the gift of faith.
00:07:42.460 | Or Ephesians 2, 8, and 9,
00:07:46.620 | by grace you have been saved through faith.
00:07:49.820 | This is not your own doing.
00:07:52.800 | It is the gift of God, not a result of works,
00:07:57.800 | so that no one may boast.
00:08:01.460 | And if we had time, we could look at Philippians 1, 29.
00:08:05.080 | I'm gonna list these so that people
00:08:06.620 | can just stop the recording right here
00:08:08.840 | and look them all up.
00:08:10.520 | 'Cause I said there were many, and I've only given what?
00:08:12.680 | One, two, three, four, five, four, five.
00:08:15.040 | Philippians 1, 29, 2 Corinthians 4, 4-6,
00:08:20.000 | John 3, 7-8, John 6, 44, and 65, 2 Timothy 2, 25,
00:08:25.000 | 1 Corinthians 1, 23-24, and so on.
00:08:31.040 | But I think I will let folks do their own work on that,
00:08:36.040 | track those down, decide if they agree,
00:08:39.680 | and close by giving some reasons, maybe three,
00:08:44.680 | why this is so important.
00:08:47.200 | 'Cause some people may say, "Good grief, isn't it?
00:08:49.200 | "What difference does it make?
00:08:50.440 | "Believe and have life either way, first or second."
00:08:55.440 | Well, here's why it matters.
00:08:57.120 | Number one, it makes us realistic and sober-minded
00:09:02.120 | about the power of sin if we believe
00:09:06.960 | that we must be raised from the dead before we can believe.
00:09:10.760 | If we think that we can provide the decisive power
00:09:16.060 | in the moment of our conversion,
00:09:19.680 | if we think that we can provide the decisive power
00:09:25.480 | in the moment of our conversion
00:09:28.120 | to pass out of spiritual death that cannot please God
00:09:31.680 | into spiritual life that sees and treasures Christ in faith,
00:09:36.680 | we simply do not yet have a right view of the power
00:09:42.200 | and depth and horror of our own sinful depravity.
00:09:47.200 | Paul says in Romans 8, 7,
00:09:50.320 | "The mind of the flesh is hostile to God.
00:09:54.100 | "It does not submit to God's law.
00:09:56.580 | "Indeed, it cannot.
00:09:58.660 | "And those who are in the flesh cannot please God."
00:10:02.800 | In other words, the fallen condition of every human
00:10:07.560 | is the frightening, desperate, moral inability
00:10:12.560 | to change his own nature.
00:10:16.400 | Left to ourselves, apart from sovereign grace
00:10:21.000 | decisively changing us so that we treasure
00:10:23.940 | the glory of Christ, we will be dead and blind forever.
00:10:28.940 | We do no one any service by treating the condition
00:10:35.260 | of the fallen human heart in a way that's not true,
00:10:41.380 | by implying people can create their own faith
00:10:44.900 | when they are dead in their trespasses and sins.
00:10:49.060 | Here's the second reason this really matters.
00:10:51.480 | Unless we realize that God takes the initiative
00:10:56.440 | and provides the decisive power for us to wake
00:11:02.520 | from the dead and see Christ as true and glorious,
00:11:06.940 | we will never sing amazing grace
00:11:11.000 | with the kind of understanding and affection
00:11:14.000 | that we ought to.
00:11:15.540 | We'll never know the greatness and the sweetness
00:11:18.960 | of the grace of God unless we know that new birth
00:11:23.060 | was his totally sovereign undeserved gift
00:11:27.620 | when we were dead.
00:11:29.020 | We just won't know what it means to be saved.
00:11:31.580 | And here's the third and the last one I'll mention.
00:11:33.940 | Really it's two, but I'm combining them into one.
00:11:37.220 | If you know that the new birth is the sovereign work of God,
00:11:43.680 | a gift of grace, you will have both hope
00:11:49.640 | in your praying and hope in your personal witnessing.
00:11:54.640 | So prayer and evangelism, you will have hope
00:11:59.920 | to pray as you ought and witness to lost people
00:12:04.920 | as you ought.
00:12:06.580 | You will realize that you cannot cause anyone
00:12:10.800 | to believe who is dead in their trespasses and sins
00:12:15.660 | and who's blind to the glory of Christ,
00:12:18.000 | but if you believe that God has ordained prayer
00:12:23.000 | and witnessing as the means of his own sovereign act
00:12:28.680 | in raising people from the dead,
00:12:31.840 | then you will be able to pray and to share the gospel
00:12:36.620 | with hope and with earnestness.
00:12:39.720 | So no, Colossians 2.12 does not teach this.
00:12:44.720 | Nor does it contradict this,
00:12:47.720 | but many other passages of scripture
00:12:51.600 | do teach the glorious truth that God is the one
00:12:56.160 | who regenerated dead sinners and who gave us faith.
00:13:02.040 | - Thank you, Pastor John.
00:13:04.680 | And if you want more detail on Pastor John's debates
00:13:07.520 | with Lutherans over baptism 50 years ago,
00:13:09.680 | back in his studies in Germany,
00:13:11.080 | and particularly over this text of Colossians 2.12,
00:13:13.640 | we covered that period of his life in two past episodes.
00:13:16.920 | Both can be found in our archive, ABJs 305 and 1372.
00:13:21.920 | Go into those details, ABJs 305 and 1372.
00:13:27.200 | Check them out.
00:13:28.040 | And thanks for joining us today.
00:13:30.180 | You can ask a question of your own,
00:13:31.640 | search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast,
00:13:33.840 | all at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:13:37.800 | Well, if you are God's blood-bought child,
00:13:43.200 | God makes much of you.
00:13:44.600 | He does, he really does make much of you.
00:13:46.920 | In fact, he makes more of you and more of me
00:13:49.840 | than we could ever dare imagine that he would.
00:13:54.080 | How so?
00:13:55.120 | Pastor John is going to list the ways he does it.
00:13:57.820 | You won't wanna miss this one
00:13:58.920 | coming up next time on Wednesday.
00:14:00.960 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke,
00:14:02.000 | and we will see you back here on Wednesday.
00:14:04.320 | See you then.
00:14:05.160 | (upbeat music)
00:14:07.740 | (upbeat music)
00:14:10.320 | [BLANK_AUDIO]