[Note: This is Part A of the sermon on 2 Corinthians 2:14, delivered 14 November 1982, Montreal. The series is titled "Regeneration and Renewal." Part B continues directly.]
Today we continue to look into this matter of regeneration and growth, or renewal. I find that many people, after listening to the message or already having their doubts about their spiritual condition, are asking: am I regenerate? Have I been born again? Am I really a Christian? We can solve this problem of certainty in one of two ways. We can simply declare that everything is fine and close our eyes to the reality of our actual spiritual condition. Or we can be spiritual realists and look the truth in the eyes, and see whether we have the evidence in our lives of being true Christians. If we try to claim assurance on any other basis than the actual reality of life, then we are of all men most to be pitied — to have assurance of something you don't actually have is simply self-delusion.
I will aim to centralize today's message around one particular text — 2 Corinthians 2:14: "But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere." I would like to use this verse as a touchstone, a means to test whether you are able to say these words after Paul — whether you can take this verse and make it your own. Can you say with Paul: thanks be to God, who in Christ always enables us to be victorious? Because clearly, if you are a defeated Christian, there is no fragrance to spread anywhere. What you might spread is a miasma — a bad odor. You certainly don't spread any fragrance.
Now I am going to try to demonstrate that this is the fundamental characteristic of a regenerate person. We are so used today to thinking of triumphant Christians and defeated Christians — and defeated Christians are also Christians, while triumphant Christians are just another more fortunate class who somehow manage to triumph by some mystery. But I have great trouble finding these so-called defeated Christians in scripture. When Paul's apostleship was questioned, what evidence did he give? Not that he had attended the right seminary. Not that his teacher was very evangelical. Very simply: he said, look at my life. Do I or do I not live a life that is blameless? Do I or do I not triumph in the face of every circumstance? Nothing speaks so convincingly to anyone as what you are.
I want to say something briefly on the matter of re-baptism, because it is closely connected to this question. Some people request re-baptism because they are not certain whether they were born again or not — whether they made a genuine commitment at their first baptism. Now, at baptism, as Peter says in his letter, it is the pledge or vow to God of a good conscience. A pledge made to God. There is a vow involved, and there is a conscience involved.
I compared it to signing a legal document. If you sign a legal document, do you sign it twice to make it more effective? The number of signatures has nothing to do with the validity of the document. The only question is what you signed. If you signed a declaration saying: "I herewith finish totally with my old way of life and from this moment on acknowledge Jesus as my Lord and King" — and you signed your name underneath — is that document valid in a court of law? The answer is yes. Even if you did not fully understand every implication of Lordship and Kingship at the time, you signed it, and it stands. Would signing it a second time make it any more valid? The answer is clearly no.
The problem only arises when what you signed contained nothing about the Lordship of Christ, nothing about finishing with the old way of life. Then you have a real problem, because you never committed yourself to those things. You may have signed only for church membership. In such cases, clearly there is a legitimate question about the validity of your baptism. But only you know what you pledged. I don't know what you pledged. There are cases where someone was informed in the afternoon that baptism would be that very evening — so it was almost a hundred-meter dash to the baptismal pool, with barely enough notice to change. I don't know what pledge was made there, or whether there was any conscious pledge at all. That is something you have to decide before the Lord.
I would say this plainly: no person in this church was ever baptized without being fully informed as to what it was they were pledging. Therefore, no person in this church could use the excuse that they didn't know what they had signed or pledged at baptism. But this raises a further question, as one person did raise: they were baptized in this church, they knew the full conditions of baptism, but the commitment was made without sincerity. Their motives were wrong — they didn't want to be left out while all their friends were getting baptized. Now this person repents, and the Lord has been at work in their heart. The question is: is that baptism valid or not?
Again, return to the illustration. Suppose you signed a legal document out of wrong motives — because your friends signed theirs, so you signed yours. Would the document be less valid? Can you say to the judge: I wasn't really sincere, my motives were wrong — can I be released? The judge's answer will be: no. You signed the document; it is legal and valid. Your motive for signing it is none of the court's concern.
This brings me to a very important point. If in this church you have made the pledge of total commitment, even if you did it insincerely, you must understand that your pledge remains valid before God. He will hold you to account for your vow. This is a principle of the Old Testament — someone made a vow hastily to offer his daughter to the Lord. He regretted it, he knew he had done it without thinking carefully. But he could not back out. The vow had to be performed once it was made to God. Once you have made the vow, that vow stands.
And the tragedy of such persons is this: they are legally liable for the vow they have made, and yet they are unregenerate. Isn't that a tragedy? Because regeneration can come only through genuine faith — through total commitment. Without that, you don't have regeneration. So their baptism stands legally, but they don't have regeneration. That is a terrible situation.
God will hold you liable for what you committed yourself to, and he will judge you on the point that you have failed to live according to your vow. It is better not to make a vow to the Lord at all than to make it and not keep it — because God will judge you by the word of your mouth. If you say you are a Christian, he will judge you as a Christian, at a higher standard, as a person in breach of their vows.
Do not play around with the living God. He is the living God, and he will hold you to account. You know what happened to those who lied to the Lord in Acts chapter 5 — on the single matter of their property, they lied to the Lord, and they dropped dead right there. That was a warning to the church not to make vows that one will not keep. God has no patience with liars. Among the lists given at the end of Revelation, the ones who will not be found in the heavenly city — at the top of the list: liars. Those who made their profession at baptism and never kept it.
Now, we do not speak of baptismal regeneration — we do not say that baptism itself can regenerate a person, for that would be to put magical properties into baptism. Regeneration has to do with the work of the Spirit in your life when you commit yourself totally to him. Therefore, baptism and regeneration can be two separate things and most often are. You were truly and legally baptized, you are under obligation of the new covenant — but if you have not been born anew, you cannot live by the terms of the covenant. You will be defeated all the time. Now if even after subsequent regeneration you need not be baptized again — legally the baptism still stands.
[Continues in Part B]
# Regeneration and Victory (Part B) — Romans 7 Bondage to Sin; Victory as Mark of Regeneration; Matthew 17:20 Nothing Impossible; John 15 and 16; Revelation's Overcomer Promises
[Note: This is Part B of the sermon on 2 Corinthians 2:14, delivered 14 November 1982, Montreal. The series is titled "Regeneration and Renewal." Continues directly from Part A.]
Now let us look into the signs of regeneration. Our brother Eric touched on some of these points last time and preached part of my message for me, but for the sake of completeness I need to cover some of those points again. It is essential that each one of you, as we look at these points, examine whether it is true of you or not. If one or more of these points are not true in your life, you have good reason to doubt that you have been born again in the biblical sense of the word.
When you were not a Christian — or if you are a Christian but not a born-again, regenerate Christian — what happened? You were under bondage to sin. That is what the whole of Romans chapter 7 is about. If, right now, even as a Christian, you are under bondage to sin, then you know you haven't been born again. Let me read Romans 7, quickly, from verse 14: "We know that the law is spiritual. But I am carnal, sold under sin." Sold under sin means you are sold so as to be under sin — your sins have caused you to come under the dominion of sin, you have become a slave of sin. And what is the mark of being a slave of sin? "I do not do what I want. But I do the very thing I hate." And verse 18: "I can will what is right, but I cannot do it."
Notice these key words. You can will what is right — if you didn't want what is right, presumably you wouldn't be in church at all. The problem is not with the willing; I can desire what is good. The will is in bondage only in the sense that what you will, you cannot do. So here you can see very clearly: the evidence of non-regeneration is that you are simply unable to do what is right. You know you have to be patient with a brother or sister. You know you need to love. Can you do it? No — the brother opens his mouth and you are annoyed again. You cannot help yourself. If you cannot help yourself, though you want to do right but can't, there is the sure sign that you are under bondage to sin and have not yet known regeneration in the sense in which God's power has come in and set you free.
As the Lord Jesus said: if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed. If Jesus doesn't set us free from sin, then what's the point of being a Christian? You are just the same as a non-Christian — in bondage to sin, different only in name. Once we grasp this, we realize why victory over sin is the evidence of regeneration: non-regeneration means bondage to sin, therefore regeneration means victory over sin. Paul expounds this fully in Romans 8 and already in Romans 6, right in connection with baptism — "you are no longer under the dominion of sin." If you are no longer under the dominion of sin, sin cannot make you do what you don't want to do. It's very simple. It is simply a matter of defeat or victory. That's what all of Romans is about.
Now, in the Lord's teaching and throughout scripture, this powerful, victorious life is the only kind of Christian life the Bible really understands and teaches about. Let us read Matthew 17:20. The disciples could not cast out the demon, and the Lord said to them: "Because of your little faith, for truly I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible to you." Notice this: nothing will be impossible to you. We normally think of this verse only in terms of miracles — that is a great mistake. This verse has much more to do with practical everyday living. Every day, in every circumstance, there shall not be anything that is impossible. When God tells you to do something, he also gives you the power to do it. If he tells you to love, he will give you the power to love the unlovely. If he tells you to be holy, he will give you the power to be holy.
If your commitment was total and his power is almighty, where in between these two things is there room for failure? The reason we do not see the mighty works within the church is because we have not yet applied these words into our daily lives. If "nothing shall be impossible to you" was our daily experience — every time we try to love someone unlovely and find that by God's grace we can do it — then soon we will find that other problems are not so great either. The casting out of a demon, the healing of a sick person — these would not be such a great problem either. But if we do not experience the truth of these words in our daily lives first, we cannot apply them anywhere else.
Which requires greater power, do you think — to cast out a demon or to live in holiness? If anyone has truly tried to live a life of sincerity and holiness, he will know that between the two there is nothing to choose in terms of difficulty. It takes the same mighty power of God to help me live in holiness as to heal the sick or raise the crippled man. It's all the same power. Mark 9:23 says the same thing in similar circumstances: "All things are possible to him who believes." There is no possibility of defeat for the Christian who walks with God.
Now turn to John 15, verse 16. The Lord says: "You did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give it you." Do you bear fruit? Does your fruit abide? That is the evidence of regeneration. And then: whatever you ask the Father in my name. There it is again — the same unconditional assurance. Not in a carnal sense of asking for a Cadillac or whatever we might desire, but the spiritual man does not think of those things. The spiritual man thinks of victory, spiritual triumph. Whatever the situation, I will grant you the victory — that is what this is saying.
John 16:23 says something very similar: "Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full." Notice the connection with joy. Nobody who is defeated lives in joy — you can see it on a defeated man's face. The Lord Jesus wants us to live victorious, knowing that we can't do it in our own strength. So he says: ask what you need to be victorious, and I will give it to you.
Paul uses these staggering words in Philippians 4: "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." That does not sound like a person who knows defeat. There is no circumstance — in marriage, in relation to children, in relation to flatmates — in which I will know defeat. The battle is never easy, but the greater the battle, the greater will be the power to overcome; the greater the challenge, the greater also will be the grace God supplies. That is what it means to go from strength to strength.
Finally, look at the letters to the seven churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. Seven times you find the word overcome, and the conditions of salvation are all based on overcoming. He who is victorious will eat of the tree of life — that was denied to Adam in the garden, but it is granted to those whose regeneration is seen in the victorious character of their life. The victorious will not be afraid of the second death; those living in defeat will come under the penalty of the second death. He who is victorious will receive the hidden manna. Those who are victorious will reign with Christ; they will be dressed in white — and in heaven everyone is dressed in white, which means that if you are not dressed in white, like the man without the wedding garment, you have no place in God's kingdom. Only those who are victorious will abide in God's temple, will dwell in his presence forever. Only the victorious will share his glory.
So I ask you this question again — be honest with God. Are you a saved person? Are you a regenerate person? Are you a true Christian according to what the word of God teaches? If your commitment in the past was insincere, get yourself straightened out with God speedily. Repent and put the matter right with God. God will be gracious, and then enter into this fullness of the victorious life lived in the power of the living God. Let us be quiet before God in prayer.