[Note: This is Part A of the sermon on the marks of regeneration from the Johannine writings, delivered 2 January 1983, Montreal. (The filename reads 1982-0102 but the content references "Christmas Day remarks," indicating this is the New Year series and the date is January 2, 1983.) The series is titled "Regeneration and Renewal." Part B continues directly.]
Today we continue from the series on regeneration. On Christmas Day I was making some remarks about the need to strengthen the foundation, and it is my desire that no one in this church — whether here a long time or a short time — will have any doubt about what regeneration means. Many people take a long time to grasp even these relatively fundamental facts of God's working in our lives. And because of this, some think they need a further experience beyond regeneration — what is called in many churches a second blessing.
Now this so-called second blessing, when I come to examine it closely, turns out to be nothing more than a regeneration experience. I have not been able to find any content in this second blessing that is other than what scripture describes as regeneration. People speak of a new and closer experience of God, a sense of God's presence, a great joy within — but all this is part of the regeneration experience, if they had only had it in the first place. Or they suddenly come to a deep realization that they need to live no more in their own strength but in the power of God, that Christ lives in them. But that is part of regeneration. There is no second blessing in that.
The whole problem was that what should have been one experience — the regeneration experience — was split into two separate parts and described as a first blessing and a second blessing. This is the kind of confusion I would like you all to be spared from.
The last time I dealt with one mark of regeneration: that the regenerate person always lives in triumph. I shall not repeat that now. Just to remind you: every regenerate Christian finds that he is able to live victoriously. If you therefore live a defeated Christian life, a wretched life that lacks fullness and spiritual dynamic, you can be sure there is something fundamentally wrong; you are still perhaps in search of what the Bible speaks of as regeneration.
All the various points I am going to share today can very simply be summed up in one word: holiness. But very few people seem properly to understand what holiness means. So instead, let us come to these seven marks of regeneration and look at them in the writings of John — the Gospel of John, the first letter of John, and the Revelation. That constitutes a very large proportion of the New Testament.
Let us begin at John chapter 1, verses 12 and 13: "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power — or authority — to become children of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." The essential point here is quite simple. You cannot be or become a child of God without God's power. This is the fundamental doctrine of grace — we do not cause ourselves to be born again; it is God's power, through his Spirit, coming into our lives and causing us to be born from above. In experiential and practical terms, this means: when you have the power to be a son of God, you can live as a son of God. You can behave as someone born anew, because the power is now present in your life to be and to become a son of God.
If you go and try to live the Christian life and find yourself constantly unable to do so, failing constantly, there is the sense of frustration that must be evident to anyone who has ever tried it. You can't live the Christian life. Your life becomes one unending plea for forgiveness. Why do you need to plead for forgiveness all the time? Because you simply cannot live the life you know you should be living. That is to live in defeat. There are only two logical possibilities: either you are unwilling to live as a son of God — in which case your salvation is very much in doubt — or you are unable to live as a son of God because God has not provided you with the power. When you are pleading for forgiveness all the time, you are declaring one of these two things.
So check yourself. Do you live what can properly be called the life of a child of God? Not necessarily perfect in every detail — we are all pressing on to yet greater and deeper things in the Lord. But at least in general, with its overall character, is it the life of a child of God? Is God's power working, enabling you to live as a child of God? That is the first point.
Now on to the second mark. John chapter 3, verse 3: "Jesus said to Nicodemus, Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God." That is to say, if you are born anew, you will see the kingdom of God. What do you see? The kingdom of God is quite simply the kingship of God. Everyone who is born anew sees God's kingship — even in a world where with natural eyes you can't see any kingship of God at all. The natural man looks around and sees no kingship of God. But the spiritual man, with the eyes of faith, looks beyond existing circumstances and sees the kingship of God.
I gave the example of Elisha: surrounded by the Syrian armies on all sides, no way to escape, his servant trembling at the helmets and spears shining in the sun. Elisha is a picture of calmness. And he says: Lord, open his eyes. Let him have a look. And when his eyes opened, he saw: those who are for us are more than those who are against us. The armies of the Lord were all around. Seeing God's kingdom is to see his kingship. The prophetic vision is dominated by this perception. Isaiah's first vision — "mine eyes have seen the King" — dominated his entire prophetic ministry. In Jeremiah chapter 8, verse 19: "Is not God in Zion? Is not the king of Israel in her?" Daniel uses the term "the Most High" — because Nebuchadnezzar claimed the title king of kings, Daniel would rather speak of God as the Most High, higher than anyone can go.
Do you see God's kingship in this world, with all its nuclear threats and pollution and starvation and strife? He who is born again, who has experienced God's power in his life, sees the kingship of God. That is the second mark.
Now on to the third mark. John 3:8: "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." The wind represents the Holy Spirit, who moves according to his wisdom and power — not in man's control. And so it is with everyone born of God. The meaning is simply this: everyone born of God lives fully under the control of the Holy Spirit. Your life is fully determined by him. When he says go this way, you go this way; go that way, you go that way. And this makes you totally unpredictable and unintelligible to the natural man.
The natural man cannot understand you. A nice career is going well — the wind is in your sails — and suddenly you swing around and go in the opposite direction. What happened? He quit his job, he talks about serving the Lord, he spends all his time reading the Bible. We can't understand this person. Of course they can't, because your life is now governed by the Spirit of God.
Put some garbage there and the cockroaches will come. Very predictable. And so the Christian has no witness in the world when they go where the money is, where the reputation is — the non-Christian says: you want the same things we want, we change the same banknotes, we chase the same reputation. But when you are not predictable, they cannot understand you. They are upset, annoyed — and that is wonderful! At least now they start thinking. Because up to that point they had nothing to think about. That is exactly the function Christians should have: make the non-Christian think, and that thinking could well lead them into the kingdom of God.
Remember what was said about D. L. Moody, that great servant of God. He was very busy with preaching and could not accept an invitation from one large church. At the board meeting, one fellow stood up and said: since Mr. Moody is not coming, I suggest he does not have the monopoly of the Holy Spirit — we can always invite somebody else. Another brother stood up and said: I think the reason we wanted Mr. Moody to preach here lies not in that he has a monopoly of the Holy Spirit, but because the Holy Spirit has a monopoly of him. That is exactly what John 3:8 is saying. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit, because the Holy Spirit has a monopoly of him. Does the Holy Spirit have a monopoly of you?
Let us come to the fourth point. 1 John chapter 2, verse 29: "If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who does right is born of him." If his nature is righteous, and you are born of him, you have the same nature. Like father, like son. Doing righteousness is not about how good your Christian language is — not about evangelical verbiage and spiritual-sounding lingo. It is whether you do right.
To understand doing righteousness more concretely, let us turn to Acts chapter 10, verse 35. Peter is explaining why the Spirit of God came upon Cornelius: "Truly, I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him." There is the same basic term: who does righteousness. God accepts you because you live according to the power he provides for you. And what is the righteousness Cornelius did? Verse 2 of chapter 10: "He was a devout man who feared God with all his household. He gave alms liberally to the people and prayed constantly to God." That was the righteousness he did — giving liberally to meet the needs of others, and constant prayer. Both on the material, practical level and on the spiritual level, Cornelius was not found wanting. And because of that, there was a memorial in God's presence for him: "Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God." What constitutes the memorial? The righteousness that he did. That righteousness stands before God as a memorial, reminding God of you.
And everyone born of God constantly does what Cornelius did — liberally giving to help a brother or sister in need, and constant prayer upholding one another spiritually as well as physically. Both must go together.
[Continues in Part B]
# Seven Marks of a Regenerated Christian (Part B) — Mark five: Does Not Sin (1 John 3:9); Adam/Baby Analogy; Justification as Declaration and Impartation; Mark six: Kept by the Son (1 John 5:18); Mark seven: Love (1 John 4:7)
[Note: This is Part B of the sermon on the marks of regeneration from the Johannine writings, delivered 2 January 1983, Montreal. The series is titled "Regeneration and Renewal." Continues directly from Part A.]
Now let us come quickly to the fifth point. 1 John chapter 3, verse 9: "No one born of God commits sin, for God's nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God." This is a very strong verse, and much to the discomfort of theologians of a certain persuasion. In this generation, when holiness is declared optional rather than necessary in most churches — some even dare to say that holiness is not essential to salvation — the word of God says no one born of God commits sin. Did I say it? It is the word of God that says it. Because God's nature is in us, we cannot deliberately or constantly commit sin.
The apostle Paul says exactly the same thing. What is all of Romans 6 about? If we have died with Christ we are freed from sin. He repeats this again and again all the way to Romans 8: we are no longer under the dominion of sin, we are servants of righteousness now. There is no difference whatsoever between the two apostles. The teaching is exactly the same.
To put this into a simple nutshell: without holiness and without the evidence of holiness in your life, you are not born again, whatever you claim. Because if you are born anew, you do not desire sin. You are not under any compulsion to sin. And if you are neither under the compulsion to sin nor do you desire sin, exactly how do you commit sin? You are therefore living in holiness.
This does not mean sinless in the sense of absolute perfection — that eradication of all sinful inclination. Consider Adam in the garden: Adam was not sinless. The very fact that he sinned proved he was not sinless. The biblical doctrine of perfection is not a negative thing — merely the absence of sin. The infant lying in the cradle also commits no sin. The baby in the cradle is every bit as sinless as Adam was. In what way is Adam superior to the baby in the cradle? And if we say that the baby is capable of committing sin in so far as he has a flesh that inclines him to sin — that was also true of Adam. Flesh is the element in which we are not perfect in the sense of being free from all inclination to sin. I have a body of flesh; I am tempted to sin. This does not mean I necessarily sin, but I am tempted and I am capable of sinning.
But he who is born of God does not commit sin. He cannot commit sin only in so far as the new nature dominates his life — the new nature is in control. And here is one theological point I want to lay down: justification is not merely the declaration of righteousness — not merely God saying, okay, I forgive you, and you are forgiven. That is part of justification. But the other part is that in which God imparts his nature to you and thereby makes you righteous. Never separate the two. God forgives you, yes — and God also makes you righteous, by imparting his Spirit and implanting his nature in you. Because we choose to take only one part of the doctrine of justification and ignore the other, we get into serious trouble.
You can see how this fifth point is very close to the point I expounded last time: you can constantly triumph over sin because God's nature is in you, enabling you to triumph over sin. The Christian life becomes very joyful, very meaningful, very rich indeed.
But we have something more to be grateful for. Inwardly we have God's nature; but outwardly we are also protected against the attacks of the evil one. Let us look at 1 John chapter 5, verse 18: "We know that anyone born of God does not sin — and in case we have missed the point, the apostle John repeats it — but he who was born of God keeps him and the evil one does not touch him."
Now, better than that, how can we have it? Inside you: God's nature. Outside you: the Son of God himself keeps you. He watches over you as the apple of his eye. He protects you day and night, physically and spiritually. I have shared before that if it were not for the fact that the Lord has kept me, protecting me physically, I think I would have died at least three times over within the last two years. At least three times over. And each time I came out without so much as a hair on my head being injured. He keeps us. Satan would destroy us time and again. Just as he tried to destroy the infant Jesus in the manger. But the Lord keeps his people, spiritually as well. How many times we would have been wiped out by that powerful enemy Satan, but for the fact that the Son of God keeps us.
We have dealt with the inward and the outward. And the seventh point is one I have already touched upon — being constantly victorious, expounded in 1 John 5:4-5. I shall not repeat it now. And of course the essential point of the whole letter of John is 1 John chapter 4, verse 7: "Everyone who loves is born of God." Love flows from the regenerate heart. This point I think in our church we don't need to expound in detail. You already know that without love as a sign in your spiritual life, you have not been born of God.
Here we close for today. I ask you to let God examine your heart. Are you born of God? Are you a Christian in the biblical sense of the word? Do you have a living relationship to the living God? Let us be quiet before God in prayer. Bye. Bye.