The Necessity of the New Birth
Last week we saw the reality that God has revealed the truth of mankind’s need for him with abundant and inexcusable clarity. But we also saw that despite the overwhelming clarity of the truth, sinful men will not repent and believe. In the face of every opportunity, sinners will spurn the gospel of grace to their own everlasting peril. Why is this so? Why will men stare the offer of God’s merciful pardon of all their sins in the face and yet refuse to repent and be saved?
The reason is because the free will of men is in bondage to sin; it is enslaved to sin. Every motion of any creature’s life is bounded by the inherent nature of that creature. Dogs act like dogs because they are dogs. A dog cannot behave like a Parakeet because it does not have the nature of a Parakeet. A dog will naturally do what dogs do because that is what it is; that is its nature.
In like manner, human beings are both responsible and free in the exercise of their will. We make real and true decisions according to our own deliberate intention and we are accountable for the decisions that we freely make. Yet, according to what nature do we freely make decisions?
Just as a dog cannot exercise a nature other than its own, so also human beings can only express that nature with which they are born. As the offspring of Adam, we have all inherited the nature of our first father. We are born with a nature which is sinful, corrupt, rebellious, hostile toward God, proud, and unbelieving. Though our will is still free in the sense that we are responsible for the decisions that we choose to make, our will is at the same time in bondage to the sinful nature with which we are born. Just as dogs do what is natural to dogs because that is their nature, likewise sinners will always do what is natural to sinners because that is our nature. And what is natural to sinners? To live in sinful rebellion toward God, to reject and deny the truth, to refuse submission and repentance.
The Bible describes the basic condition of all human beings as possessing a heart of stone toward God, and needing instead a heart of flesh. This is a very helpful picture. When the piercing arrows of the gospel are slung at a heart of stone, they ricochet off. They do not sink in deep and produce the kind of spiritual conviction that leads a sinner to repentance and faith as they should. The gospel has been truly offered to such a heart, but the nature of that heart is to be as hard as a rock against that offer. Arrow after arrow can be fired against that stone, but it will feel nothing; it will not respond in repentance and faith; it will not believe. This is what we saw in vivid detail last Sunday from Matthew 11:16-24.
The only way that a sinner will ever truly see their desperate need for Christ is if God first acts to give that sinner a new heart, a heart of flesh, a heart that is soft and therefore pierced through by the arrows of truth that are fired upon it. It is only when the heart of stone is taken away and replaced by a heart of flesh that a sinner is enabled to experience the piercing reality of the truth of the gospel and their own desperate need for the salvation of God in Christ. When a new heart has been given to a sinful man, the arrows of the gospel sink deep into his soul, producing conviction of sin, repentance toward God, and faith in Christ.
This giving of a new heart or a new nature by God is called regeneration, or being born again. It is a sovereign work of God that Jesus says is absolutely necessary to the salvation of any soul. Without the new birth, no sinner will ever savingly receive what is truly and freely offered to them in the gospel. Instead, they will continue to exercise their will in rebellion and unbelief to their own everlasting peril.
We must be careful to understand this truth. Men are truly responsible for their rebellion against God. It is not that they do not believe because they are unable, they are unable because they are unwilling. It is the free exercise of their own sinful will that keeps them from receiving the free offer of grace. Therefore God is just in punishing sinners for rejecting his mercy. God is just in holding men accountable for their unbelief. God is just for condemning those who willfully and obstinately reject his free offer of grace. Sinners are not condemned for something they cannot do, they are condemned for what they will not do.
Yet at the very same time, it is also true that no sinner will ever cease their rebellion and unbelief against God unless God, in his mercy, intervenes on their behalf by granting the gift of regeneration. The will of man is free, but that will is in bondage to sin. As the prophet Jeremiah put it, just as surely as a leopard cannot change its spots, so also no sinner can change his own nature. Sinners will love their sin unto their own everlasting ruin unless God sovereignly causes them to be born again by his Spirit and grants them a heart of flesh to replace their heart of stone.
Thus we see two inseparable truths set forth in God’s Word: First, God is sovereign over the salvation of sinners and no one will come to him unless God first acts upon them by causing them to be born again. Only those who have been predestined unto salvation by God will be saved. Yet, at the very same time, it is also true that man is personally responsible for his rejection of the gospel which God has truly held forth to him; he has no one to blame for his condemnation but himself.
In Scripture, those to whom God has sovereignly chosen to grant this saving blessing are called the elect. They, and they alone, are the sinful and undeserving souls whom God has predestined to be saved in Christ. They are the undeserving objects of his infinite mercy whom he has chosen to be his treasured possession forevermore. They, and they only, are the sheep for whom our Lord Jesus Christ laid down his life.