Essential Elements

Scripture Reading: John 3:1-8

0:04 Will you follow, please, in your own Bible as I read a very familiar portion of the Word of God? We return this morning to our series of doctrinal studies. And, of course, we'll be concerned with the great biblical doctrine of regeneration. And I would refresh your minds with respect to the content of that passage, which is the pivotal passage in all of the scriptures concerning this passage.

0:33 Wonderful work of God, begetting men to newness of life. John's Gospel, chapter 3, verses 1 through 8. John's Gospel, chapter 3, verses 1 through 8. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

1:03 The same came unto him by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

2:01 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew. The wind bloweth where it wills, but thou knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit. I am sorry I left out the phrase, and thou hearest the voice thereof.

Review of the Series on Regeneration

2:26 Well, as I've already intimated, we return this morning to our consideration of the biblical teaching with respect to the broad concern the salvation we receive and proclaim. In this segment of a larger series of studies, we've examined the witness of Scripture concerning the objects of this salvation, the central figure of this salvation, and now we are examining the cardinal blessings of of this salvation. I've suggested that in seeking to organize the various aspects of our great salvation from sin by the agency of the triune God, that it's helpful to remember that these cardinal blessings come to us within a specific orbit and in terms of a general order, in the orbit within which every

3:23 facet and dimension of God's saving mercy comes to us is the orbit of union with Christ. Ephesians 1.3 is perhaps the most pivotal text in the New Testament with respect to this matter. He hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. And it is therefore union with Christ that constitutes the exclusive orbit of

3:53 within which these specific mercies are conferred upon the sons of men. And then it is in our own interest that we understand something of the general order in which these blessings are applied to us. And I find it helpful to think of that order not so much as a logical order, but a broad chronological order. There are certain of the blessings conferred to us in Christ...

4:21 that come to us on the threshold of entering the kingdom of God. Then there are some that are given to us immediately upon that entrance, others that are ours as we walk upon the way, and others that will be ours at the consummation when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. I've suggested that the two great threshold blessings described in Scripture are calling and regeneration.

4:50 And then the moment we are called and regenerated, we enter into those wonderful blessings of justification and adoption. And then the beginnings of sanctification. And then there is the continuous process of sanctification culminating in glorification. Well, again I say it is helpful for us as the people of God to sort out these various blessings and to understand not only

5:19 their exclusive orbit, union with Christ as the source out of which all of them flow, and the framework within which they are all conferred, but to understand the difference between calling and regeneration and sanctification or adoption or justification. For unless we have some fundamental understanding of the difference between these things, we cannot help but be unstable as the people of God.

5:49 Well, we have already considered calling the first of those threshold blessings, and we are about two-thirds of the way through our examination of the biblical witness to the matter of regeneration. We demonstrated from the scriptures and from the great confessions the inseparability of these two threshold blessings. Calling and regeneration must be understood as involving each other.

6:17 And theologians debate and discuss and bring forth their testimony to assert the priority of one over the other. And I'm not involving you in that debate or discussion, but rather I want you to view them as inseparable blessings without which none of us would ever enter the kingdom of God. If we were not called into the kingdom by the mighty work of God, and if in that calling we were not regenerate, we would never enter the kingdom of God. God's kingdom. And if we have entered, we have entered because we have been called and regenerated. Well, as we've attacked that vast doctrine of regeneration, we've looked for several Lord's days at the major analogies in the Old and the New Testaments setting forth this mighty work of God in us by which we enter the kingdoms.

7:13 Having looked at the pivotal text in the Old and the New Testaments, we came to see that the Bible is rich in its imagery of this tremendous transformation of grace. It is called in the Old Testament a circumcising of the heart, a giving of a new heart, the taking out of the heart of stone, being washed from filthiness and idolatry. In the New Testament, it is called a new birth. A new creation, the impartation of a new life. And when we put all the analogies together from the Old and the New Testaments, God is saying in language that cannot be misunderstood that this mighty work is a work in which there is an exclusiveness of

8:00 of divine agency. It is God who circumcises the heart. It is God who begets us. It is God who recreates us. It is God who quickens us from spiritual death. Furthermore, he underscores not only the exclusiveness of the divine agency, but the efficacy of the divine power. Regeneration is no mirage. When God is work, there is a new life begotten.

8:28 There is a new creation brought forth. There is a new life, the fruit of His spiritual resurrection power. And then thirdly, God emphasizes everywhere the graciousness of the divine motive. Titus 3 is the pivotal text. We are not saved for anything in us, but according to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing.

8:55 of the Holy Ghost, which he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. So then, if we have any regard for the Bible, the new birth must never be conceived of as some kind of fanciful mysticism or the farthest reaches of religious fanaticism, but it is an essential element of saving religion. As necessary as the death of Christ is to provide an objective basis upon which sinners may be pardoned and accepted before God as righteous, regeneration is just as essential as an inward qualification to enter the kingdom of God. Well, so much then for that broad overview of where we have been today.

Two Questions: Essential Elements and Immediate Effects

9:52 Now this morning as we continue our studies in this doctrine of regeneration, if time permits I want to ask and then answer two questions. Perhaps we'll only get to the one. The first is this. What are the essential elements of this monumental transformation called regeneration? We have looked at the analogies and expounded the pivotal passages in the Old and the New Testaments, in order that we might feel something of the richness as well as the magnitude of this change. But now we ask the question, what precisely does God do in a sinner when he regenerates him? What does he do when he says, I will circumcise thy heart? When he says, I will take out the heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh and put my spirit within them, what precisely is God doing today?

10:47 when he effects that transforming work. So that's our first question. What are the essential elements of this monumental transformation? And if time permits, a second question. What are the immediate effects of that monumental transformation? Having seen what the transformation is, then we ask, what does that transformation produce immediately? And then, God willing, next week, What are its long-range effects? And if we don't get to question two this week, we'll try to take both of those next, not next week, the following, I'm sorry. First of all then, what are the essential elements of this transformation? The biblical analogies of the Old and the New Testaments all point to the fact that it is a change in the whole man. When God says, I'll give a new heart,

Regeneration Affects the Whole Man Without New Faculties

11:43 God is speaking in the language form that recognizes the heart as the seat of the man. What a man is in his heart, he is. You remember the language of Proverbs. Guard thy heart above all that thou guardest, for out of it are the issues of life. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Jesus said, out of the heart proceed.

12:10 And then he describes the full range and spectrum of deviant human behavior. So when God uses the analogy again and again of a new heart, he's saying this is a change in the whole man. When he speaks of it in the New Testament as a new birth, that which is begotten is a whole entity. When he speaks of a new creation, he's speaking of an integrated whole. When he speaks of a resurrection from the dead, you see there is this constant emphasis...

12:39 upon the fact that this change of regeneration affects the whole man. It is not a surface change, nor is it a change that touches only one or two departments of our humanity. But at the same time, it is not a change which creates any new faculties or properties of the soul or of the mind. The person who, up until a certain point in time, was unregenerate,

13:08 after he has been regenerate, does not have any new faculty that he didn't have before. He doesn't possess any new mind or spirit that was not there before. Well, what then is the change that occurs? Well, we understand at the outset that it's a mysterious thing. That's why I read John 3. You can't tell where the wind comes from, where it goes. You know its presence by its effect. You hear the voice thereof.

13:36 There is an element of mystery in the activity of the wind. Jesus said, so is everyone born of the Spirit. And so I cannot, if I stick to the Bible, give that which is mathematically precise. I cannot give that which answers every question we could raise. All I can attempt to do is to collate the biblical materials and lay before you some broad categories in which...

14:05 this transformation is brought to light by the word of the living God. And I'm going to do this by demonstrating that this change occurs in those three major categories of our human personality. Our thinker, our minds, what we think or perceive, what we feel or desire, the affections, and then what we choose or embrace, the will.

The Extended Illustration: The Hungry Man and the Tinted Glasses

14:35 And regeneration is a transformation of the mind, of the affections, and of the will. Now, in order to give you a handle, a teaching model around which we will cluster the biblical materials, we're going to use an extended illustration. And I'm going to keep coming back to this analogy or illustration all through the lesson this morning and perhaps next week as well.

15:01 I'm using the illustration as an organizing principle in order to give us something on which to hang the various aspects of the biblical testimony. Now the illustration is this. We are in the presence of a man who has not eaten for an entire day. He's been working hard. He's a healthy man. There's nothing wrong with his stomach, nothing wrong with his general gastrointestinal system.

15:30 So at the end of that day, he's good and hungry. He's got hunger pangs. He's got grumbly in his tummy, as you kids sometimes say. He may be embarrassed because he's belching a little bit, and he really feels his hunger pangs. Well, we have the privilege of preparing a meal for him, and the sky's the limit. No limits have been set as to what we can spend to prepare for him a very good meal. And we find out from him that his favorite meat is steak,

15:58 His favorite potato is baked Idaho potato, and his favorite vegetables, though some of you kids wonder how in the world that could be true of a rational man, his favorite vegetable is peas. All right? Now, we know this about the man. So we get in Tim LaRose to fix this for him, and he fixes the steak absolutely perfect. He likes it, sort of medium rare, and he broils it over charcoal, and it's right on just the way he needs it. And his Idaho potato is baked just not one minute too long, one minute too short, right on, and the peas are steamed. They're just the perfect texture, not too hard, not too mushy. They're just perfect.

16:43 And then Tim comes in with the platter and all of this is beautifully arranged and a little bit of parsley on the side and the other things to just make it look good to the eyes and all the rest. And he sets it down before the man who's sitting there grumbling and complaining. Why he has to wait so long? He's ravished. He's starving. He can't wait to eat. And then the platter is put down in front of him. And the man looks at it. And then a scowl comes over his face. And before long, the scowl Scowl becomes a sort of inarticulate grunt. And then he looks up at our good friend Tim and says, What in the world are you doing giving me that garbage? Take it away! And poor Tim is taking back. He said, Sir, that's not garbage. I mean, that's a prime New York strip steak at $3.89 a pound. And that's a bona fide idol. He says,

17:41 Don't give me that garbage. Take it away from me. And we're standing on the sidelines watching this and saying, what in the world is going on here? Then we notice something. The fellow's got a strange set of spectacles on. They've got a strange tint to them. And as we look at the light reflecting off them, we notice they don't have an even curvature. There's all kinds of distorted waves in the glasses.

18:08 So we become bold to ask the man, thinking there might be some connection between those funny-looking glasses and what he's doing, and we say, Sir, why have you chosen to send that platter away, saying it's garbage and junk? What do you think is there on the platter? And he says, Well, it's obvious to me. See over there? Look at that pile of mud in the left-hand part of the platter. That's the stake. But because of the tint in his glasses and the refraction, of the lenses, what he sees looks like a pile of mud. And look at that piece of dead wood over there. And he points to the potato. And then he points to the peas and says, look at those little dark, marble-like pebbles. How can a hungry man feed on that? Take it away. And we say, sir, will you allow me to do something? He says, yeah, but do it quick. I'm a hungry man. And we go over and we lift the spectacles off.

19:07 And we bring back the same plate and we say, now, sir, here's your meal. And now he looks and his eyes get wide. And he starts to salivate. And before long he says, forgive my manners! Now, what's happened? Well, you see, the platter of food set before him has experienced absolutely no change. It was steak. It was potatoes.

19:37 And it was peace. There was no change in the faculty of his appetite, his ability to assimilate, masticate food. But what has happened? Well, you see, a threefold transformation has happened, or has occurred. What he saw underwent a radical transformation. As long as he had those uneven glasses with the strange colors and tints in them, and he did not perceive the steak to be steak and the potato to be potato and the peas to be peas, as long as there was a distorted vision of that reality, the plate of food, what happened? Believing it to be something other than it was, his affections, his appetites were turned against it. He had revulsion instead of attraction, and because his mind judged it to be garbage,

20:34 and his affections, his appetites, his natural appetites for food don't enjoy assimilating garbage, there was an emotional revulsion which in turn resulted in that volitional activity taken away. I don't want it. And it was the change in his mind, his thinker, the change in his affections at that point, physical affections for food, and the change in his will. And when did it all occur?

21:05 when he began to behold things in their true reality. Now you say, Pastor Martin here is supposed to preach the Word and you haven't opened up a text of Scripture yet. I'm very conscious of that and I don't like to be this far into a message before I do. But if you can get hold of that basic analogy, I believe it will open up many Scriptures. What is regeneration? This circumcising of the heart, this birth from above, this new creation, first of all,

Element 1: Illumination of the Mind — The Natural Man

21:34 It is constituted of this illumination of the mind. Regeneration involves an illumination of the mind. What is the condition of the natural mind of the sinner? Now please open your Bibles. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Here in graphic language the apostle describes the native state of every son and daughter of Adam

22:07 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 14. Now, the natural man, that is, the person who has no faculties or sight, but that which he brought into the world by virtue of his connection with Adam, the natural man receiveth not the meal. He does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. What are the things of the Spirit of God in the context of They are the truths of the gospel. Paul says, we speak these things that were hidden and never entered the mind of man, but are now revealed by the Spirit. We speak these things. What are they? Not deep hidden mysteries, the plain meat and taters and peas of the gospel. This wonderful platter of divine provision for sinners. He says, we set the platter before men, but he says the natural man...

23:06 does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. He shoves them away. Why? Look. For they are foolishness unto him, and he cannot know them because they are spiritually judged. He looks at the luscious steak and the well-baked potato and the perfectly steamed peas of the great provisions of the gospel in Christ, and he says, foolishness.

23:34 Not for me. Man, I'm going to live. That stuff will poison you. Give up your life to Christ. Trust in him. Live for the world to come. Foolishness. Take the garbage away. But remember, that man with his funny glasses calling Tim's meal garbage didn't make it garbage.

24:02 These are the things of the Spirit. Christ is glorious. His blood is precious. His Spirit Almighty. His salvation through glory. And you calling it garbage doesn't change what it is. You'll starve in your sins and perish in hell.

24:31 Because you look with wavy glasses, tinted by the sin of your heart. Another text that points in the same direction of man's native condition. In Ephesians chapter 4, look at the language again so vigorous. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 17. This I say therefore and testify in the Lord...

25:01 That ye no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk in the vanity of their mind. And the word vanity in the Bible means nothingness. They're walking by principles that in reality are nothing. They do not accord with reality and with truth. Notice now, walking in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding,

25:28 alienated from the life of God. Why? Because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of the heart. Now that's the description of what we are by nature. We walk in the vanity of the mind. We walk in a state that has its origin in this ignorance and an ignorance of that is culpable, that is blameworthy, because the ignorance flows from a hard heart that loves tinted glasses with distorted lenses. Now that's our native state. One other verse that points to it, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. When the platter of the gospel is set before us, what is our reaction to it natively?

26:25 Why do we not say, pardon my manners, but I'm going to dig in? Why do we say, take away that garbage? 2 Corinthians 4.4 tells us, back to verse 3, And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that are perishing.

26:43 In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them. The God of this world has blinded the minds. He has ground the lenses. He has tinted them and he has put them out.

27:12 the gospel bladder is laid before you, you look upon it and say, foolishness, take that garbage away. And that's what all of us do. And that's all we'd ever do if God didn't monkey around with the glasses. But now that's what he does in grace, in regeneration, having shown what our natural state is. What happens when God is pleased to regenerate us

Illumination in Regeneration: Light Shines Out of Darkness

27:41 Well, the Bible says there is this illumination of the mind. Drop right down to verse 6 in the 2 Corinthians 4 passage. Having stated that in spite of that blindness, he goes on preaching Christ and himself Christ's servant and the servant of men for Christ's sake. Seeing it is God that said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts,

28:10 To give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now you see, Paul includes himself with the Corinthian believers. And he says, I became a Christian when God in creative power caused light to shine in the darkness of my heart. And to use my analogy, ripped my glasses off. And instead of looking upon Christ and saying, He's a garbage impostor.

28:41 He's a fake Messiah. He's not worthy of my consideration. He embraces him from the heart and says, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Why? God granted illumination. God yanked the glasses off and caused him to see. And he said, I saw the stake for what it really was. Real stake and the potatoes.

29:06 For what they really were. Real potatoes and the peas. For what they really were. Real peas. Perfectly suited to my spiritual hunger and need. And I ate. And I feasted. And I feasted. So then regeneration is this illumination of the mind. According to our Lord in Matthew's Gospel. You have the same emphasis. Turn there please for a moment. Matthew's Gospel chapter 11.

29:42 Our Lord has been hurling some sobering words of judgment upon impenitent cities, but in the midst of it he rejoices in the efficacious work of God in the hearts of his own. Matthew 11, 25 At that season Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and prudent. And didst reveal them unto babes. Yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight. All things have been delivered unto me of my Father, and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father. Neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him.

30:37 As our Lord thinks of that humble band who are not like the impenitent of Capernaum, who are not like the impenitent of these other cities, He says there is one reason why they are not like that. The Father in sovereign mercy has pulled the glasses off. The Father in sovereign mercy has taken away the blindness. You find the same thing in the thirteenth chapter.

31:06 When our Lord is interpreting the parables, He says to His own in verse 11 of Matthew 13, And He answered and said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. He underscores for His disciples that if they see, they see, because God has been at work to grant illumination. And then in perhaps the most

31:37 statement of the relationship of this work of illumination to the conversion of any sinner, Acts chapter 26. Here we have the Apostle's record of his conversion and his commission. And we read in the midst of that, Acts 26 and verse 17, God's promise, delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom I send thee. Now what is his work to be as a gospel preacher?

32:06 to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me. Oh, this is so rich with teaching. One can only skim off the mountain peaks of it. But he says, the people to whom you go, they're under the power of Satan. They're living in darkness.

32:36 They have no forgiveness for their sins. They have no inheritance in the realm of light. They are lovers of darkness. They are the slaves of devil. And the frightening thing is, that to which they cling as food is indeed garbage. And that which they reject as garbage is the only food that can nourish the soul. So what must be the first work of God? He tells us in verse 18, Open their eyes.

33:06 The glasses must be pulled off so that when Christ is presented and they are told that their sins can only damn them instead of going on clinging to their sins as though they were their saviors, they will see their sins as the thing that will damn them and they will turn from their sins and they will embrace the offered Savior and love Him and serve Him. Surely Wesley understood this when he wrote the law

33:37 Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke, the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth.

Element 2: Redirecting of the Affections

34:07 And followed thee. But it all began. When the eye diffused to quicken rain. What precisely is regeneration? When God is pleased to effect this mighty work. What does he do? Work number one. Or the first dimension of it. He illuminates the mind. Secondly. And I know now we are only going to get to the first question. He redirects the affections.

34:38 Now, what is the state of the affections of the natural man? Well, again, the Bible witness is clear. I give you a specimen passage, Romans chapter 3. If the eyes are blind to the realities and to the inherent beauty and glory of the things of the gospel, what is the state of the affections? Well, just like our poor friend, as long as he's got his tinted wavy glasses on,

35:08 regarding the steak as mud and the potato as a hunk of dry wood and the peas as nothing but little pebbles, there is revulsion in his spirit at the emotional level. And as long as we are blind to the glory of Christ and all the richness that is in the gospel, the affections will be precisely what they are described in Romans 3. Here in this summary statement of the state of all men,

35:38 Jew and Gentile, the apostle says in verse 9 of Romans 3, What then, in the light of all the preceding argument, are we, that is we Jews, better than they, Gentiles? No, in no wise. For we before laid to the charge both of Jews and of Greeks that they are all under sin.

36:00 Now what does it mean to be under sin? What precisely does that mean? Well, he's going to give us descriptions culled from passages, particularly from the Psalms. There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth. There's the darkened mind. See it? There's the glasses. None that understandeth. None that looks at reality in terms of what it really is. Notice, there is none righteous.

36:30 that seeketh after God. And frankly, to me, these are some of the saddest words in all of the Bible. None seeketh after God. Can you imagine the pain in the heart of a parent who bore, say, ten children, or parents who bore ten children, and not a one of them sought,

37:00 its mother or father. Showed no evidence of desire to commune with that mother or father. Found no delight in the presence of that mother and father. Can you imagine the pain, the pain of the heart of those parents? May I speak reverently, can you imagine the pain in the heart of God? Of all the the sons and daughters of Adam, not one that natively seeks him and finds delight in him. It ought to make us weep. Do you feel something of the tragedy of that? Are you so dull and insensitive and bound by your sins that you just see soon that this raving maniac be quiet? Do you feel the horror

37:57 made to know God, made in His image, groveling in the flesh pots of your sin as though God had made you atone. None that seeketh after God. Perhaps that's the epitome of the wickedness of the human heart. The affections are very active, but they're set upon the wrong objects.

38:27 That's why God says, My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewn them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. You see, the affections do not die with the intrusion of sin. They are turned towards and set upon unworthy and God-dishonoring objects.

38:55 So that we now love our sin and we love our perversity and we love our darkness. The affections do not die. They become perverse. You see, the man is disgusted with the state that he ought to desire. With the potato and the vegetables in which he ought to find delight. Because of the false judgment of his mind. Well, in regeneration, God does a wonderful thing.

39:23 He doesn't give us a new set of affections. He doesn't create some new faculty. What he does is redirects them to proper objects. Now notice, the passages which speak of the heart of flesh removed certainly are passages which bring within their scope this whole matter of the emotional life of the creature. The heart is more than the emotions, but surely the whole includes all of its parts. Does it not?

39:52 You kids, if you've got the whole pie, you've got every slice. Well, you see, the heart is the whole, and the emotions are one of its parts. So if God says, I'll take out the heart of stone, and I'll give a heart of flesh, He is saying, by making you a new creature, among other things, I will implant a whole new set of emotional as well as notional things.

40:21 Responses to reality. Therefore in the Ezekiel 36 passage God says this. And it's an explicit reference to an emotional dimension of the change. Verse 31. He says when I do this mighty work of giving you a heart of flesh. He says ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight. For all your iniquities and your uncleanness. Self loathing.

40:49 You see, it's the picture of the man who, as long as he had his glasses on, was eating mud and chewing on pebbles. But when his eyes get open, he's disgusted. And God says, that's what you'll do. You've been eating mud and feeding upon pebbles your idols and your sins and your pollutions. But when I regenerate you, God says...

41:14 There will be a redirecting of the emotions. In what you love, you'll now hate. In what brought you pleasure will now be your deepest grief. In Deuteronomy 36, you have a similar emphasis. God says, I will circumcise their hearts that they may love me. I'll regenerate them unto what? The redirection of their affections. They will no longer love their idols and love their sins. They will love me. Or we may take the words of our Lord.

41:43 When he describes those who have been brought into the kingdom of grace in the Beatitudes, notice those descriptions that impinge upon the affections and the emotions. He says in verse 4 of Matthew 5, Blessed, blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted, having been regenerated.

42:08 They now grieve over their sins. They no longer have merely the prickings of a natural conscience, more or less sensitive or insensitive in terms of the willful hardness of the hire, but they shall mourn over their sins, seeing their sins in their true light as dishonoring to their God and Jesus to their Savior. Verse 6, Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after steak and potatoes are and peas. Blessed are those who see that the gospel is indeed what it is. It is true food for the soul, and they hunger and they thirst. They say, forgive my manners, I'm hungry. And the gospel is a gracious feast from God. So you see, there's a redirecting of the affections in regeneration. And then thirdly and finally, there is the rectifying of the wills

Element 3: Rectifying of the Will

43:07 Now I cast around for a proper word, used my synonym finder, and I am satisfied that this is the best of the worst. Or the best of the bad, or the imperfect. But to describe again, and follow closely, God does not create a new faculty, but He rectifies. Now what do we mean by rectify? Well, you go in and make a mess of someone and something, and someone says, hey, look now, you've got to rectify your mistakes. Maybe you're keeping books for your boss.

43:38 And you come up on the short end where your boss is deceived because you made a mistake and he thinks he's a few more thousand in the red than he really is. And he says, look, you've got to go back and rectify your mistake. You've got to fill up that which is lacking. Adjust. Now then, in regeneration, God rectifies the will. Now, what's the state of the will before regeneration? The will is very active. Sin does not.

44:05 Cripple the will so as to make it neutered and non-operative. And I'll quickly quote the verses now in the interest of time. Ephesians 2, 3 says, Ye do the wills of the flesh and of the mind. Would be a literal translation.

44:21 In a state of sin, we are performing the will of the flesh and of the mind. Jesus said in John 5, in verse 40, You will not come to me that you may have life. John 8, 44, Ye are of your father the devil and the lust of your father. Literally, it is your will to do. Romans 8, 7, The carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God. Neither need can it be.

44:48 The language of every unregenerate heart is the language of Luke 19, 14. We will not have this man to reign over him. Now the Bible description of the will of the impenitent, unregenerate sinner is that his will is active, but it is set against Christ, against truth, and thereby is in bondage to the governing disposition of the soul.

45:16 And in that sense, Luther was right when he wrote his book, The Bondage of the Will. And there is no bondage like the bondage of willing that which is your own destruction. But now what happens in regeneration? Ah, there's a rectifying of the will. A turning it in the proper direction so that it acts on the proper objects by a proper rule. Look at the language of Ezekiel 36.

45:46 Notice how the will is emphasized in this vivid description of regenerating grace. Ezekiel chapter 36. God says in verse 26, A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you. Now notice...

46:13 And cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep mine ordinances and do them. Notice, God doesn't say, I'll do them through you. That's the heresy of mysticism, and much deeper life teaching is nothing but that kind of heretical mysticism. Let Christ live his life through you. You won't find a smidgen of evidence in the Bible for that kind of terminology. Now, if that destroys some lovely concepts...

46:43 And Knox holds in some beautiful devotional books you have. I make no apologies for the grief or for the holds. God says, I will so work that you will volitionally choose my ordinances. You will do them. How? God changes my will. He rectifies my will so that I now

47:12 is pleasing in his sight. Not perfectly, because the remains of corruption are there. And I will have to confess with Paul, when I would do good, evil is present with me. To will is present! But the performance doesn't equal the desire because of the reality of remaining sin. Granted, I am fully conscious of that teaching, both ethically and experimentally, but let it not cloud this glorious sin

47:40 aspect of regenerating grace, God rectifies the will and turns it in the direction of His precepts. Turn to John chapter 6 as we seek to draw our meditation to a close this morning. John chapter 6. How beautifully our Lord teaches this in non-philosophical terms and I've desperately tried to spare you the agony and the confusion of philosophical theology. And that's no easy thing I actually put through one or two long distance calls to make sure that in trying to simplify it, I didn't undermine any pivot of theological precision. I care that much for your souls not to trust my own judgment when I'm in uncharted waters. Now here in John 6, Jesus says in verse 44, No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him.

48:40 There is a statement of man's moral inability to come to Christ. And you see, his cannot is rooted in his will not. He will not come to me. Well, what happens? How is that overcome? Well, look at the very next verse. As it is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God. Everyone that hath heard from the Father and hath learned, what does he do? He comes to me.

49:09 How do you see it? As long as the mind is darkened, a man cannot come because he will not come. There is no physical inability placed upon him. It is a moral inability. As long as he is looking at steak and saying it's not, he is never going to eat. And you can stand there and try to persuade him and entreat him and threaten him and do everything.

49:38 but wrench his jaw open and force it down. But as long as he's looking through those tinted wavy glasses and on his mind what you call steak is mud, ain't no way he's going to eat it unless he loses his rationality. And so Jesus said, no man can come to me. Why? He cannot come because he will not. When you set the pure food of the gospel before him, he says, garbage, take it away. Take it away! And when you command him, come to Christ, Christ is life. Pardon, forgiveness. Take it away. But then what happens? Well, God doesn't drop out of heaven and send a celestial he-man down with a club and zonk him. God begins to work through His Word. Verse 45. And He begins to be taught of the Father, not only outwardly, but inwardly and powerfully and efficaciously by the Spirit. What happens?

50:34 When he is thus taught of the Father, lo and behold, he finds himself doing what? Coming to Christ. He says, hey, that's not mud, that's steak. And he comes. So regeneration, you see, influences the will. Rectifying the will so that we choose what we ought to choose.

Summary and the Faith-Regeneration Formula

50:59 Well, as I say, every illustration has its weaknesses, and that analogy has some, and I'm very conscious of it, and I hope some of you more intellectually astute ones have spent your time looking for holes in the illustration and missed the overall thrust of the teaching. The human heart is perverse enough to do that. But do you understand a bit more clearly now what regeneration actually does? Having looked at the major biblical analogies,

51:27 What we've now done is try to ask the question, what precisely is effective in regeneration? What are the essential elements of the transformation? The answer I have given you from the Word of God is the essential elements are three. The illumination of the mind, the redirecting of the affections, and the rectifying of the will. Now how can a person know that that's happened?

51:57 And that will introduce our next study. Regeneration is only known by its first fruit and its subsequent fruits. And what's the first fruit of regeneration? Go back to our illustration. How do we know that when those glasses are taken off, the man sees as he ought to see, feels as he ought to feel, and chooses as he ought to choose? When we hear him and see him saying, Pardon my manners.

52:25 And he digs into his stake and jumps away. And the first consciousness of regeneration in the sinner is when he begins to feed upon Christ by faith. All who are taught of the Father, come to me. And as Professor Murray has so quaintly and accurately said, apart from regeneration, it is morally and spiritually impossible for the sinner to come to Christ.

52:55 But having been regenerated, it is morally and spiritually impossible for him not to come to Christ. And my friend, you need not disturb yourself if you cannot trace out in great detail and with great precision all of the stages and aspects of God's dealings with you. My friend, the ways of the Spirit are like the wind.

53:22 If you sit this morning believing in Christ, you are regenerate. And you owe your faith to His regenerating work. And the only way you can be certain you've been regenerated is that you believe. I like to put it this way, as of the preparation of this particular sermon. We owe our faith to our regeneration. Regeneration.

53:50 But we know our regeneration by our faith. Now, if you don't embrace the first statement, you've got nothing but religious self-help. You see, if we believe in order to get regenerate, we started the process and God came along and did His part. That's Pelagianism, semi-Pelagianism. That's human merit. No, we owe our faith to our regeneration. Salvation is all of grace.

54:18 And we must maintain that truth to maintain the biblical doctrine of salvation by grace. But we must balance it with this statement. We know our regeneration only by our faith and its fruits. Therefore we don't drift into mysticism and subjectivism saying, Oh, I must be regenerate. I felt 3.7.892 weight of conviction. And then I had...

54:49 172 and 6 tenths watts of illumination. And you've got people actually doing that. Trying to analyze and scrutinize their... My friend, no, no, no! Believe and you are regenerate. Rejoicing in faith. Ascribe the glory to God for quickening you to life. You say that's the biggest bunch of contradictions I ever heard. My friend, that's Bible.

55:14 You know what among the many profound things dear Dr. Rudolph said to us this past week as we sat at the feet of that seasoned man of God? He had some objections like this one time. He was a boy about 14 or 15, talking with his father who was a godly man. And he said, Dad, how can it be? God holds us responsible to believe, and yet if He doesn't regenerate us, we won't believe. And God created us this way, and yet He holds us accountable. And he was giving all his philosophical objections. You know what his father's answer was?

55:44 He said, son, you better start dealing with the God that is and not the God you're dreaming about. You better start dealing with the God that is and not the God you're dreaming about. Do you object to this teaching? My friend, that's the teaching of the God who is. You better bow to it and live or fight it and die. Oh, may God write his truth upon our heart.

Closing Appeal and Prayer

56:11 And may we have no rest unless we know that we've been born of the Spirit. And the only way we can know is that we are in Christ by faith. And that's the glory of the objective message of the gospel. Christ is set before you. I hope I'm not irreverent as the steak and the potatoes and the peas. Eat of him and live. Refuse him and die.

56:49 O God, our Heavenly Father, how we thank You that there is such a thing as regenerating grace flowing from our exalted Lord. We thank You that regeneration, in its washing and renewing, come to us through Jesus Christ, whom You have sent to die for sinners, whom You have exalted to Your right hand, and to whom the Spirit has been given us, that He might pour down that Spirit upon the church in copious measures. Oh, how we thank You that many of us this day see where once we were blind. We loved the objects we once hated. We choose the precepts we once despised. Oh, we bless You, forever making us anew in Christ Jesus unto good work.

57:46 Have mercy upon those that are yet in their sins. O God, come with regenerating grace and power. Seize upon them, we pray, and draw them to your Son. Hear our cry, seal the word to our hearts, and be with us in the further exercises of this your day, that we may honor you in the keeping of it, and that we may profit in the process.

58:15 Hear our cry and be with us, we plead, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.