Regeneration

Pastor Martin addresses the origin of the fear of God, demonstrating that it is a distinct blessing of the new covenant, not something that grows on natural Adamic soil. He expounds Jeremiah 32:38-40 to show that God pledges to put His fear into the hearts of His people, then traces how the three ingredients of the fear of God correspond to the three blessings promised in Jeremiah 31:31-34. He culminates with Psalm 130:4 — 'There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared' — showing that the discovery of forgiveness through the blood of Christ is the very thing that produces true, covenant-rooted fear of God.

After a digression of several Lord's Days, Pastor Martin returns to the Here We Stand series with a lengthy review of the ground covered — the book we believe and obey, the God we worship and confess, and the salvation we receive and proclaim, including Christ in the mystery of His person and the majesty of His offices. He then transitions to the next major division: the cardinal blessings of salvation — calling, regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. Using the analogy of a multi-course banquet, he argues these are not synonyms for 'saved' but distinct courses of one gospel feast. He closes with two framing truths — the orbit of these blessings (union with Christ, outside of which there is not a crumb) and the order of these blessings (those that bring us into union, those that are present fruits, those that are future benefits).

Pastor Martin introduces the doctrine of regeneration as the second threshold blessing alongside calling. He answers the question raised by effectual calling — how can a sinner dead in trespasses respond? — by turning to the grace of regeneration, 'an inner recreating of fallen human nature by the gracious, sovereign action of the Holy Spirit.' He surveys the word's usage (Matthew 19:28 and Titus 3:5) and the history of the term from baptismal perversion through the older Reformed use. Then he turns to the major Old Testament analogies Nicodemus should have known — Deuteronomy 30:6's circumcision of the heart, Ezekiel 11 and 36's giving of a new heart and spirit with cleansing, and the new covenant promises of Jeremiah 31-32 — drawing from each the fourfold emphasis of a sovereign, inward, gracious act that results in love to God, obedience, and mutual covenantal fellowship. He closes with a stinging warning against the cheapened 'born again' language of modern pop evangelicalism.

Pastor Martin turns from the Old Testament analogies of regeneration to the predominant New Testament analogy — the new birth. From John 3 he expounds both the necessity of the new birth (without it none can see or enter the kingdom of God) and its nature (the Holy Spirit is the special agent, spiritual cleansing is inseparable from the new birth as 'born of water and of the Spirit,' and sovereignty, mystery, and efficacy permeate it like the wind). He then shows the same truth in 1 John 3:9 where John hammers on the passive 'begotten of God' nine times, in James 1:18 ('of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth'), and in 1 Peter 1:3 and 23 (begotten by the resurrection of Christ and by the incorruptible seed of the preached word). He closes by directing the awakened sinner to cry to God for a new heart, refusing to be more fastidious than God who says 'for this will I be inquired of by the house of Israel.'

Pastor Martin completes the survey of New Testament analogies for regeneration by examining two more dominant figures beyond the new birth: the new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 2:10, Galatians 6:15) and the new life or spiritual resurrection (Ephesians 2:5, Colossians 2:13). He then draws together the three analogies — new birth, new creation, and new life — and shows they teach three common denominators. First, the exclusiveness of the divine agency (no one cooperates in their own birth, creation, or resurrection from the dead). Second, the efficacy of the divine power (God has no stillborn children; new creation always results in transformation; resurrection imparts real life). Third, the graciousness of the divine motive (but God, rich in mercy, for the great love wherewith He loved us). He closes by directing awakened sinners to seek the Lord on the promises of Isaiah 55.

Pastor Martin asks, what precisely does God do in a sinner when He regenerates him? Using an extended illustration of a hungry man eating through distorted tinted glasses that make steak look like mud and peas like pebbles, he shows that regeneration is a change in the whole man touching three faculties without creating any new ones. First, regeneration is an illumination of the mind, removing the blinding glasses the god of this world has put on the unbeliever (1 Corinthians 2:14, 2 Corinthians 4:4-6, Ephesians 4:17-18, Acts 26:18). Second, it is a redirection of the affections so that the regenerate loathes the sin he once loved and loves the God he once hated (Ezekiel 36:31, Deuteronomy 30:6, the Beatitudes). Third, it is a rectifying of the will so that the sinner, once unable because unwilling, comes freely to Christ (Ezekiel 36:27, John 6:44-45). He closes with the balancing formula: we owe our faith to our regeneration, but we know our regeneration only by our faith.

Pastor Martin answers the question: what are the immediate effects of regeneration? From John 6:44-45 he establishes the moral and spiritual impossibility that no man can come to Christ except the Father draw him, and the inevitability that every one who hears and learns of the Father comes. Using the raising of Lazarus as an extended analogy, he shows that the first conscious acting of the regenerate soul is to come to Christ on the two legs of repentance and faith. He then draws three deductions from 1 John 5:1: no one has biblical grounds to believe himself regenerate who is not a penitent believing sinner (exposing the folly of baptismal, presumptive, and decisional regeneration); no one has grounds to doubt his regeneration if he is a penitent believing sinner (the oak tree needs no plaque); and no one has grounds to expect regenerating grace where the gospel is not present. He closes pressing the need to evangelize aggressively and pray fervently.

Pastor Martin examines the continuous, ongoing effects of regeneration as distinct from the immediate effects of repentance and faith. Following an outline drawn from Robert Law on 1 John, he sets forth three inevitable, abiding marks of the regenerate: a doctrinal or theological confession of Jesus as true God, true man, and Messiah; a moral or ethical practice of righteousness and obedience; and a social love for the brethren. Where these three are absent, claims to the new birth are exposed as empty.

Pastor Martin introduces Psalm 1 as a foundational didactic psalm describing the way of blessedness, contrasting it with the way of ungodliness. He outlines the psalm's structure, explains why the negative precedes the positive in Scripture, and begins examining the first phrase: 'walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,' showing that the counsel of the wicked is rooted in a man-centered perspective that excludes God, actively opposes Him, and assumes human self-sufficiency.

Transitioning from the negative to the positive description of the blessed man, Pastor Martin expounds 'his delight is in the law of the Lord.' He defines delight as a spontaneous affinity rooted in one's nature, demonstrating that only the new birth can produce genuine delight in God's law. He explains four reasons why the regenerate man delights in Scripture: it reveals the Lord Himself, it is the truth by which he was born again, it reveals his duty, and it is the instrument of his sanctification. He closes with pastoral counsel on recovering lost delight.