He says
Our danger today is to suppose that the truth about conversion is only a preliminary to the Christian faith, something like the two times table is for mathematics, and therefore that it need not detain our attention for long.
He observes that
As far as our contemporary evangelical literature is concerned, what is central in the New Testament has been moved to the periphery, and this reflects a general situation in our churches.
He suggests that this downplaying of conversion is a periodic feature in church history and a regrettable one.
Whether his accusation against contemporary evangelicalism is fair or unfair, the need to be better acquainted with the unfathomable subject of conversion cannot be denied. We dare not think of regeneration as a mere preliminary to the Christian faith, something that need not long detain our attention. We need to see, as C H Spurgeon and others certainly did see, its central importance. I came across this quotation regarding Spurgeon by F W Boreham. He says
Mr Spurgeon lived that he might save men. He thought of nothing else. From his first sermon at Waterbeach to his last at Mentone, the conversion of sinners was the dream of all his days. That master-passion glorified the whole man and threw a grandeur about the common details of every day. He would cheerfully have thrown away his soul to save the souls of others.
A better acquaintance with the theology of conversion cannot produce such passion but it is certainly right that we, first as Christians and then especially as ministers, are as well acquainted with the theology of conversion as we can be.
I have spent a good deal of time in recent years looking at the specific subject of regeneration and so when I was very kindly asked to speak at the fellowship I decided that this was a subject we could profitably tackle.
Now there are several aspects to the subject and we cannot hope to cover all the ground in the time available so I want to narrow down today to two or three things, firstly of a more theological sort and then of a more practical one.
Introductory matters
But first something by way of introduction. Some definitions:
“A supernatural work of God’s Spirit, renewing and transforming the heart into the divine likeness.” (T Watson) “A secret act of God in which he imparts new spiritual life to us." (W Grudem) "An inner re-creating of fallen human nature by the gracious sovereign action of the Holy Spirit." (J Packer)
We can identify some nine characteristics of this new birth as described to us in Scripture. It is
1. A mysterious and unfathomable change
2. A real and internal change
3. A secret but perceptibile change
4. A change that affects a man’s very nature or quality
5. A sudden but lasting change
6. A great and radical cahnge
7. A miraculous and divine change
8. A renovating and revolutionary change
9. A thorough yet incomplete change.
Besides the obvious picture of a rebirth, the Bible uses various pictures to teach us about regeneration – the chief ones are the planting of seed, new creation and passing from darkness into light.
What I want to concentrate, however, is first the question of what brings about new birth, what causes it. Then I want to say something about the ordo salutis and regeneration's place in it. Finally, we will look at the more experiential question of when it happens and the varieties of religious experience it can produce.
There is really more than one answer, of course, to the question of how one is born again. It all depends on what is meant by the word causes. We will consider the matter then from various angles. We will look at its fundamental, its qualifying and instrumental causes. First, the fundamental cause, then the basis on which new birth takes place and thirdly the means by which people most often come to it.
WHAT BRINGS IT ABOUT?
The fundamental cause - not man but God
We think first of the origin of regeneration. Second birth is not something we bring about for ourselves, any more than we bring about our first birth. ‘That man cannot regenerate himself is too evident to need a remark’ wrote Archibald Alexander. We cannot bring it about for anyone else either. A spiritual resurrection is just as impossible for us as any sort of physical resurrection would be. It is something God does.
The origin of the whole operation lies in God. It is clear from a verse such as John 3:16, which clearly places the origin of salvation in him. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. He is the one who chooses to give new birth (James 1:18).Ephesians 2:4, 5 reminds believers how, because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved.
George Swinnock asks why some are hardened like clay and some melt like wax, why some receive light from the fiery pillar and some are in the dark, why some cross the Red Sea and others drown in it. Why is the truth hidden from the wise and learned but revealed to little children? Jesus is clear, ‘Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.’ (Matt 11:26). We need to grasp this so that, like Charles Wesley, we will realise that God’s power and God’s alone “Can change the leper’s spots And melt the heart of stone.”
Deuteronomy 30:6 and Ezekiel 36:26, 27 are Old Testament verses that speak of regeneration. Notice that in the first it is, ‘The LORD your God’ who ‘will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants’. In the second, it is again God who is active. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
As for New Testament Scriptures, new birth is brought about not by ‘natural descent … human decision or a husband’s will, but’ by God. Men plant and water, but God makes things grow. He saves, not because of righteous things we have done. It is because of his mercy that he washes in rebirth and renews by the Spirit. In his great mercy, he gives new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Doing right is possible only because we have been born of him. (See Jn 1:13; 1 Cor 3:6; Tit 3:5; 1 Pet 1:3; 1 Jn 2:29).
It is right then for Christians to sing together
Hallelujah! Let praises ring!Unto the Holy Ghost we sing
For our regeneration.
The saving faith in us He wrought
And us unto the Bridegroom brought,
Made us his chosen nation.
It is the Holy Spirit in particular who brings the change about. ‘No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit’ (1 Cor 12:3). He is the great writer, the great artist, the cleanser and renewer of hearts. It is the Spirit of the living God who writes not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts to reveal believers as a letter from Christ. The transforming art of changing people into Christ’s likeness with ever-increasing glory so that they reflect his glory comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. He is the one who brings about the new birth itself (2 Cor 3:8, 18; Tit 3:5, 6).
The qualifying cause – Christ and his atoning death
In 1974 Lenny Smith wrote the popular hymn ‘Our God reigns’. It includes the lines “His life ran down upon the ground like pouring rain That we might be born again.”
We can speak, secondly, of what qualifies a person to be reborn. Peter links new birth to the resurrection (1 Pet 1:3) but if we ask on what basis new birth can fairly take place, we say it is because of the blood of Christ or his atoning death. It is his propitiatory sacrifice that secures regeneration. As John Murray put it – he has accomplished redemption, which is then applied in regeneration and the other parts of salvation.
By the Fall, man was rendered guilty, ruined, and helpless. It would have been perfectly just for God to have left us in that state and done nothing for us, as was the case with the angels that fell. He owes us nothing. But God created man for his own glory and was unwilling that all should be left to perish.
In his wisdom and goodness, and according to his great mercy, he did all that was necessary for his people to be saved, including providing atonement for each one through Jesus Christ.
On the atonement we can say several things. First, that it was prefigured in the Old Testament period. Under Moses various sacrifices were instituted with the Temple worship and the Levitical priesthood to teach men what was needed and to provide a pattern for the future. The sacrifices were vicarious offerings, involving penal substitutionary atonement. Leviticus 4, for example, speaks of the sacrificer laying ‘his hand on the head of the sin offering’ before slaughtering it and says of the priest sacrificing the animal you thus ‘make atonement for him’ so that he is forgiven. Many parallels are drawn between the Temple worship and Jesus’ atoning death, especially in the Book of Hebrews.
Some New Testament passages speak directly of Christ being a propitiation for sin (Rom 3:25; 1 Jn 2:2, 4:10). This word refers to an offering designed to turn away wrath. On the cross, Jesus Christ turned away the Father’s wrath by the atoning sacrifice of himself. The New Testament also speaks of the cross as an act of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18-20, Rom 5:10, Col 1:20, Heb 2:17). By nature there is enmity between man and God but through the cross there can be peace.
Further, Christ is also spoken of as a ransom for sin. A ransom is paid to secure a person’s release. He ‘gave himself as a ransom’ (1 Tim 2:6). He himself said that he ‘did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45). By his precious blood he paid the price to release many from their sins. He is the Redeemer and Saviour of his people. There are many references to ‘the redemption that came by Christ Jesus’ (Mt 1:21, 18:11, etc). Other relevant passages include Isa 53:4-8; Mk 8:37; Rom 4:25, 5:6-10, etc.
More broadly, Jesus was “Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth.”
His birth led to his atoning death and resurrection. We think of the atonement most readily in connection with justification and link the resurrection with the new birth. The atonement, was necessary, however, for both. Without it, there would be no basis for regeneration. Because of all that Christ has done, God is willing to grant rebirth to his own that they may receive the full benefit of Christ’s redemption.
In Isaac Watts’ words
’Tis through the purchase of his deathWho hung upon the tree,The Spirit is sent down to breatheOn such dry bones as we.
One other thing perhaps worth mentioning here is that the notion that regeneration is rooted in what happened between Christ’s death and resurrection is an unhelpful teaching with no basis in Scripture. The idea takes the phrase ‘he descended into hell’ in what is usually called The Apostles Creed to mean that after he died Jesus went to hell in his spirit. When he was raised again, some assert, he became the first born again man.
We are wiser to take the phrase about descending into hell to refer to what Jesus suffered on the cross. Remember that Jesus told the dying thief that he would be with him in Paradise that very day. The idea of Jesus descending to hell for three days at his death, though quite an ancient idea, is thoroughly unsound. No, the new birth is possible on the basis of what Christ did on the cross and when he rose from the dead, confirming that his atoning death was acceptable to God.
Instrumental cause – God’s Word
It is quite natural to say that when Lazarus was raised from the dead, it was through the voice of Jesus speaking to him. If we are more precise, of course, we have to admit that Lazarus came to life before that moment or he could not have heard Jesus calling him out. To pray with Wesley then “Strike with the hammer of Thy Word, And break these hearts of stone” is quite legitimate, provided we remember that words in and of themselves can do nothing.
Regarding his parable of the sower, Jesus says ‘the seed is the word of God’ (Lk 8:11). It is when the seed falls into the good soil that it takes root and produces a crop. Paul speaks of preaching to the Corinthians as sowing ‘spiritual seed’ among them (1 Cor 9:11). The suggestion is not that words themselves have the germ of life in them but that it is through the God applied word that people are converted.
There are verses in the New Testament that speak of regeneration in a broader sense than is usual when they refer to God using the means of his word to reveal signs of life. Thus James reminds his readers (1:18) that God ‘chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created’. Similarly Peter (1 Peter 1:23) says ‘For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.’ Ephesians 5:6 refers to ‘the washing with water through the word’ and is another appropriate reference here.
All three speak of renewal through God’s word. They speak of the word as ‘the word of truth’ and ‘the living and enduring word of God’.
It is effective in fostering God-given life, firstly, because it is true. Remember Jesus’ words (Jn 17:17) where he prays to the Father to ‘Sanctify’ his disciples ‘by the truth’. He then says ‘your word is truth’. It is by this means then that the Son sets men free (Jn 8:36).
Secondly, the word is living and enduring. Hebrews 4:12 says of this ‘living and active’ word of God that it is ‘sharper than any double-edged sword’ and it can penetrate ‘even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.’ Such a word can deal with men’s souls and renew them.
Finally, it is God’s Word and so is well able to bring about his purposes. ‘The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving (or converting) the soul’ (Ps 19:7).
The word is the means of second birth, to quote an old writer, ‘because God has connected the influences of the Spirit with the preaching and reading of the Word’. It is through the foolishness of what Christians preach that God saves people. The word stirs us to think and to feel in a spiritual way. ‘The Spirit operates by and through the word’. The ‘power and penetrating energy’ the word has comes from the Spirit. ‘Without the omnipotence of God the word would be as inefficient as clay and spittle, to restore sight to the blind.’
So it was that ‘while Peter was still speaking’ the words he spoke to Cornelius and others that ‘the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message’ (Acts 10:44).
In Luke’s description of Lydia’s conversion you see the order quite clearly (Acts 16:14). First, she listens to Paul preach, then the Lord opens her heart, then she responds to Paul’s message.
It is because of this instrumental element that Paul can say to the Corinthians ‘in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel’ (1 Cor 4:15). This is the reason too why preaching is so important if people are to be born again. As Paul asks (Rom 10:14) How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
Throughout the New Testament we see this pattern of preachers being sent out with the Word that people may be born again. Like John the Baptist, Christ himself came preaching the Word and so did his apostles after him. He sent them out saying ‘Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation’ (Mark 16:15). It is as we preach God's word that people are born again. God is able to work when, where and how he chooses to work but we observe that where men go out and preach in his name people are born again but where they are not able to do that such things are much more scarce.
Like Ezekiel we are to preach to the dry bones and trust the Spirit of God to bring life. People need to accept ‘the word planted in you, which can save you’ not merely listening to the word but doing what it says (Jas 1:21,22). Paul tells how he came to Thessalonica and preached successfully. What made the difference was that they accepted his preaching ‘not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe’. This is why they turned ‘to God from idols to serve the living and true God’ (2 Thess 2:13, 1 Thess 1:9).
*
When we ask what causes the new birth, we must say that it originates with God who transforms people by the Spirit and is possible because of what Christ has done on the cross. It usually happens as the Word of God is preached.
*
In the face of this biblical understanding we must not suppose that there is nothing to be done but to wait for God to work. The Bible does not encourage us to think like that. Philippians 2:12, 13 says ‘continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling’. Why? ‘For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.’ God’s work in man should be the stimulus to our working.
John Angell James’ Anxious Enquirer compares our part to that of sailors hoisting their sails to catch the breeze that God sends to waft the ship along or to farmers ploughing or sowing, reliant on the sunshine and rain that God sends for germination and growth.
He says of the man with the withered hand in Matthew 12 that when the Lord commanded him to stretch out his hand ‘he did not say, Lord, I cannot, it is dead’. Rather, he relied on the power of the one who told him what to do, ‘believing that the command implied a promise of help, if he were willing to receive it’. He willed to stretch it out and was able.
The command then is ‘Repent and believe’. We must encourage people not to respond ‘I can’t because I’m dead in sin’. Rather, we must encourage them to believe in the promise of grace to help and obey, depending on him who works in men to will and to act according to his good purpose.
WHERE DOES IT FIT IN?
Another question we can perhaps tackle is the question of where regeneration should be placed in the ordo salutis or order of salvation. Let's consider regeneration first in relation to conversion and then justification.
Regeneration and conversion
When we use the word regeneration in its narrower sense, as we are doing, it is important to carefully distinguish it from conversion. Archibald Alexander does not think the difference so important (probably because he has experience in mind rather than theology) but he does say that regeneration (the communication of spiritual life) is God's act and conversion (turning from sin to God) is our act and a consequence of the divine influence.
Early Southern Baptist James P Boyce was a student of Alexander’s. Unsurprised at how people fail to distinguish the two he also calls regeneration ‘the work of God, changing the heart of man by his sovereign will, while conversion is that act of man turning towards God with the new inclination thus given to his heart’.
A catechism by Boyce’s fellow Baptist John A Broadus reads ‘Does faith come before the new birth?’ ‘No, it is the new heart that truly repents and believes’.
‘Saving belief of the gospel’ was for nineteenth century Presbyterian R L Dabney ‘the first and most uniform action of the new-born soul’.
In more recent times, R C Sproul has spoken of the dramatic moment in his life when, to his surprise, he saw a professor write on a chalkboard ‘regeneration precedes faith’. It was a shock to the system for the young seminarian who, until then, had thought in terms of faith leading to rebirth and justification. Going back to his Bible he found that the professor was right. Not only that, but he discovered how men like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Edwards and Whitefield had taught the same thing.
Conversion consists of repentance and faith and it is being born again that makes these two possible. It is not that by repenting and trusting in Christ we are born again but that by being born again we are enabled to repent and trust in Christ. Kuyper says that some old Scottish theologians would speak of the implanting of the faith-faculty (regeneration) followed by faith-exercise and faith-power. Without the faculty, the exercise of faith and its power cannot be known.
In Acts 16:14 we read of Lydia that, as she listened to Paul preaching, ‘The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.’ It was when the Lord worked in her heart to open it that she was able to respond to the message with faith and repentance.
We are almost never able, if ever, to detect any delay between regeneration and conversion but it is important to recognise that it is new birth that leads to repentance and faith and not the other way round. One writer compares the difference between actually turning on a tap and the moment the water begins to come out. We do not normally distinguish these two, one follows so closely on the other, but there is a logical difference, just as there is between being born again and conversion itself.
It is important to keep the two separate in our minds because, as we have said, whereas new birth is monergistic – something God does alone – conversion is synergistic – it involves our co-operation with God. There are plenty of exhortations in the New Testament to repent and to believe but none to be born again. As you know, what Jesus says in John 3 is not a command. Faith and repentance are themselves God’s gifts, of course, as 2 Timothy 2:25 and Ephesians 2:8, 9 make clear. They are impossible without him. Nevertheless, at the same time, they are things that men themselves do.
For Puritan Thomas Adams “Repentance is a change of the mind and regeneration is a change of the man.”
Using statements by Charnock and A A Hodge in particular, we can say of regeneration and conversion – one is like the cause, the other like the effect; one is God's act, one our act; we are unconscious of one, conscious of the other; in one power is conferred, in the other it is exercised; one is an unrepeatable, single act and the other is constant and progressive.
Kuyper says that “the first conscious and comparatively co-operative act of man is always preceded by the original act of God, planting in him the first principle of a new life, under which act man is totally Passive and unconscious.”
In a helpful little book, Spiritual birthline: understanding how we experience the new birth, Stephen Smallman presents a diagram paralleling physical and spiritual birth. In the top line is conception, pregnancy, delivery and growth, which he matches, in the bottom line, against regeneration, effectual calling, conversion and sanctification. Conversion is faith and repentance which corresponds with the way at delivery, a baby cries. Conversion then is not the beginning of life but, as it were, when the baby cries for the first time. That fits with a similar analogy used by Erroll Hulse - Spiritual life is the consequence of spiritual quickening. The baby cries because it is born; it is not born because it cries.
Regeneration and justification
We have already alluded to the difference between justification and new birth. As sinners, we have two basic problems confronting us. On one hand, there is our guilt; on the other, there is our pollution. It is a little like the problem of how to help a man who has been in trouble with the police many times before and has broken the law once again. He needs not only to atone for the crimes he has already committed but a way needs to be found to stop him engaging in criminal activity again in the future.
Our problem is both our relationship with God and our sinful nature and character. We need not only to find pardon from God but also to be renewed within so that we do not go on sinning in the way we have in the past.
When God restores a sinner to himself, he forgives that person so that they are pardoned and all their sins are cancelled and their guilt is removed forever. He imputes righteousness to them instead of guilt. This is justification. It is concerned with a change in one’s legal standing before God. By means of justifying grace, God the Judge makes that person right before him. The sinner is clothed, as it were, in the robe of Christ’s perfect righteousness. Justification is the opposite of condemnation. Though every sinner deserves to be condemned those who trust in Christ are found righteous through him.
Justification is obtained when, in Pink’s words, ‘having been brought to lie in the dust as an empty-handed beggar, faith is enabled to lay hold of Christ’. It is as the repenting sinner believes that he receives a full and free pardon.
God also puts the Holy Spirit within and makes a person holy, a man of God. This comes through regeneration, sanctification and glorification. It is at the new birth that ‘sin receives its death-wound, though not its death’. The other two cannot follow without it.
Regeneration and justification, then are inseparable but distinct. Both are absolutely necessary. Without a pardon we have no right to heaven, without the change we would not be fit for heaven.
WHEN DOES IT HAPPEN?
I now want us to consider the diversity of experience that those who are born again may know in light of their age, knowledge, vigour and temperament.
I remember as a boy being told by my mother that the Queen of England was very special because she has two birthdays – an actual one and an official one. As a child, the idea of two birthdays sounded very attractive.
If you are a Christian, in a manner of speaking, you also have two birthdays. When the Kent martyr Alice Potkins was arrested in 1556, she was asked her age. She replied that she was 49 ‘according to her old age’ but only one ‘according to her young age, since she learned Christ’. Many could say something similar. Take myself as an example. I was first born on May 22, 1959. I know the date because my parents brought me up to mark the day and I have a piece of paper somewhere with the details on it. Some 12 years later, I was born again, probably on April 14, 1972. I am a little more hazy on this in some ways but I remember the period and I have another piece of paper somewhere marking the date.
On occasion, I have met people who cannot tell you accurately when they were born. I remember a Vietnamese fellow who was picked up on the streets of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) as an orphaned toddler who was eventually brought up in the UK. He only knew more or less how old he was. Many abandoned children share the same sort of ignorance. In certain parts of rural Nigeria, it is common not to know the exact day you were born as records are not kept too strictly. In a similar way, many Christians do not know exactly when they were born again. As Archibald Alexander points out, even those who claim that they do know may well be wrong.
I have just given you the date April 16, 1972, but I recognise that I may be mistaken on this. All I really know is that on that date I made a firm dedication of myself to God and that I have subsequent reason to believe that I have been reborn. As for the exact date, I may have it wrong.
Westminster Theological Seminary founder J Gresham Machen once described an experience-meeting he had attended where people were asked to share where they were born the first time and when and where they were born the second time. Many were glad to do this but one woman, having answered the first question, stated that although she was definitely converted she could not say when and where. Machen commented “I do believe that there is a definite instant when the wonderful event occurs in the life of everyone who becomes a Christian - the wonderful event when he or she is born again – but I do believe also that there are many who cannot tell when that instant was; it is known to God, but not to them.”
He goes on to say that we must not think the one experience inferior to the other. Spurgeon makes the same point in his usual pithy way “If you are really born of God, the date of your new birth is interesting to curiosity but not important to piety.”
A characteristic of regeneration is that it is mysterious and secret so we should not be surprised that it can be difficult to know exactly when it has occurred. We have shown that it is vital, however, and so it is good to consider now the fact that although second birth is something essential for all, the actual experience of discovering you are born again can show some variety.
Part of this arises, of course, from how far one has gone in sin. Although we must be careful how we state it, there is surely a difference, at least outwardly, between someone who has grown up in a Christian home and has never outwardly rebelled against the faith and someone who has gone some distance in sin. This is bound to affect the way that the new birth is experienced.
In the opening chapters of his fascinating book, Thoughts on religious experience, Professor Alexander identifies four factors that affect the course of conversion. None of these things can affect regeneration itself, of course. As we have emphasised, that is something that God himself does. However, the way we perceive regeneration in ourselves and in others can be affected by any or all of these factors.
The age factor
An obvious factor is the way in which different people are born again at different ages. In Scripture we know that Timothy came to faith at a relatively young age, while someone like the Philippian Gaoler was probably an older man when he was regenerated. Their experiences were quite different, perhaps because of these as well as other factors.
Although many people are converted in their late teens or early twenties, many are converted at other ages and there is every reason to suppose that people can be and are in fact born again at every age between nought and ninety and even perhaps outside those boundaries in some rare instances.
A A Hodge’s Outlines of theology raises the question of whether infants are susceptible of regeneration; and, if so, what is the nature of regeneration in them?’ Infants and adults alike, he says, are rational and moral beings, affected by total depravity. The difference is that with adults their faculties are more developed. Given all that we have said about regeneration, there is no reason why babies, in the womb or out of it, may not be born again as easily as adults. ‘In both cases’ says Hodge ‘the operation is miraculous, and therefore inscrutable’.
As for Scripture support for this, Hodge turns, like others, to the case of John the Baptist. This makes sense but his references to Luke 18:15, 16 and Acts 2:39 are more dubious. Alexander mentions Jeremiah 1:5, which again does not say exactly what he suggests. The story of Samuel is perhaps more relevant.
These men are not suggesting that infant regeneration is common. Alexander argues that God would not do this often as it could give the impression that grace is natural. Rather they suggest the possibility. Alexander sums up “Although the grace of God may be communicated to a human soul at any period of its existence in this world, yet the fact manifestly is, that very few are renewed before the exercise of reason commences; and not many in early childhood.”
He confesses how perplexing childhood piety can be. Some, despite every advantage, show little sign of godliness when young. Others appear quite pious in their early years but it may come to nothing. Personally, I have come across very few reliable cases of people claiming to be born again under the age of 10. Even when people say that they were it is worth remembering with Kuyper how in the natural world we remember nothing of our birth and only actually recall certain things from early childhood.
In other ages, especially where deaths among children were more common, early conversions happened perhaps more often. Spurgeon was aware of many examples. An eye witness to the 1904 revival in Rhos, North Wales, told many years later how although ‘there were no special meetings for young people; they all came to the adult meetings.’ He says that children as young as ‘six and eight years of age were talking about Jesus’ making their teachers weep ‘as they overheard the children’s conversations’. Not all were converted but some were.
Edwards’ Narrative of surprising conversions famously records the testimony of four year old Phebe Bartlet who showed genuine evidence of conversion. Further back again, in 1672, James Janeway published his Token for children detailing the conversions and other experiences of about 20 pious children. Interestingly, he mentions at least one child, Anne Lane, who he believed was ‘sanctified from the very womb’. A very popular book, Janeway's Token was supplemented in 1700 by Cotton Mather who added another 10 cases from New England, including that of Priscilla Thornton who, in her final throes and full of faith, asks “Mother, why do you weep when I am well in my soul? Will you mourn when I am so full of joy? I pray, rejoice with me.” Janeway says fairly “Are the souls of your children of no value? They are not too little to die, they are not too little to go to hell, they are not too little to serve their great Master, nor too little to go to heaven!”
Spurgeon, like Alexander, wisely warns against unrealistic expectations of any who profess faith at a young age but we must not make the mistake of supposing that children, even the very young, are incapable of receiving new birth.
Perhaps most come to new birth sometime between their early teens and late twenties but there are plenty of examples of people being reborn at various stages in life and just as there is no cut off point in early life so there seems to be none at the latter end either.
The story has often been told of the conversion of a New England farmer called Luke Short. Short was converted, quite amazingly, in his hundredth year. Apparently he was sat in a field contemplating his end one day and recalled a striking sermon he had heard some 85 years before as a 15 year old in Dartmouth, England. The preacher had been the Puritan John Flavel. His text was ‘If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha’ (1 Cor 16:22). Short lived a further 16 years after this and despite his sinful past became a faithful member of the Congregationalist Church meeting in Middleborough, Massachusetts. Such a late conversion is undoubtedly very rare. Conversions of people in their seventies, eighties and nineties are equally unusual, but they do happen and we should not be surprised when they occur.
As for ‘deathbed conversions’, again they do happen. Boswell quotes Samuel Johnson's approbation of the epitaph of an outwardly wicked man “Between the stirrup and the ground I mercy sought – and mercy found.” John Newton claimed to have seen more than one such conversion and thought there were probably many instances.
However, it is fair to say that it is very difficult to be sure when such professions are genuine. Sometimes a reported deathbed conversion cannot even be verified. There is only one eleventh hour conversion in the Bible – that of the dying thief. As J C Ryle put it ‘One thief was saved that no sinner might despair, but only one, that no sinner might presume’.
The vigour factor
Alexander claims that just as physically people are born constitutionally weak or strong so spiritually there seems to be a corresponding variety. ‘There is as much difference in the original vigour of spiritual as of natural life.’
Someone like a Saul of Tarsus comes tearing from the blocks like an athlete set on winning the race while others seem to struggle right from the beginning. Similarly, just as in the natural world some are born in weakness yet soon thrive well enough, while others are vigorous at birth but struggle thereafter, so in the spiritual world we see the same phenomena. This is something that John Bunyan brings out well with the variety of characters who reach the Celestial City in his Pilgrim’s Progress. Among those who safely cross the river are not only characters like Honest, Valiant and Steadfast but others such as Ready to halt, Despondency and Feeble-mind too. It is good to keep such variety in mind when we are weighing up whether we ourselves or someone else is regenerate or not.
The knowledge factor
Alexander also points out how a person’s knowledge can affect the way that he understands his experience and how he expresses himself. He imagines two newly regenerated individuals – one well taught in Christian things, one very ignorant. Although we may well come away with quite different impressions of the two, the fact is that both have been reborn. Given the right instruction, who can say which one will flourish best in the future?
I remember in my college days a friend who professed to have been born again six years previously at an evangelistic outreach for children but who had not been allowed to attend church on a regular basis. Determined to make the most of her time in university, she attended church and the Christian Union activities with great enthusiasm but, because her family had given her no encouragement in Christian things, she did not even know where to find the readings in her Bible. The Holy Spirit uses means and without the required knowledge a person may appear, in such rare circumstances, to be unconverted even though they were born again some time before. No doubt there are people in, say, China today who have been born again yet, because of their difficult circumstances, they may well appear to be quite unorthodox in their views.
This fact must not be abused but out of ignorance a person may live contrary to certain Christian teachings and practices and may appear not to be born again when in fact he is. Of course, if he is genuinely reborn that will show itself when his errors are pointed out.
Far from arguing against religious instruction and faithful teaching prior to conversion, this observation argues rather in its favour. The better instructed people are, the better they will be able to discern their standing before God and benefit from being reborn.
Alexander takes opportunity to warn against the stereotyping of testimonies in churches. His cautions against receiving Christians into churches by testimony are unwarranted but his warnings are worth heeding nevertheless. It is very easy for a pattern to develop so that new converts expect that they have to fit a certain paradigm when they make their statements to the leaders or before the church. Certainly there is merit in his observation that ‘a frequent and indiscriminate disclosure of these secret things of the heart is attended with many evils.’ How easily pride and hypocrisy can be unintentionally encouraged.
Alexander raises the interesting question of how little knowledge one needs in order to be regenerated. One can imagine a person becoming a Christian despite many deficiencies in their knowledge. Certainly, if what we profess to know about Christian things is true, it will help us and even where, for some reason, knowledge is very meagre regeneration may still occur.
The temperament factor
The other main factor discussed by Alexander is temperament. We said earlier that regeneration involves a change of nature or quality not of being or substance. A person’s attitudes will be profoundly affected by the new birth but his fundamental personality will remain the same. There are, to use outmoded Medieval terms, the sanguine, the choleric, the melancholic, the phlegmatic. Or in more modern terms – architects, champions, crafters, composers, counsellors, field marshals, healers, inspectors, inventors, masterminds, performers, promoters, protectors, providers, supervisors and teachers! Some are placid, others more excitable; some pessimistic, some optimistic. There are insider or outsider types, clubbable or reclusive, leaders or followers, introverts or extroverts.
Such factors cannot decide whether a person is born again but they can affect his perceptions of regeneration and the way he handles it. Even when people use exactly the same words, the meaning can greatly differ in reality. Some people are very easily moved, others are not. For one person to say he was profoundly moved and filled with joy may mean something quite different to what another means even though they say the same thing.
Alexander goes on to speak of those who have a ‘morbid’ temperament. He then discusses melancholy or depression and the effect it has particularly on those who are under conviction of sin. He rightly refutes the idea, sometimes expressed, that Christian experience is likely to make a person more prone to depression or other mental disorders. There are plenty of examples of Christians who struggled with depression but they were generally helped rather than hindered by the fact they were born again. Think of Luther, Cowper, Brainerd and Spurgeon as examples.
Examples
Let me close reminding you of some examples of regeneration. Even the great John Owen cannot discuss regeneration without introducing a biographical element. He considers the story of Augustine.
Under deep conviction, Augustine had become a rather miserable young man in his early thirties. Then one day, as he lay crying over his sins in a garden near Milan, he heard a voice telling him to ‘take up and read’. He arose and read at random from Scripture, happening on Romans 13:13, 14 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
As soon as he had read the sentence he felt a light breaking in on him and he felt safe. He was born again and began to serve the Lord with great energy, penning works such as his Confessions and The City of God that continue to be a blessing to God’s people to this day.
Martin Luther once described his conversion, which came after many a long struggle with sin and confusion and unbelief, in these terms “Now I felt as though I had been immediately born anew and had entered Paradise itself. From that moment the face of Scripture as a whole became clear to me. ... The expression ‘the righteousness of God’ which I so much hated before now became dear and precious – my darling and comforting word.”
C H Spurgeon was another miserable young person. One Sunday morning in January 1850 he set off to church in the snow and came to a Primitive Methodist Chapel in Colchester where a small congregation had gathered. The regular minister was unable to reach the place and so, in Spurgeon’s words, ‘a plain, unlettered, lay preacher ... stood up in the pulpit, and gave out’ his text, Isaiah 45:22, Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. Spurgeon says “He had not much to say, thank God, for that compelled him to keep on repeating his text, and there was nothing needed - by me, at any rate, - except his text. I remember how he said, It is Christ that speaks. I am in the garden in an agony, pouring out my soul unto death; I am on the tree, dying for sinners; look unto Me! Look unto Me! that is all you have to do. A child can look. One who is almost an idiot can look. However weak, or however poor, a man may be, he can look; and if he looks, the promise is that he shall live. Then, stopping, he pointed to where I was sitting under the gallery, and he said, that young man there looks very miserable. I expect I did, for that is how I felt. Then he said, there is no hope for you young man, or any chance of getting rid of your sin, but by LOOKING TO JESUS; and he shouted, as I think only a Primitive Methodist can, Look! Look, young man! LOOK NOW! And I did look; and when they sang a hallelujah before they went home, in their own earnest way, I am sure I joined in it. It happened to be a day when the snow was lying deep, and more was falling; so, as I went home, those words of David kept ringing through my heart, Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow; and it seemed as if all nature was in accord with that blessed deliverance from sin which I had found in a single moment by looking to Jesus.”
In more recent times C S Lewis wrote in Surprised by joy “I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion.”
As for myself, I was at a Friday night evangelistic meeting for young people in my home town. It was the early seventies so my hair would have been touching the panda collar on my Ben Sherman shirt. I would have worn flares, stack heel lace-ups and possibly a tank top knitted by my mum. It was a long time ago! After a sausage and chips meal, we sat and listened to the visiting speaker. It was Spring time and I remember sneezing a lot with hay fever but I was still gripped.
I do not recall very much of what the speaker actually said, though I am sure he urged us all to trust in the Lord Jesus. Afterwards he gave us something to read and the minister of the church urged me to look at John 3, which I probably did. I certainly prayed, confessing what a rotten sinner I was and asking that I might be born again. I do not remember church the day after next but certainly the matter was still on my mind when I headed for school the following Monday. I was determined to let others know that I was now trusting in Christ. I was not brought up in a Christian home and so for me this change was quite a dramatic one in many ways.
Just over a year later I was baptised by immersion at the same chapel where I had been converted. Ten years after that, after time away studying in Aberystwyth and London, I was ordained to the Christian ministry in the very same place.
Since then my sister and mother and my oldest son have been born again as well as several others who I have known personally. It is my great longing that there may be many more. I'm sure it is your longing too.
This paper was given at the Westminster Feellowship
No comments:
Post a Comment