The phrase ‘irresistible grace’ resounded in my ears with echoes of beautiful complexity since I heard of it. Hard to believe and yet freeing, it spoke of the relentless pursuit by God for me, a rebel unaware of his need and unmoved to repentance by self-will.
Unmoved by self-will, I say, because the will is the heart’s servant, always subject to the heart that wields it. If the heart is enslaved to sin, so is the will.
My own experience and the testimony of Scripture suggest that salvation must come from without, not within. It is true that in my fallen state, I am not free to live. Free to sin, maybe, but not free from it.
Indeed, if a chronicler were to open his notebook and read what is written about me from the day I exited my mother’s womb, if he were to be candid and truthful, his testimony would be consistent with that of the Psalmist:
“The wicked are estranged from the womb; They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.” ―Psalm 58:3
That’s, sadly, our story; yours and mine.
We have loved wickedness and hated righteousness by nature since we drew our first breath. We are slaves, we are dead. Estranged from God and enraged by His commands, we run away from Him who is light. Sin is, naturally, our delight.
Regeneration
Salvation is God’s relentless pursuit of us that conquers our rejection through regeneration. Humanity’s hope lies in the violent sweet love of God that draws us to Him despite our resistance to His call and command.
His intense love for us causes our internal love for Him.
“What made me love Christ wasn’t that all of a sudden I figured out how to do life. What made me love Christ is that when I was at my worst, when I was at my lowest point, when I absolutely could not clean myself up and there was nothing anybody could do with me, right at that moment, Christ said, “I’ll take that one. That’s the one I want.” ― Matt Chandler
“…not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” ―Titus 3:5
Regeneration refers to an ‘experience of a complete change of life, the rebirth of a redeemed person’ (BDAG). This is what it means to be born again.
Regeneration is grace overcoming the rebellion of the human heart. It is love lavished abundantly on us through the sanctifying Spirit of God. It is a renewal of the fallen man, his resurrection from the dead that sits him with Christ in the heavenly places wholly apart from his works.
With the surgical sword of mercy, regeneration severely severs the strings that tie man to the seeming sweetness of sin, thereby snatching his soul from the precipice of his deserved abyss.
We who are estranged from the womb need a second birth, and we can not willfully participate in our own birth (despite modern man’s self-deception).
Titus 3:5 crucially tells us that regeneration is entirely apart from our works of righteousness. It is caused, not by our faith in God, but by the appearance of ‘the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man’ (Titus 3:4).
We are not born again because we believe, we believe because we are born again. Our regeneration must of necessity precede faith, preparing the way for our active trust in God.
The second birth is necessary to overcome our rebellion, for, our hearts must be changed before we may turn to God as it is written:
“the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” ―Romans 8:7-8
And again:
“the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” ―1 Corinthians 2:14
Man, in his carnality (referring to his pre-conversion state), has absolutely no ability to be subject to God’s law. He is inwardly unable to please God.
The natural (carnal man) does not believe in Christ because the things of the Spirit of God (salvation, righteousness, faith, union with God) are foolishness to him. But also this man in his natural state cannot know the things of God. He has an inward moral inability that must be overcome before he can accept the things of God.
Yet this man cannot overcome his inability, for it stems from his mind in which he is an enemy of God (Col 1:21) and from his heart which is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9).
His heart must be cleansed, and his mind renewed before he can believe. To believe, he must be enabled. Thus, scripture says:
“I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses.” Ezekiel 36:29.
And again:
“For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.” Ezekiel 36:24-28
He who elects men unto salvation must of necessity regenerate, or cleanse, or renew them. He must give them a new heart of flesh for their old natural rebellious heart of stone.
When they are born again, the Spirit of God indwells them, causing them to ‘walk in My statutes’ (Ezekiel 36:27).
That is, God must work in us to will and to do according to His pleasure (Philippians 2:13). We must be born again before we can obey God’s commands.
We must be born again to exercise our choice to believe, which choice is consistent with our new nature, for it is He who causes us to walk in His statutes.
This is why we must call men to repentance, but also ask that God causes that repentance in them. We must preach the Gospel to all, and also ask God to unleash His grace that overpowers sin.
For even as ‘faith comes from hearing,’ that ‘hearing’ is caused ‘BY the word of Christ’ (Romans 10:17).