Charles H. Spurgeon - Sermão - Regeneration

One of the most dangerous illusions in the Christian life does not consist in openly denying the Gospel of Christ Jesus, but in remaining close enough to it to believe that we already possess what we merely know. It is possible to learn its language, respect its commandments, admire its truths, attend its services, and even defend its doctrines without the heart ever having been reached by the life that comes from God.

Proximity to holy things can paradoxically become one of the safest hiding places for a soul that has never been transformed. When the outward signs of religion begin to be confused with its inward reality, that which ought to lead to self-examination can produce a dreadful tranquility.

It was before a deeply religious man that Jesus uttered one of the most startling declarations in the Scriptures. Nicodemus was not indifferent to the things of God. He did not stand before Christ as a mocker, a persecutor, or a man publicly given over to dissipation. He was a Pharisee, a teacher in Israel, knowledgeable in the Law, and a respected member of his religious community. Yet Christ was not impressed by his position, knowledge, or reputation. He went directly to the need that no religious training could satisfy: “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3.3).

The force of these words is also found in what they do not say. Jesus did not say that Nicodemus needed to add some virtue to what he already possessed. He did not recommend a more disciplined version of his religion. He did not propose moral improvement, greater devotional rigor, or a broader knowledge of the Scriptures as the solution to his condition. The language Christ chose was infinitely more radical: new birth. And no one brings about his own birth.

This truth strikes human pride at its root. We prefer to imagine salvation as a construction in which God supplies the materials and we complete the work. We feel more comfortable when we can still preserve some decisive participation, some hidden merit, some spiritual capacity that survives the Fall intact. Yet the image of the new birth allows no such consolation. It confronts us with our absolute dependence. Spiritual life does not emerge from the natural development of the flesh, just as resurrection does not arise from the effort of a corpse. If there is to be life where there is death, God must act.

For this reason, regeneration does not occupy some peripheral region of the Christian faith. It does not belong to a vocabulary reserved for theologians, nor does it constitute an extraordinary experience intended for an especially devout class of believers. We are dealing with the very passage from death to life, from darkness to light, from hostility toward God to love for God. The Gospel does not merely offer new habits to the old man. God creates what did not exist, awakens what was dead, opens eyes that could not see, and inclines toward Christ a heart that, left to itself, would never come to Him.

This explains why so many changes, though desirable in themselves, must not be confused with conversion. A man may abandon vices that were destroying his family, discipline his appetites, become socially respectable, acquire religious habits, and profoundly alter his conduct. He may learn to speak about grace, know doctrines, participate in the sacraments, hold offices in the church, and be regarded as godly by everyone around him. None of these things, considered in isolation, possesses the power to create spiritual life. A tree may have ornaments placed upon its branches without sap ever flowing through its trunk. It may appear alive from a distance and still be dead at the root.

Outward religion becomes particularly dangerous when it provides a man with enough evidence to quiet his conscience without leading him to Christ. The more convincing the appearance, the less necessary it may seem to examine the heart. The irreligious man may know that he lives far from God; the unregenerate religious man may imagine that he has already arrived. One recognizes his sickness; the other has learned to hide the symptoms. One knows that he needs mercy; the other may rest precisely in the things that ought to lead him to seek it.

For this reason, the doctrine of the new birth possesses a solemnity that cannot be softened without altering the Savior’s own words. Christ did not say that it would be advisable to be born again. He did not declare that regeneration would make entrance into the kingdom easier or religious experience deeper. His statement contains an impossibility: without the new birth, no one can see the kingdom of God. The matter transcends temperament, tradition, and theological preference. We stand before a necessity established by King Jesus Himself.

But the severity of this truth must not be separated from the magnificence of the grace it reveals. If the new birth were a human achievement, the spiritually dead would be without hope. If it depended upon intelligence, the simple would be at a disadvantage. If it depended upon moral strength, the deeply broken would be excluded. If it depended upon an impeccable religious history, many could never even begin. Human inability, however, encounters in the Gospel not a message of self-salvation, but the proclamation of a God who gives life to the dead.

It is here that the doctrine of regeneration becomes glorious. The same God who commands light to shine can illuminate a heart darkened by sin. He who called Lazarus out of the tomb does not find spiritual death an obstacle to His power. Regeneration manifests the sovereignty of grace precisely because its origin does not rest upon the excellence of the one who receives it, but upon the mercy of God who grants it. The Holy Spirit does not find latent life and merely stimulate it. He imparts life. He does not discover a heart naturally inclined toward God and merely assist it. He removes the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh. He does not perfect a spiritually healthy nature. He performs a work that God alone can perform.

This sovereign action does not produce a theological abstraction, but a real transformation. When God grants new life, new affections begin to arise. The sin that was once welcomed begins to be mourned; Christ, once ignored or known only outwardly, becomes precious; holiness ceases to appear as a mere burden and begins to be desired; the Word acquires a beauty previously unseen; God ceases to occupy merely the language of religion and comes to be recognized as the supreme good of the soul. The new life still grows amid weaknesses, conflicts, and falls, but it possesses an origin and a direction that did not exist before.

It is precisely at this point that Christian self-examination becomes indispensable. The decisive question is not simply whether we possess religion, but whether we have received life. It is not whether our name is associated with Christianity, but whether we belong to Christ. It is not whether we have learned the customs of the people of God, but whether the Spirit of God has accomplished in us what no education, ceremony, discipline, or human effort could produce. We may deceive other people and, with astonishing ease, we may deceive ourselves; yet we cannot turn appearance into reality before the God who searches the heart.

Such examination is not intended to lead the sincere soul into despair, as though we were required to find within ourselves some perfection that would justify our hope. Its purpose is exactly the opposite: to destroy the false foundations upon which we are accustomed to rest, so that our confidence may be cast entirely upon Christ. Regeneration does not proclaim the sufficiency of man, but his need of God. It does not direct the sinner inward in search of saving power. It exposes his helplessness and leads him to Christ, in whom there is abundant life.

For this reason also, heaven must not be conceived merely as a pleasant destination to which everyone naturally desires to go. The kingdom of God is the presence of God, communion with Christ, the perfection of holiness, worship without sin, and eternal delight in the God who is infinitely holy. A nature that remains at enmity with God does not merely need permission to enter that kingdom; it must be transformed in order to desire Him. The sinner’s problem is not only before the gates of heaven. It lies within his own heart.

Here is the depth of the sentence pronounced to Nicodemus. We need to be born again not merely because there is an external requirement that must be satisfied, but because we are, by nature, unfit for the very life of the kingdom. We need new eyes to behold its beauty, new affections to love its holiness, and a new heart to find in God what we once sought far from Christ. Eternity with Christ is the consummation of a life that grace begins now.

Few questions, therefore, can be more serious than this: have we been born again? The question is not whether we have experienced a particular emotion, whether we can remember a specific date, or whether our story resembles the experience of another person. The work of the Holy Spirit need not conform to the uniformity of human narratives. The question is deeper. Is there life where once there was death? Has Christ become precious? Has sin come to be recognized as an enemy? Is there a hunger for holiness, even when accompanied by the painful awareness of how far short of it we remain? Does our hope rest less and less upon ourselves and more and more upon the sufficiency of the Savior Jesus?

Before these questions, every place for superficiality disappears. The subject opening before us touches the foundation of Christian hope and reaches into eternity. We are not examining a secondary detail of religious experience, but that secret, sovereign, and powerful work by which God brings His children forth into new life.

The words of Christ stand before every generation with the same authority with which they pierced the conscience of Nicodemus that night. They have not grown old, they have lost none of their urgency, and they admit no substitutes. We may adorn the old nature, instruct it, discipline it, and clothe it in religious language. God, however, did not come merely to make dead men more respectable. He came, in Christ, to save sinners; and the Holy Spirit applies that redemption by imparting life where no spiritual life could ever arise through human power.

To enter seriously into the subject of regeneration, therefore, is to allow one of Jesus’ most penetrating declarations to strip every false security from our hands. But it is also to draw near to one of the most extraordinary manifestations of the mercy of God. For the God who declares our need is the same God who possesses the power to supply it. And when He gives life, that which was dead begins, at last, to see the kingdom.

Divino Cordeiro