Latest / Reformed Thinking / Born of Water and the Spirit: The Necessity of Regeneration (John 3:5–6)

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Born of Water and the Spirit: The Necessity of Regeneration (John 3:5–6) · Reformed Thinking

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  Right now, as you listen to this, two out of every three
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  people walking past you on the street believe a massive lie
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  about themselves. Yeah, a really dangerous one,
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  actually. Yeah, they believe they are
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  basically good. The 2022 Ligonier State of
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  Theology survey revealed that 66% of Americans hold to this
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  idea that humans are good by nature.
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  And you know, that is not just some secular assumption.
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  No, not at all. That statistic includes a
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  staggering number of people who sit in church pews every single
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  Sunday. We tend to view ourselves as
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  like a house that might need a fresh coat of paint or maybe
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  some updated landscaping, but we assume the foundation is
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  completely solid. Right, we think the core is
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  fine. Yes.
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  So today on Reform Thinking, we are unpacking a text that
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  collides head on with that modern assumption.
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  Welcome to the show, by the way. Our mission for this deep dive
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  is to look at John chapter 3, verses 5 and 6.
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  We want to understand why human effort, religious pedigree, and
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  moral discipline always fall short of securing a place in the
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  Kingdom of God. Thanks for having me on.
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  And you know that assumption of basic human goodness?
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  It is arguably the most dangerous theological error a
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  person can make. Wow, the most dangerous.
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  I really believe so, because when we look at the text of John
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  3, Jesus sits down with a man who possessed every single
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  religious credential available in the 1st century.
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  I mean, he had the perfect resume.
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  And Jesus looks at this man and tells him that all his moral
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  striving amounts to absolute zero.
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  It means nothing without a sovereign supernatural
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  recreation by the Holy Spirit. I.
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  Want to spend a lot of time on the historical setting here
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  because the weight of this conversation is lost if we do
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  not understand who this man was and what was happening around
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  him. So it is around 8030.
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  It is Passover in Jerusalem. Yeah, and Jerusalem during
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  Passover was just a total sensory overload.
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  Oh, I can only imagine. Right.
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  The city's normal population would swell by hundreds of
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  thousands of pilgrims that were traveling from all over the
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  known world. So you have the bleeding of
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  thousands of sacrificial lambs. You have the constant smoke from
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  the altar, the packed narrow streets and and this really
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  intense political tension. Jewish nationalism was at an all
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  time high, right under the watchful eyes of the Roman
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  Garrison stationed at the Antonia Fortress.
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  It must have felt like a powder keg.
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  It really was. The air was thick with religious
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  zeal, ritual purity laws, and this desperate, desperate desire
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  for the Messiah to arrive and overthrow Rome.
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  And right in the middle of that intense hyper religious
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  atmosphere, we get this secret midnight meeting between Jesus
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  and Nicodemus. John tells us Nicodemus was a
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  Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews, a member of the Sanhedrin.
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  We really need to understand the psychology of a Pharisee in that
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  era to grasp this. The Pharisees trace their
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  spiritual lineage back to the intertestamental period,
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  specifically the time of the Maccabean revolt.
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  OK, set the stage for that. Well, when Greek rulers tried to
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  force Hellenistic culture and Pagan practices on to Judea, the
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  predecessors of the Pharisees drew a hard line in the sand.
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  They were known as the separated ones.
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  The separated 1. Yes, their entire identity was
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  wrapped up in building a fence around the Torah to keep out
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  corrupting influences, but by the time of Christ, that noble
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  desire for purity had calcified into this exhausting, rigid
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  legalism. So it became entirely about the
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  rules. Precisely, they believe their
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  meticulous adherence to external rituals like how they wash their
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  hands, what they ate, who they associated with.
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  They believe that maintain their covenant standing before God.
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  Nicodemus is not just a rank and file Pharisee.
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  I mean, Jesus refers to him as the teacher of Israel.
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  Yeah, the definite article there is staggering.
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  The teacher. Yes, the teacher Nicodemus is
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  the preeminent theologian of his day.
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  The Sanhedrin functioned as the Supreme Court of ancient Israel.
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  They handled the most critical theological and legal disputes.
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  Nicodemus was at the absolute apex of Jewish religious
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  achievement. So he is like a guy with a
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  flawless Ivy League religious resume.
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  That is a great way to put it. If anyone had grounds to feel
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  secure before God based on a religious resume, it was this
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  man. I want to look at how John
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  frames this narrative. We often lose the flow of the
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  text because of chapter breaks. Right, all the time.
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  But the end of John chapter 2 runs directly into this
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  conversation in chapter 3. There is a huge connection
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  there. There is a massive connection at
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  the end of chapter 2. John records that many people
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  believed in Jesus name when they saw the signs he was doing
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  during the Passover. Right, the miracles.
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  Yeah, but then in verses 24 and 25 deliver a massive caveat.
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  It says Jesus did not entrust himself to them because He knew
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  all people and he needed no one to bear witness about man.
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  For quote, He himself knew what was in man.
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  He knew what was in man and the very next sentence introduces
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  Nicodemus. That reads like an intentional
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  setup to me. It is entirely intentional.
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  John is essentially saying to the reader, Do you want to see
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  what is in man? Let's take the absolute best
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  human specimen available. Let's put Nicodemus under the
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  microscope. He is the ultimate test case.
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  Spot on. He is the test case.
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  If Jesus looks at the crowds and sees fickle, unregenerate hearts
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  drawn only to miracles, we might expect him to find something
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  different in the elite, disciplined heart of Nicodemus.
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  You would think so, but Jesus exposes that even the highest
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  tier of human religious achievement leaves a person
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  completely bankrupt. Wow.
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  So let me ask you this. Why did Nicodemus come at night?
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  Does this point to a fear of the Sanhedrin?
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  Or is John doing something theological with the concept of
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  darkness here? It is actually both.
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  On a historical level, Nicodemus had a massive reputation to
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  protect. Oh for sure.
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  Consulting an untrained, controversial rabbi from Galilee
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  would have drawn intense suspicion from his peers, but
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  John frequently uses the motifs of light and darkness to convey
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  spiritual realities. Right, like earlier in the
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  Gospel. Yeah, exactly.
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  John writes that the light shines in the darkness and the
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  darkness does not overcome it. Nicodemus is physically walking
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  through the dark streets of Jerusalem, but he is also
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  emerging from the pitch black darkness of his own spiritual
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  blindness. Seeking out the light of the
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  world. Yes, he is a man who relies on
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  his Immaculate heritage, yet his soul is completely dark.
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  I want you, the listener, to pause and consider your own
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  framework for a second. How often do you evaluate your
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  standing before God based on your upbringing or the fact that
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  you stay out of major trouble or your regular church attendance?
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  Because Jesus is about to dismantle that entire system of
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  evaluation. Let's look at the absolute
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  ultimatum Jesus delivers in verse 5.
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  He says truly, truly. I say to you, unless one is born
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  of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
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  Conversation shifts immediately with that phrase Truly, truly or
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  Amen. Amen in the Greek.
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  What is the significance of the Amen there?
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  Well, rabbis in the 1st century taught by citing the authority
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  of other rabbis, they would say. Rabbi Kalel says this and Rabbi
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  Shemai says that they argued from precedent.
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  Like lawyers citing case law? That is a perfect comparison.
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  But Jesus uses the word Amen, which means let it be so or
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  truth. Not at the end of a prayer, but
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  at the beginning of his own statement.
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  Oh wow. He is claiming divine authority.
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  He is speaking as the direct revealer of heavenly truth.
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  And he pairs that divine authority with the word unless,
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  unless one is born again. Unless is a terrifying word for
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  human pride. It really is.
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  Because it shuts every alternate door, Jesus does not present the
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  new birth as an optional upgrade for those who want to be super
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  spiritual. He does not present it as a
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  helpful addition to a moral life.
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  It is not the Platinum package, no.
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  He declares it an absolute, universal necessity.
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  Without it, entry into the Kingdom of God is an
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  impossibility. So the phrase born of water and
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  the Spirit has caused endless debate.
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  I know some traditions look at this and see a reference to
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  physical birth, like the water breaking in a mother's womb
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  followed by a spiritual birth. Others see an airtight argument
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  for water baptism being required for salvation.
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  We really have to look at the Greek syntax to clear up that
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  confusion. The phrases exidatos Kai
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  numatos. Break that down for.
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  Us there is a single preposition X which means of or from, and
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  that one preposition governs both nouns water and spirit.
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  They are joined by the conjunction Kai.
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  Grammatically, this forms a hen deity.
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  Let's define hen deities for the listener.
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  Sure, it is a figure of speech where 2 words connected by a
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  conjunction express a single complex idea.
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  Give me an example in English. In English, if I say it is nice
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  and warm outside, I am not describing 2 separate
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  conditions. I'm not saying there is one
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  condition that is nice and another completely separate
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  condition that is warm. Right, you just mean pleasantly
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  warm. Exactly.
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  I am describing a single condition here.
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  Jesus is not talking about two separate births, physical and
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  spiritual. Nor is he talking about the
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  ecclesiastical ritual of water baptism plus the Holy Spirit.
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  So it is one event. It is he is describing 1 unified
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  supernatural event of purification and life giving
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  renewal. I don't push back a little here.
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  Playing devil's advocate, if water does not mean physical
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  birth and it does not mean the ritual baptism, how on earth
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  could Nicodemus possibly know what Jesus was talking about?
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  Because just a few verses later, Jesus rebukes him.
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  He says, are you the teacher of Israel?
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  And yet you do not understand these things, right?
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  That rebuke only makes sense if Jesus expects Nicodemus to
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  already know this concept from the Hebrew Scriptures.
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  That is the crucial question, and it brings us directly to the
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  Old Testament background. Jesus is drawing a straight line
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  to the new covenant promises found in Ezekiel chapter 36.
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  Ezekiel 36. Yes, as the preeminent
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  theologian of Israel, Nicodemus should have had Ezekiel
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  memorized. We need to spend some serious
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  time in Ezekiel 36 because the context there perfectly mirrors
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  the theological reality Jesus is pointing to What is actually
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  happening to Israel when Ezekiel delivers this prophecy?
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  The context of Ezekiel is absolute national disaster.
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  Utter ruin. Utter Israel has been conquered
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  by Babylon, Jerusalem is destroyed, the Temple is in
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  ruins, and the people have been dragged away into exile.
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  It is the lowest point in their history.
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  It is, and Ezekiel goes to great lengths to describe why this
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  happened. The nation had profaned God's
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  name through persistent, unyielding idolatry.
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  And the Prophets talk about idolatry in a very specific way,
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  right? They do in the prophets.
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  Idolatry is not just a mistake, it is spiritual adultery.
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  It brings a deep, pervasive uncleanness upon the entire
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  nation. The situation completely
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  hopeless. They are a conquered people in a
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  foreign land. They cannot legislate their way
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  out of Babylon, and they cannot perform enough temple rituals to
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  cleanse themselves because, well, they do not even have a
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  temple anymore. The disease is terminal.
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  They are stuck. And in the midst of that total
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  ruin, God steps in. He does not offer a self help
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  program. He issues a series of promises
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  based entirely on His sovereign initiative.
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  Those are the I will statements. Yes, in verses 25 through 27 of
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  Ezekiel 36, God uses a series of I will statements.
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  He says I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be
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  clean from all your uncleannesses.
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  He says I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will
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  put within you. And he says I will put my spirit
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  within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.
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  I will, I will, I will. The entire burden of action
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  rests on God. Entirely.
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  And when God says I will sprinkle clean water on you, a
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  Jewish scholar like Nicodemus should immediately think of
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  Numbers chapter 19, shouldn't he?
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  That is the water of purification used to cleanse
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  someone who had touched a dead body.
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  Yes, the ashes of the red heifer.
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  The implication there is massive.
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  God is treating the entire nation of Israel as a spiritual
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  corpse. Wow, a spiritual corpse.
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  They are defiled by the deadness of their own sin.
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  The water Jesus speaks of in John 3 is this promised Ezekiel
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  water. It is a sovereign divine,
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  washing away of the guilt and defilement of a dead heart.
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  And God follows that washing by replacing the heart entirely.
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  He takes away the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh.
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  So external religion is like trying to scrub the outside of a
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  rusted car. But Ezekiel is describing a
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  complete engine replacement. That is a great analogy.
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  Elaborate on that shift from the heart of stone to the heart of
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  flesh. Well, a heart of stone is
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  entirely unresponsive. You can preach the moral law to
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  a stone. You can show a stone a
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  supernatural miracle. You can threaten a stone with
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  the fires of judgement and it will not react.
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  It is just a rock. It lacks the capacity to respond
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  to the things of God. That was the condition of Israel
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  in exile, and it is the spiritual condition of every
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  person by nature. The promise is that God will
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  remove that petrified center of the human will and replace it
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  with a heart of flesh. Meaning a living heart.
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  Right. A living, tender, responsive
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  nature. But wait, if God is the one
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  doing all the acting, I will give you a new heart.
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  I will put my spirit within you. I will cause you to walk in my
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  statutes. Doesn't that turn human beings
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  into robots? Where is Nicodemus's free will
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  in this prophecy? That is easily the most common
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  objection to this doctrine, but it rests on a misunderstanding
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  of what the will actually is. How so?
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  The will is not an independent, neutral mechanism floating
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  freely inside of you. The will always chooses
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  according to its strongest desire at any given moment.
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  OK, that makes sense. So if your nature is a heart of
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  stone, your strongest desire will always be to rebel against
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  God and seek your own glory. You freely choose sin because it
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  is what your nature prefers. So the will is free, but it is
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  bound by the nature of the heart.
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  That is right. When God gives a heart of flesh,
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  He does not violate your will or force you to choose Him against
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  your desires. He changes the desires.
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  He gives you new wants. Yes, he implants a new nature
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  that sees the beauty of Christ and hates the ugliness of sin.
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  Once that new nature is implanted, the person freely and
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  joyfully chooses Christ, because Christ is now what they desire
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  most. God does not make robots, He
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  raises the dead. That is incredible, and this
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  completely destroys Nicodemus, his entire religious framework.
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  External religion is like having a person experiencing cardiac
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  arrest flatlining on the hospital bed and deciding the
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  best course of action is to put them in a nice suit and comb
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  their hair. Right, they look great.
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  The outside looks incredibly respectable, but the person is
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  still dead. Ezekiel is describing a
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  spiritual heart transplant. God takes out the dead,
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  unresponsive organ and drops in a living one.
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  Nicodemus had spent his entire life combing the hair of a.
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  Corpse. That is a brutal image, but it
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  is true. His meticulous tithing, his
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  memorization of the law, his circumspect diet, none of it
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  matters if he still possesses a herd of stone.
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  Jesus is telling him that the time for external polishing is
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  over. The New Covenant promise has
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  arrived, and it demands an internal recreation.
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  Which brings us to verse 6, where Jesus drops another
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  massive reality check. He says that which is born of
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  the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
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  Spirit. Right.
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  We really need to define flesh carefully here because a lot of
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  people hear that word and think of physical skin and bones, or
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  maybe bodily appetites like hunger and fatigue.
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  The biblical concept of flesh in this context is far more
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  comprehensive than that. It does not reflect the ancient
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  Greek philosophical idea that physical matter is inherently
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  evil and the spirit is inherently good.
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  Right, the biblical view of the body is good.
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  Exactly. In the New Testament, flesh
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  signifies the entirety of human nature in its fallen, corrupt
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  condition, alienated from God. It represents the sum total of
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  human effort, human intellect, biological heritage and moral
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  striving apart from divine grace.
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  So Jesus is laying down an absolute law of reproduction.
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  Like produces like. Natural birth gives natural
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  life. The flesh cannot transcend its
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  own boundaries. I like to use the technology
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  analogy here. You can't install a brand new
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  oerating system onto a toaster because the toaster literally
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  lacks the necessary hardware. Similarly, the flesh lacks the
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  spiritual capacity to produce anything pleasing to God.
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  The flesh can be highly educated, it can be disciplined
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  through severe asceticism, it can be culturally respectable
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  and philanthropic. But it remains flesh.
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  It's still a toaster. It is still a toaster.
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  Educated flesh is still flesh. Orthodox law keeping flesh is
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  still flesh. You cannot take human nature,
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  refine it through religious discipline, and somehow graduate
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  into spiritual life. They belong to two entirely
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  different orders of existence. There is a specific grammatical
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  construction in the Greek of verse 6 that solidifies this
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  reality. Isn't.
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  There, yes there is. The Greek text utilizes a
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  perfect passive participle. The word is to a gentleman on
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  translated as that which is born.
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  Let's break that down, But let's skip the dry textbook
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  definition. What does a perfect passive
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  participle actually mean for a person's spiritual state?
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  Well, the passive voice means the subject receives the action.
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  You are being acted upon. Yes.
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  You do not birth yourself. You do not contribute to your
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  own conception. It is an event that happens to
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  you initiated by an outside force.
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  And the perfect tense. The perfect tense indicates an
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  action completed in the past that has an ongoing, fixed,
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  permanent result in the present. For Jesus is saying that if your
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  origin is the flesh, you are fixed in that state.
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  You are ontologically flesh. Your very being is constrained
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  by that nature. You are permanently fixed in a
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  state of spiritual inability, unable to generate spiritual
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  life until a completely alien external force acts upon you.
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  This raises a critical question about human vadnais.
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  If the flesh is fixed in the state of inability, does this
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  doctrine of total inability mean people are as bad as they could
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  possibly be? I'm sure listeners might be
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  thinking of their neighbors who do not know God but are
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  genuinely kind people who donate to charity, love their kids, and
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  contribute to society. We really must distinguish
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  between total depravity and absolute depravity.
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  OK, so let's look at that distinction.
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  Absolute depravity would mean every person is expressing
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  maximum evil at all times, essentially acting like demons.
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  That is clearly not the God exercises common grace.
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  Common grace, right? He restrains the full expression
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  of human wickedness to maintain order in the world.
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  People are entirely capable of civic good, horizontal love for
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  their families and acts of great courage.
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  We are not a planet of mass murderers.
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  No, we are not. Total depravity means that the
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  corruption of sin has infected the totality of the person.
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  The mind, the will, the emotions and the physical body are all
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  tainted. The infection is spread
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  everywhere. Yes, because the infection has
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  reached every faculty. No part of the natural person
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  retains the capacity to originate a pure love for the
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  true God. Even our best civic deeds are
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  technically tainted because they are not performed out of a
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  supreme desire for the glory of God.
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  The flesh is totally bankrupt regarding salvation.
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  This brings us to a theological concept that is the heartbeat of
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  Reformed theology, monarchistic regeneration.
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  Monarchism comes from 2 Greek words, mono meaning 1 and ergon
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  meaning work. It asserts that in the specific
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  act of regeneration giving new spiritual life, there is only
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  one worker. God alone.
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  God alone acts. The human will does not
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  cooperate, assist, or meet God halfway in the initial act of
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  being born again. This is the exact opposite of
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  synergism. It is synergism suggests, a
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  cooperative effort. In a synergistic model, God
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  provides the grace, but the human must exercise their own
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  unregenerate will to accept it. It is the classic illustration
• 19:34
  of God throwing a life preserver to a drowning man.
• 19:36
  The man is thrashing in the water.
• 19:38
  He is going under, but he still has to use his own arm strength
• 19:41
  to reach out and grab the ring. But monarchism looks at the
• 19:44
  biblical text and says the man is not thrashing on the surface.
• 19:47
  He has been at the bottom of the ocean for three days.
• 19:49
  He is spiritually dead. He is dead.
• 19:51
  God does not toss a life preserver to a corpse.
• 19:53
  He dives to the bottom of the sea, breathes life into the dead
• 19:57
  lungs, and brings the man to the surface, just as Jesus called
• 20:00
  Lazarus out of the tomb. Lazarus did not help Jesus roll
• 20:03
  away the stone. Not at all.
• 20:05
  Lazarus did not assist in his own resurrection.
• 20:08
  He simply heard the voice of the Son of God and lived.
• 20:11
  The world speaks the language of reform and improvement.
• 20:14
  Christ speaks the language of resurrection.
• 20:17
  The world flatters human ability, but Christ exposes our
• 20:21
  total inability and places all hope on the sovereign initiative
• 20:25
  of God. But you know, this raises a
• 20:28
  massive legal and theological problem.
• 20:30
  What is that? If we are completely dead at the
• 20:33
  bottom of the ocean, how does God come down to save us without
• 20:37
  violating his own justice? He cannot just ignore the guilt
• 20:40
  of the flesh. Right justice must be satisfied.
• 20:43
  The spirits regenerating work requires a legal mechanism and
• 20:46
  this brings us to the Christological fulfillment of
• 20:49
  the new birth. Jesus himself.
• 20:50
  Yes, Jesus is not simply giving Nicodemus A theological lecture
• 20:54
  about the Holy Spirit. He is revealing himself as the
• 20:57
  exclusive meat eater who secures this new life.
• 21:00
  If you read slightly ahead in the same conversation in verses
• 21:03
  14 and 15, Jesus brings his own mission into focus.
• 21:06
  He mentions Moses. He does.
• 21:08
  He tells Nicodemus that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
• 21:11
  wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
• 21:13
  Let's unpack that Old Testament narrative from Numbers 21,
• 21:16
  because the visual is so striking.
• 21:19
  The Israelites are in the wilderness, wandering and
• 21:22
  rebelling against God. In response to their sin, God
• 21:26
  sends venomous serpents among them.
• 21:28
  The people are bitten, the venom is coursing through their veins
• 21:32
  and they are dying in the camp. They are completely helpless.
• 21:35
  They cannot manufacture an anti venom.
• 21:37
  They cannot suck the poison out of their own bodies.
• 21:40
  They are dying from the fatal consequences of their own
• 21:43
  rebellion. So what does God do?
• 21:44
  God tells Moses to craft a serpent out of bronze, mount it
• 21:48
  on a pole, and raise it up in the middle of the camp.
• 21:51
  The promise is that anyone who is bitten when they look at the
• 21:54
  bronze serpent will live. It is such a strange cure, isn't
• 21:57
  it? You have to look at a
• 21:58
  representative presentation of the very thing this is killing
• 22:00
  you. It is a brilliant, brilliant
• 22:02
  type of Christ. In the New Testament, Paul
• 22:05
  writes that God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us.
• 22:10
  Jesus takes on the likeness of sinful flesh.
• 22:12
  He becomes the curse. Exactly on the cross, he becomes
• 22:16
  the focal point of God's wrath against the venom of human
• 22:20
  rebellion. Jesus is telling Nicodemus, I am
• 22:23
  the provision. I am the one who will be lifted
• 22:25
  up on the cross. The Spirit can only apply life
• 22:28
  because the Son has accomplished redemption.
• 22:30
  The Persons of the Trinity never act independently.
• 22:33
  The Son willingly obeys the Father, endures the Cross,
• 22:37
  satisfies divine justice, and purchases the salvation of His
• 22:41
  people. It is a finished work.
• 22:42
  A completely finished historical work and because of that the
• 22:46
  Spirit is dispatched to apply that purchased redemption to the
• 22:49
  hearts of individuals. You do not get the regenerating
• 22:53
  wind of the Spirit without the vicarious obedience and blood
• 22:56
  sacrifice of the sun. Hold on, you just used a heavy
• 22:58
  theological term. Clarify that for me.
• 23:00
  What does vicarious obedience actually mean in the context of
• 23:03
  Jesus Nicodemus? Vicarious means acting as a
• 23:06
  substitute on behalf of someone else.
• 23:08
  Christ's obedience has two facets.
• 23:10
  First, his passive obedience. Which is what he.
• 23:13
  Willingly suffered the penalty of the law on the cross, taking
• 23:16
  the punishment we deserved. But he also provided active
• 23:20
  obedience. He lived a life of perfect,
• 23:22
  flawless submission to the law of.
• 23:24
  God, something Nicodemus failed to do.
• 23:27
  Entirely failed to do that. Perfect righteousness is
• 23:31
  credited or imputed to the believer.
• 23:34
  The irony in this night time meeting is almost painful.
• 23:37
  Nicodemus walks through the dark streets looking for a rabbi.
• 23:41
  He says Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher.
• 23:43
  Come from God. He wants a teacher.
• 23:45
  He wants a life coach. He wants someone to give him a
• 23:47
  new checklist, some advanced tips on how to be a more
• 23:50
  effective Pharisee. He thinks he needs advice.
• 23:53
  But he encounters the Lord of Glory, who demands his death and
• 23:56
  offers him a resurrection. It illustrates the fundamental
• 24:00
  difference between religion and the gospel perfectly.
• 24:02
  Religion provides instruction for the flesh.
• 24:05
  The Gospel provides an execution and a resurrection.
• 24:07
  Nicodemus asked for a teaching. And Jesus told him he needed a
• 24:10
  new existence. I want you, the listener, to
• 24:12
  really internalize that distinction.
• 24:15
  How are you approaching Jesus? Are you reading the gospels
• 24:19
  looking for life hacks? Are you seeking A moral
• 24:22
  philosopher to help you optimize your habits and manage your
• 24:25
  anxiety? Or do you see him as the
• 24:27
  exclusive source of resurrected life, the king who must
• 24:31
  unilaterally act upon your dead heart before you can even
• 24:34
  perceive the Kingdom? The answer to that question
• 24:37
  dictates everything about how a person lives.
• 24:39
  If Christianity is an improvement program, you will
• 24:42
  constantly lean on the resources of your own flesh.
• 24:44
  And what happens then? When you fail, you will despair.
• 24:48
  When you succeed, you will become incredibly arrogant, but
• 24:51
  if you recognize it as a resurrection from spiritual
• 24:54
  death, you cast yourself entirely on the mercy of Christ.
• 24:57
  I want to transition into the pastoral application of this
• 24:59
  text now because the reality of total inability shatters a lot
• 25:03
  of modern delusions. If the flesh only produces
• 25:06
  flesh, we have to seriously evaluate the methods we use in
• 25:09
  our churches today. We really do.
• 25:11
  The modern church landscape is heavily influenced by
• 25:14
  pragmatism. There is a prevalent seeker
• 25:17
  sensitive model that operates on a flawed theological assumption.
• 25:21
  What is the assumption? The assumption is that if you
• 25:24
  can make the church environment appealing enough to the natural
• 25:27
  desires of the unregenerate man, you can persuade him to make a
• 25:30
  decision for Christ. Oh yeah, the pragmatic playbook
• 25:33
  is so obvious today. You dim the lights, you bring in
• 25:36
  the smoke machines. You hire a band that sounds
• 25:39
  indistinguishable from a secular concert.
• 25:41
  Right, you make it comfortable. And you ensure the sermon sounds
• 25:44
  like a motivational Ted talk focused on leadership principles
• 25:47
  and self-care, completely avoiding any mention of sin,
• 25:51
  wrath, or total depravity. The theological crisis with
• 25:55
  those methods is that they appeal exclusively to the flesh.
• 25:58
  They rely on psychological manipulation, entertainment
• 26:01
  value, and emotional stimulation.
• 26:03
  Now make no mistake, you can absolutely draw a massive crowd
• 26:07
  by entertaining the flesh you. Could feel a stadium.
• 26:09
  You can You can even generate a high number of verbal
• 26:12
  commitments or get people to walk down an aisle by stirring
• 26:15
  up natural emotions with a sad story and a swelling chord
• 26:18
  progression. But a crowded auditorium is not
• 26:21
  a regenerate auditorium. Precisely if the methods are
• 26:24
  fleshly, the results will be fleshly.
• 26:27
  You might successfully create a large, enthusiastic group of
• 26:30
  religious consumers, but you cannot produce a single true
• 26:34
  Christian through psychological manipulation.
• 26:37
  The flesh cannot give birth to the Spirit.
• 26:40
  We fall into the trap of cultural Christianity.
• 26:42
  It is terrifyingly easy to rest on conservative values, or the
• 26:46
  fact that you vote a certain way, or that you grew up in a
• 26:49
  youth group. People confuse proximity to the
• 26:51
  truth with possession of the truth.
• 26:53
  They know the vocabulary. Yeah, they know the vocabulary,
• 26:56
  they know when to stand up and sit down during the service, but
• 26:58
  they remain absolute strangers to the life giving wind of the
• 27:02
  Spirit. Proximity does not equal
• 27:03
  possession. Nicodemus had closer proximity
• 27:07
  to the things of God than anyone alive, and he was entirely
• 27:10
  outside the Kingdom. But you know, while this
• 27:12
  doctrine is a sledgehammer to human pride and pragmatism, it
• 27:17
  is also the greatest source of comfort for the doubting
• 27:19
  listener. If you are listening to this
• 27:22
  right now and you are feeling the crushing weight of your own
• 27:25
  sin, if you look at your daily failures and wonder, am I really
• 27:29
  born again? Did I do enough?
• 27:31
  Is my faith real? The struggle for assurance is
• 27:34
  one of the most painful experiences for a Christian.
• 27:37
  How does the doctrine of monarchistic regeneration
• 27:39
  provide comfort in the middle of that doubt?
• 27:42
  Think about the nature of the flesh we just described.
• 27:45
  The flesh, left to its own devices, is hostile to God that
• 27:48
  loves sin and despises the light.
• 27:50
  It cannot produce any genuine spiritual affection.
• 27:53
  So if you are examining your heart and you detect even a
• 27:56
  faint, flickering spark of genuine love for Jesus Christ,
• 28:00
  if you feel a real grieving hatred for the sin in your life,
• 28:03
  not just a fear of getting caught, but a hatred of
• 28:06
  offending God, that is absolute, objective proof of the Spirit's
• 28:10
  work in your life. A dead body does not feel the
• 28:11
  pain of a wound. That is right, A corpse does not
• 28:15
  fight back. If you feel the pain of
• 28:17
  conviction, and if you are engaged in a war against your
• 28:19
  own flesh, it is because you've been made alive.
• 28:23
  The natural flesh could never, ever produce a desire for
• 28:26
  holiness. The unregenerate man does not
• 28:28
  mourn his offense against a holy God.
• 28:31
  He only mourns the uncontrollable consequences of
• 28:33
  his actions. He is sorry he got a speeding
• 28:36
  ticket, not sorry he broke the law.
• 28:38
  That's exactly. If you possess A genuine desire
• 28:41
  to walk in obedience, even if you stumble constantly, that
• 28:44
  desire is an alien disposition implanted by the Holy Spirit.
• 28:48
  Your security does not rest in the strength of your grip on
• 28:50
  Christ. Your security rests in the fact
• 28:53
  that you have been born from above by a divine unilateral act
• 28:56
  that God will not undo. That reality completely changes
• 29:00
  the motivation for how we live. How does monarchism kill fear?
• 29:04
  Because I think a lot of people hear total inability and assume
• 29:06
  it leads to a paralyzed, terrified kind of Christianity.
• 29:09
  It is a common fear. This brings in what theologians
• 29:12
  refer to as the third use of the law.
• 29:13
  Can you walk through the mechanics of how the third use
• 29:15
  functions and how it differs from legalism?
• 29:18
  Historically, theologians have outlined 3 primary uses of God's
• 29:22
  moral law. The first use is Civic.
• 29:25
  Meaning society. Right.
• 29:26
  It restrains the full outbreak of evil in society through the
• 29:29
  threat of punishment. The second use is pedagogical.
• 29:33
  The law acts as a mirror, exposing our utter inability to
• 29:37
  meet God's standard, thereby driving us to Christ for mercy.
• 29:41
  The law shows us we are dead. Yes, it shows us our ruin, but
• 29:45
  the third use is for the believer.
• 29:47
  Once a person has been regenerated, the law ceases to
• 29:50
  be a condition for earning life, and it becomes a blueprint for a
• 29:53
  life already secured. That is a massive shift.
• 29:56
  It is everything. If you believe your salvation
• 29:59
  depends on your fleshly ability to maintain your covenant
• 30:02
  standing through perfect behavior, your obedience will be
• 30:05
  driven entirely by terror. You will operate like a slave,
• 30:09
  constantly flinching, trying to avoid the whip.
• 30:11
  But if the foundation of your salvation is an irreversible,
• 30:14
  unilateral act of God, that pressure is completely removed.
• 30:17
  The pressure to earn your standing just evaporates when
• 30:21
  you understand that God has sovereignly washed you, ripped
• 30:24
  out your heart of stone, and breathed life into you entirely
• 30:27
  by His own grace. When you contributed nothing but
• 30:30
  the sin that made it necessary, your reaction is radical,
• 30:34
  overwhelmed humility. It produces A deeply grateful
• 30:38
  obedience. You obey the law not as a ladder
• 30:40
  to climb out of the grave, but as a guide for how to please the
• 30:43
  Father who already raised you. You walk in the spirit because
• 30:46
  He is the one who gave you breath.
• 30:47
  Furthermore, it completely destroys any self-righteous
• 30:50
  superiority over the unbeliever. Oh, that is so true.
• 30:53
  You cannot look down on the person trapped in addiction or
• 30:56
  hostile to the gospel because you know the only difference
• 30:59
  between you and them is the unmerited sovereign mercy of the
• 31:02
  Holy Spirit. You cannot boast about being
• 31:04
  born. A baby does not brag about its
• 31:07
  conception. You just wake up and spend the
• 31:09
  rest of your life thanking the one who gave you life.
• 31:12
  So to wrap up our time in the text today, let's consolidate
• 31:16
  the massive theological argument we have been tracing through
• 31:18
  John chapter 3. Entrance into the Kingdom of God
• 31:22
  is an absolute categorical impossibility for the natural
• 31:25
  human. It does not matter how refined
• 31:27
  your morals are, how impressive your theological degrees are, or
• 31:30
  how pristine your religious resume looks.
• 31:33
  The flesh is totally bankrupt. Entrance requires a massive
• 31:37
  sovereign supernatural recreation by the Holy Spirit.
• 31:40
  A new birth from above. And this new birth is secured
• 31:43
  entirely by the finished historical work of Jesus Christ,
• 31:46
  who is lifted up on the cross so that dead, venom filled sinners
• 31:49
  could look upon Him and live. The flesh is bankrupt, the
• 31:52
  Spirit is sovereign, and Christ is sufficient.
• 31:55
  That is the avoidable reality of Jesus's confrontation with
• 31:58
  Nicodemus. I want to leave you, the
• 32:00
  listener, with a final thought to chew on as you go about the
• 32:02
  rest of your week. Later in this very same
• 32:05
  conversation, Jesus compares the regenerating work of the Holy
• 32:08
  Spirit to the wind. He tells Nicodemus that the wind
• 32:12
  blows where it wishes. You hear it sound, but you do
• 32:15
  not know where it comes from or where it goes.
• 32:17
  It is untamable. It is completely outside of
• 32:20
  human control, it cannot be predicted, and it cannot be
• 32:23
  manipulated. If that is true, if salvation is
• 32:26
  a sovereign wind that blows entirely independent of human
• 32:29
  permission, how does that reality change the way you pray?
• 32:33
  Think about the people in your life who seem the furthest away
• 32:36
  from God. The people whose hearts seem the
• 32:38
  most calcified, the most hostile, the most stone like.
• 32:41
  If salvation depended on human persuasion, we would have every
• 32:44
  reason to despair over those people.
• 32:46
  But it does not, because it is not up to them.
• 32:49
  No one is beyond the reach of a God who raises the dead.
• 32:52
  Think about that the next time you pray for them.
• 32:54
  And think about your own spiritual diagnosis.
• 32:56
  Sometimes the medical chart shows us something we did not
• 32:59
  want to see, that the problem is not a broken arm we can put in a
• 33:01
  cast, but a dead heart that needs a total replacement.
• 33:05
  Fortunately, we follow a king who specializes in
• 33:08
  resurrections. Thanks for joining us on
• 33:10
  Reformed Thinking.