EPHESIANS 2:5
One of the verses – perhaps the
verse – that is most appealed to in support of the view that regeneration leads
to faith is Ephesians 2:5.
In Ephesians 2:4-5 Paul writes:
‘4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in transgressions, made us alive with Christ (by grace you have been saved), . . .’
The argument made
Those who claim that these words show that regeneration leads to
faith argue as follows:
Verse 5 speaks about people who are spiritually dead. Dead means completely unable, so the people
in view must be unable to have faith. Therefore,
when this passage tells us that God makes the spiritually dead alive, i.e.,
regenerates them, it must be without any faith on their part. Besides, there is no reference to faith in
this verse.
This argument is far too simplistic and makes some unwarranted
assumptions. There are several points to
make here:
No Greek word for
‘when’
The first point is a minor one.
The Greek clause I have translated as ‘even when we were dead in
transgressions’ is literally translated as ‘even us being dead in
transgressions’.
I agree that part of the sense is that Paul and his readers were
made alive when they were dead in
transgressions. But the idea also seems
partly to be that they were made alive although
they were dead in transgressions. ‘Even
when we were dead in transgressions’ or ‘even though we were dead in
transgressions’ are both possible translations.
My point here is just that there is no Greek word for ‘when’ in
the text. There is therefore a bit less
emphasis on the making alive taking place when Paul and his readers were dead than
translating with ‘when’ might suggest.
Uncertainty about the
meaning of ‘dead’
Ephesians 2:5 includes the phrase ‘dead in transgressions’. What does the deadness in this phrase refer
to?
It is a mistake simply to assume that it must mean inability to do
something. Romans 6:23 says that ‘the wages of sin is death’, where death signifies
liability to condemnation and punishment.
And other verses in the Pauline letters refer to death similarly.
It seems highly likely that in Ephesians 2:5 too ‘dead’ signifies
liability to condemnation and punishment.
However, could this be all it signifies in this verse? If so, the verse would be saying nothing
about spiritual inability.
In my view ‘dead’ in Ephesians 2:5 very probably does in part
signify spiritual inability. But I don’t
think that is completely certain. It’s
not impossible that the deadness here is just about being on track for
punishment from God.
We mustn’t read too
much into the imagery
‘Dead’ here is a metaphor. And
metaphors often don’t correspond exactly to the reality that they are
portraying.
Furthermore, the Bible uses hyperbole, i.e., language that is
deliberately exaggerated for effect, much more extensively than we are used to
in the modern West.
Therefore, even if ‘dead’ in Ephesians 2:5 includes the concept of
spiritual inability, it is a mistake to assume that the people referred to as
dead should be regarded as literally, totally, spiritually unable.
Paul is giving a
summary
Even if, improbably in my view, those described as dead in Ephesians
2:5 are totally unable in all spiritual matters, it is reading too much out of
the text to say that no faith is involved when God makes people alive.
When Paul says that God made him and his readers alive when/though
they were dead in transgressions, he is just summarising what happened to them
when they became Christians. He is not
attempting to explain in detail all that went on. The initial state – being dead – and the
final state – being alive – are referred to.
But to assume that God moved Paul and his readers directly from death to
life without any faith on their part is completely unwarranted.
If God takes the initiative by awakening dead people and enabling
them to have faith, and then responds to that faith by making them alive by
regeneration, that would fit perfectly with what we are told in Ephesians 2:5.
Taking account of the
context
The context of vv. 1-8 actually fits much better with the view
that faith leads to regeneration than vice versa.
In Ephesians 2:5 the statement, ‘[God] made us alive with Christ’,
is immediately followed in the Greek, as in some English translations, by the
parenthetical statement, ‘(by grace you have been saved)’.
The fact that these two statements are found one after the other
without any words of explanation shows that there must be a close relationship
between them. It therefore doesn’t seem
possible to understand the being made alive and the being saved as separate
aspects of what goes on when someone becomes a Christian.
Nor does it seem likely that the being made alive is a wider
concept that includes the narrower concept of being saved. Salvation in Scripture is often quite a broad
term. So to take being saved as a mere
part of being made alive seems forced.
Instead, it seems most natural to understand the being saved here
either as a rough equivalent of being made alive or as a wider term that
includes being made alive. Very probably,
then, the being saved of v. 5 at least includes the being made alive of v. 5.
But we know from Ephesians 2:8 that being saved is through faith. In this verse Paul says:
‘For by grace you have been saved through faith . . .’
So if, as seems highly probable, the being saved of v. 5 at least includes
the being made alive of v. 5, then in view of v. 8 we can say that this being
made alive is through faith. In other
words, God responds to faith by giving regeneration.
The context in vv. 1-8, therefore, counts against the view that
Ephesians 2:5 teaches that regeneration leads to faith. In fact this context actually suggests that
faith leads to regeneration.
Taking account of
other passages in the letters of Paul
Most importantly, Ephesians 2:5 needs to be considered in the
light of the rest of the Pauline letters, especially the rest of Ephesians
itself.
Crucially, we have seen that there are good reasons for believing
that Ephesians 1:13 strongly implies that
faith leads to regeneration. Therefore,
we would expect 2:5 to be consistent with this.
And we would also expect it to fit with the Pauline Galatians 3:2,
which, as we have seen, strongly implies that faith leads to regeneration.
Summing up
To sum up this section, then, not only is it a mistake to say that
Ephesians 2:5 teaches that regeneration leads to faith, but there are very good
reasons for believing that it teaches the opposite.
1 JOHN 5:1
1 John 5:1 states:
‘Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born of God.’
The argument made
Those who say that regeneration leads to faith often appeal to these
words to support their view. They claim
that the words are telling us two things:
(1) Everyone who has faith has also
been regenerated.
(2) Everyone who has faith does so because they have been regenerated.
1 John 2:29 and 1 John 4:7 are
often brought in to support this argument.
‘. . . everyone who practises uprightness has been born of Him [God].’
And 4:7 states:
‘. . . everyone who loves has been born of God.’
Those who refer to 1 John 2:29; 4:7 argue that these verses are
saying two things: one, those who practise uprightness and love have also been regenerated; and, two, they do
so because they have been
regenerated. And then they argue that
the same train of thought must apply in 5:1 too: those who have faith have also been regenerated, and they have faith
because they have been regenerated.
This interpretation is certainly not a forced way of taking these
words in 1 John 5:1.
However, there are a few points that need to be made:
Caution in drawing
conclusions
It is not certain that in 1 John 2:29; 4:7 the author’s purpose is
to tell us that those who practise uprightness and love do so because they have
been regenerated. It is true that it would be correct theology to say that practising
uprightness and loving are possible because someone has been regenerated. But
that doesn’t mean that this is the author’s focus in these verses. It is
possible that his focus is simply on the fact that those who practise
uprightness and who love have also been regenerated.
What is more, even if the author’s purpose in 2:29 and 4:7 is in part to tell us that practising
uprightness and love happen because
someone has been regenerated, it doesn’t follow that the same grammatical
structure must involve the same way of reasoning in 5:1 too. The most we could say is that, all other
things being equal, it is likely that
the same way of reasoning would be found in 5:1, but this would need to be
weighed against other factors.
Another plausible
interpretation
Let me cite again the words from 1 John 5:1 that we are looking at
in this section. They are:
‘Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born of God.’
I noted above that those who see these words as support for the
view that regeneration leads to faith think they are saying two things:
(1) Everyone who has faith has also
been regenerated.
(2) Everyone who has faith does so because they have been regenerated.
However, we can just as easily interpret these words to be saying
only the first of these things:
Everyone who has faith has also
been regenerated.
In this case, nothing would be implied about the relationship
between the faith and the regeneration.
This latter interpretation fits well with 1 John 5:13. This verse states:
‘These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.’
This verse makes it clear that a key concern of the author of 1
John, probably the key concern, is to
tell people that if they are believers in Jesus, then they have eternal life. I suggest that in the words from 5:1 that we
are looking at, the author is doing precisely what he says his aim is in 5:13 , and is doing no more than that.
In 1 John 5:1 he starts by referring to ‘everyone who believes
that Jesus is the Messiah’. He is
letting his readers know that he is thinking of people like them, since they
believe that Jesus is the Messiah and obviously they know that they believe
this.
Then he says, ‘has been born of God’. He is telling his readers something that he
wants them to know, i.e., that all Christian believers have been born of God. He could equally well have said, ‘has come
into possession of eternal life’ or ‘has eternal life’.
We could paraphrase:
‘You need to realise that you, like all Christian believers, have come into possession of eternal life. You have eternal life!’
Under this interpretation, there is no attempt to comment on the
relationship between faith and regeneration.
Regeneration is understood to have occurred at the time of conversion. And although faith is referred to existing in
the present, it too would be understood to have begun at the time of conversion. Nothing about the relationship between the
regeneration and the faith is implied.
This interpretation is in no way forced. And it fits perfectly with what we find in v.
13.
Fitting this verse
with the rest of the Bible
When forming our views on something in Christian theology, we
should always choose the path of least resistance, the solution that best fits
all the biblical data.
If we were to interpret 1 John 5:1 as implying that regeneration
leads to faith, we would be choosing to interpret it in a way that contradicts
all the texts we have looked at which teach that faith leads to regeneration.
Most importantly, we would be choosing to interpret this verse in
a way that contradicts John’s Gospel. And
this is especially difficult, because 1 John and the Gospel of John are part of
the same family of New Testament writings.
Therefore, because, as we have seen, there is a plausible
interpretation of this verse that does not suggest that regeneration leads to
faith, we should certainly choose that one.
Summing up
To sum up, then, 1 John 5:1 says nothing about the relationship
between faith and regeneration.
CONCLUSION
That ends our analysis of the biblical data. When all that we have discussed is taken into
account, we should have no hesitation in saying that according to the Bible
faith leads to regeneration. God responds
to our faith by regenerating us, by giving us His supernatural life.
So why is this important?
Not distorting the
Christian message
To begin with, if we say that regeneration leads to faith, we are
distorting the Christian message. Part
of this message is, ‘Believe and you will have life’, ‘Believe and you will have
eternal life’, ‘Believe and you will be become a child of God’. See John 1:12-13; 3:14 -16; 5:40 ; 6:40 ; 20:31 . We need to keep
this part of the message intact.
Not discouraging
laying on of hands
Saying that regeneration leads to faith is also bound to
discourage the practice of laying hands on new converts for them to receive the
Holy Spirit.
Scripture implies that in the early church one way in which new
converts first received the Spirit was through the laying on of hands. See Acts 8:14-17; 19:6; Hebrews 6:1-2. And there is no good reason for thinking that
God wants us to abandon this practice today.
I am not saying that it is God’s will for every Christian to have
hands laid on them for this purpose. Nor
am I saying that if hands are omitted when God wants them to be used, a new
convert with saving faith would remain unregenerated.
Nevertheless, I do think that some Christians today who have never
had hands laid on them for this purpose tend to be rather lacking in their experience
of the Spirit. And saying that new
Christians have received the Spirit in regeneration before they even had faith
is bound to discourage the laying on of hands.
Allowing genuine
ability to accept or reject Christ
Finally, if we say that regeneration leads to faith, then
regeneration has to be an act of God that doesn’t depend on anything people do. In other words, people would have no real
choice about whether or not they become Christians. It would be God’s decision alone.
When we recognise, however, that faith leads to regeneration, we
no longer have to say that God alone chooses who becomes a Christian. We can say that He gives people the genuine
ability to accept or reject salvation.
See also:
