At its heart, the
Christian gospel message is that if a person has faith in Jesus Christ, their
sins will be forgiven and they will be reconciled to God.
Another important part of this message
is that if a person has faith in Christ, God responds by causing that person to
be regenerated, which is also known as being born again. Regeneration is an act of God that enables a
person to be His child and to have a Holy Spirit-empowered, supernatural form
of life.
Receiving forgiveness and being
regenerated, then, are two aspects of what is involved in becoming a Christian,
and they both follow on logically from a person coming to saving faith.
THOSE WHO CLAIM THAT REGENERATION LEADS TO FAITH
You will often hear Calvinist
Christians claiming, however, that faith does not lead to regeneration, but
that it is actually the other way round. Most Calvinists believe that God
causes some people to receive the Spirit in regeneration, and that this leads
to their coming to faith in Christ.
It is true that not all Calvinists take
this view. Some side with the majority Christian position that faith leads to
regeneration. But most Calvinists claim that regeneration leads to faith.
TWO VERSES THAT ARE SAID TO SHOW THAT REGENERATION LEADS TO FAITH
Two biblical verses
that are often appealed to by those who say that regeneration leads to faith are
John 3:3 and John 3:5.
John 3:3
In John 3:3 Jesus says
to the Jewish leader Nicodemus:
“Truly, truly, I tell you, unless someone is born from above [anothen], he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
I have chosen to
translate the Greek word anothen in this sentence as “from above.” This was a
common meaning of the word in the Greek of the first century.
However, another
common meaning of this word was “again,” and many English translations of this
verse prefer to translate “born again” instead of “born from above.”
John’s Gospel
contains a number of instances of words that have dual meanings, and it is
likely that in this verse anothen is supposed to convey both meanings, “from
above” and “again.”
Because in v. 4
Nicodemus understands “again” as Jesus’ meaning, many think that this is the
primary meaning of anothen in this verse. Nevertheless, elsewhere in this
Gospel anothen means “from above” (John 3:31; 19:11) but nowhere else does it
mean “again.” We therefore do best to think that this is the primary meaning in
this verse too, even if Nicodemus himself fails to recognise this.
For our purposes
in this article, however, the meaning of anothen is not important.
Something that is important is that the reference to
being born from above/born again in this verse is a reference to regeneration,
as all Christians agree.
John 3:5
In John 3:5 Jesus
states:
“Truly, truly, I tell you, unless someone is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
The reference to being born of Spirit
in this verse is a reference to regeneration, as all Christians agree.
THE ARGUMENT THAT APPEALS TO SEEING IN V. 3
There is more than one line of argument
from these verses that is used by those who claim that regeneration leads to
faith.
Some of them use an argument that
appeals to what Jesus says about seeing the kingdom of God in v. 3.
The argument
The argument goes in this way:
In v. 3 the Lord says that a person
cannot see the kingdom of God unless he is regenerated. Here, seeing means
being able to spiritually understand what the kingdom of God is about. Clearly,
a person cannot have faith before understanding what the kingdom is about. So
this verse implies that, for those who become Christians, regeneration leads to
seeing the kingdom, which in turn leads to having faith. Regeneration therefore
logically precedes faith.
A response
It is true that this verse implies that
regeneration leads to seeing the kingdom of God.
Importantly, however, those who use
this argument have misunderstood the sense of the verb “to see” in the verse.
Quite commonly in the New Testament,
seeing is a metaphor for experiencing something. It is used in this way, for
example, in Luke 2:26; Acts 2:27, 31; 13:35; Heb. 11:5; 1 Pet. 3:10 and Rev.
18:7. And John’s Gospel itself uses it with this sense in John 3:36; 8:51.
This is by far the most natural meaning
of seeing in v. 3.
Importantly too, this interpretation is
confirmed by what the Lord says in v. 5 (the other verse I quoted above), where
He more or less repeats what He said in v. 3.
Instead of His reference to seeing the
kingdom in v. 3, in v. 5 He refers to entering the kingdom. His point in v. 5
is not about understanding the kingdom, but about becoming a participant in it.
Given how v. 5 essentially repeats v. 3, v. 5 helps to confirm that in v. 3
Jesus was not referring to understanding what the kingdom is about, but to
experiencing the kingdom.
The argument that appeals to seeing the
kingdom in v. 3 as evidence that regeneration leads to faith therefore fails.
THE ARGUMENT THAT ASSUMES A CERTAIN LOGICAL ORDER
Some of those who claim that
regeneration leads to faith use an argument based on a supposed implication of v.
5.
The argument
The argument goes in this way:
In v. 5 Jesus tells Nicodemus that he
cannot enter the kingdom of God without being regenerated. This implies that
regeneration leads to entering the kingdom. But we also know that we enter the
kingdom of God through faith. So in order to be in a position to have the faith
that is needed to enter the kingdom, we need to first be regenerated.
A response
It is true that in this verse Jesus
teaches that regeneration leads to entering the kingdom. And it is true too
that we enter the kingdom through faith, i.e., that faith leads to entering the
kingdom.
However, note how those who use the
above argument just assume that regeneration leads to faith. But from the
information given in this verse, there is no more reason to think that we need
to be regenerated in order to have faith than there is to think that we need to
have faith in order to be regenerated. The verse doesn’t mention faith at all.
So potentially this verse could fit
with the sequence held by most Christians:
Faith leads to regeneration, which in
turn leads to entering the kingdom.
Or it could fit with the sequence held
by a majority of Calvinists:
Regeneration leads to faith, which in
turn leads to entering the kingdom of God.
There is not enough information in the
verse itself to tell us which of these options is correct.
This argument is therefore also one
that fails.
SUMMING UP
Neither of the arguments I have
mentioned carries any weight. These verses do not suggest that regeneration
leads to faith. Those who claim that they do are reading something into the
text that is simply not there.
In fact, these verses tell us nothing
at all about the relationship of faith to regeneration in Christian conversion.
THE REST OF JOHN’S GOSPEL
Although John 3:3 and 3:5 don’t say
anything about the logical relationship of faith and regeneration, there are
other passages in this Gospel that do.
In John 1:11-13 John tells us:
“11 He [Jesus] came to what was His own, but His own did not accept Him. 12 But as many as did accept Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those believing in His name, 13 who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of a man, but of God.”
This passage strongly implies that God
responds to people’s faith by regenerating them.
There are also passages in this Gospel,
which teach that faith leads to life or to eternal life:
In John 3:14-15 Jesus says:
“14 . . . the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in Him might have eternal life.”
In John 3:16 we are told:
“. . . He [God] gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life.”
In John 5:40 Jesus criticises people with these words:
“. . . you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.”
Coming to Christ in this verse is a
coming to Him in faith.
In John 6:40 He says:
“For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks at the Son and believes in Him might have eternal life . . .”
And John 20:31 states:
“. . . these have been written, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”
So in John’s Gospel faith leads to
(eternal) life.
However, regeneration is the act of God
by which eternal life begins. So faith must lead to regeneration.
John’s Gospel, then, teaches that faith
leads to regeneration. And there are passages elsewhere in the Bible that teach
the same.
The idea that people come to faith
because they have been regenerated is an unbiblical one that serves to
partially distort the message of the gospel. In part, this message is that
people need to believe in Christ so that they might have life. We mustn’t lose
sight of this truth.
For a longer and more detailed
discussion of this topic, see my article:
And see also my articles:
