Part 1 of this article can be found here.
References to life in John’s Gospel
I have already noted that John’s Gospel refers a number of times to Christians having life or eternal life, and that this Gospel teaches that faith leads to experiencing this (eternal) life.
It is very difficult to believe that this theme of (eternal) life should be separated from the theme of regeneration found in John 1:12-13; 3:3-8. Instead, regeneration in these passages should be viewed as the act of God by which (eternal) life begins. There are four reasons for this:
(1) There is the similarity between the concepts of regeneration and (eternal) life to take into account.
Regeneration is about entering into a form of supernatural life. But the (eternal) life referred to in John’s Gospel is also a form of supernatural life. So it seems very implausible that both these things concern supernatural life and yet are unconnected. Instead, by far the most natural conclusion to draw is that the (eternal) life is the life that comes from the regeneration.
(2) Standing in the prologue as it does, John 1:12-13, with its reference to regeneration, seems to be introducing a major theme in John’s Gospel.
Regeneration is about two key things: one, becoming God’s child, and two, entering into a form of supernatural life. However, in this Gospel the theme of Christians being God’s children is not especially stressed, but the theme of life is. Therefore, it makes sense to think that John 1:12-13 is looking forward to the theme of (eternal) life in the Gospel.
I think these verses do look forward to the theme of being God’s children as well, but they surely also look forward to the theme of (eternal) life.
(3) Everyone agrees that the theology and thought-world of John’s Gospel and 1 John are very similar.
In 1 John 5:1 we read:
‘Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born of God.’ (I will discuss this verse more fully in a later section.)
And 1 John 5:13 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.’
In 5:1 those who believe have been born of God, i.e., regenerated. And in 5:13 those who believe have eternal life. It seems that as far as 1 John is concerned, those who have eternal life are those who have been regenerated.
Given this, and given the closeness of 1 John to the Gospel of John, it makes sense to think that in the theology of the Gospel too those who have (eternal) life are those who have been regenerated.
(4) As I have already noted, in John’s Gospel (eternal) life is something that Christians possess as soon as they believe. It is not the case that regeneration applies to our life here on earth, while (eternal) life applies only to our life after death.
The combined weight of these four points provides an extremely strong piece of evidence that in John’s Gospel the regeneration referred to in John 1:12-13; 3:3-8 is understood to be the act of God by which (eternal) life begins.
We saw earlier that John’s Gospel teaches that faith leads to (eternal) life. And we have just seen that this Gospel teaches that regeneration is the act of God by which (eternal) life begins. Therefore, faith must lead to regeneration.
1 Peter 1:23-25
Another passage that connects regeneration with God’s response to faith is 1 Peter 1:23-25, where Peter writes:
‘23 . . . you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God, 24 for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory is like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, 25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was proclaimed to you.’
This passage refers to ‘the word of God’. In the Bible ‘the word of God’ means different things in different places. But verse 25 makes it clear that in this context in 1 Peter it means the good news of the Christian message.
In verse 23 Peter refers to Christians being born again, i.e., regenerated. And this regeneration is, of course, a gaining spiritual life.
Note how Peter says that this gaining of life has happened through the word of God, i.e., through the good news of the Christian message. This has to mean that the gaining of life that he has in mind takes place through responding in faith to the Christian message. There is nothing else it can reasonably mean.
So, because 1 Peter 1:23-25 envisages people gaining life by responding in faith to the good news, this passage can’t be referring to the first stage of Christians receiving life, which happens before a person is able to have faith. Instead, it has to be thinking about the second stage of gaining life, the life that God gives in response to faith.
This means, then, that Peter uses the term ‘born again’ to refer to the life God gives in response to faith. In other words, Peter connects regeneration with the spiritual life God gives in response to faith.
1 John 5:1
Various passages, then, refer to Christians being born again or becoming God’s children when He responds to their faith. In other words, the Bible connects the concept of regeneration with the second stage of gaining spiritual life by new Christians, the stage in which God responds to faith by giving life.
By contrast, the Bible never connects the concept of regeneration with the first stage of Christians gaining spiritual life, the stage in which God acts before a person can have faith.
It is sometimes claimed, however, that 1 John 5:1 refers to God regenerating people before they have faith.
This verse states:
‘Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born of God.’
Those who say that the Bible refers to the first stage of gaining life at Christian conversion as regeneration often claim that these 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.
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, the verse would be implying nothing about whether faith or regeneration comes first.
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, 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, John is doing precisely what he says his aim is in 5:13, and that he 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 whether faith or regeneration logically come first. 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 is being implied about which came first.
This interpretation is in no way forced. And it fits perfectly with what we find in v. 13.
There is therefore no need to think that 1 John 5:1 is describing regeneration as something that God does before someone can have faith in Christ. And because John’s Gospel, as we have seen, speaks of regeneration as something that God does in response to faith, and because 1 John and the Gospel of John are part of the same family of New Testament writings, it makes sense to think that 1 John 5:1 aligns with John’s Gospel on this point.
Summing up
We have seen, then, that at Christian conversion God gives spiritual life in two stages. No other conclusion makes sense of all the biblical passages on this topic.
The Bible implies that God needs to give some measure of spiritual life to a person before they can have faith. We can call this the first stage.
But Scripture also teaches that God responds to the faith of a new convert by giving spiritual life. We can call this the second stage. And the life the new Christian has after the second stage must obviously be greater than after the first stage.
Some Christians like to stress that God needs to give life before a person can have faith, and that is correct. And others like to stress that God responds to faith by giving life, and that is also correct. But this isn’t a case of either-or but of both-and.
As far as the term ‘regeneration’ is concerned, Scripture only uses this label to refer to the second stage of gaining life. It doesn’t use it for the first stage. And the same is true of similar terms like becoming God’s children. In other words, according to the Bible, people become regenerate and become God’s children when He gives them life in response to their faith.
Because the Bible uses these terms in this way, we should do likewise. So, although it is true that God needs to give life before someone can come to faith, we shouldn’t refer to this first stage of God giving life as regeneration.
See also:
New Christians Should Be Baptized Immediately
Should Hands Be Laid on New Christians?
Salvation Is Not by Doing Good but Only Those Who Do Good Will Be Saved
