The Indispensability of Grace, Part 4 – God’s Grace in Regeneration

As we continue looking at God’s grace, we come to a doctrine that is simply amazing.  God’s gracious regeneration of unbelievers is something that, when pondered, can do nothing but leave us humbled and in awe.  It is only because of His grace that this regeneration takes place, as we can by no means earn such divine favor.

If it were not for the gracious regeneration of the Holy Spirit, we’d be utterly incapable of accepting Christ.  Our sin nature is so pervasive; we’re not even capable of making the decision to seek God.  Romans 3 is quite clear on this.  “There is none who seeks after God.”  Seeking God would violate the very essence of our being while we’re in our unregenerate state.  It is not within to us to seek after the things of God.  We do not possess the ability to seek God.  We do not possess the ability to accept Him in our unregenerate condition.  We are quite literally dead spiritually, and as such, are incapable of resurrecting ourselves. 

While in our unregenerate state, we are in a very real way actual slaves to sin, both in a moral and spiritual sense.  It should be noted, surely, that the fall of man did not eliminate the ability of man to make choices.  Fallen man possesses the ability to make choices since he has a mind and a will.  The problem is that in our fallen condition, we make sinful choices, and we make these choices freely.  We sin because we desire to do so.  Some would probably argue, saying “Since we have a will, why can’t we then convert ourselves, seek conversion, or at least prepare ourselves for conversion?”  We can look back to Romans 3 for our answer.  The reason we can’t do those things is because we do not want to.  By our own choice, we have no desire for God and His righteousness, and so consequently we choose according to our sinful nature.  

It logically follows that if we are radically corrupt, as has been previously discussed, there is no way we can choose to seek or accept Christ on our own.  A person that is “dead in sin” cannot bring himself back to life.  The metaphor of death is not an accidental one.  Thus, any person that comes to God must be one that God had chosen to regenerate and bring to Himself. 

Consider the words of Paul in Ephesians 2:1-5:

“And you He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, just as the others.  But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)…”

Paul speaks here of the Spirit’s “quickening” or regenerating us from our fallen condition.  Notice he, under the inspiration of God Himself, uses the imagery of being made alive, which is in direct contrast to our previous condition of being “dead” in sins.  God, through His Spirit, literally had to “make us alive.”  We, being dead, had nothing to do with it.  We were yanked from the cold grasp of sin and death, and given new life through Him.  It was/is completely a work of God’s grace.

To think that God, being the almighty and holy God that He is, would have anything to do with wretched sinners is unfathomable.  To understand the depth and breadth of His regenerating grace absolutely destroys any sense of pride that one might have in thinking that he somehow initiated the process with God.  God, in His extraordinary grace, reached down and lovingly and graciously regenerated the hearts and minds of His own, drawing them to Himself.  Truly, this grace is indispensable.

~ by Matt on April 3, 2008.