6. Born of God: regeneration, repentance and faith

The Lord states the necessity before He explains anything. "Jesus answered him, 'Most certainly I tell you, unless one is born anew, he can't see God's Kingdom.' Nicodemus said to him, 'How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?' Jesus answered, 'Most certainly I tell you, unless one is born of water and Spirit, he can't enter into God's Kingdom. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Don't marvel that I said to you, "You must all be born anew." The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but don't know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit'" (John 3:3-8). The birth is placed beyond man's doing twice over: flesh produces only flesh, and the Spirit moves as the wind moves, heard in its effect and not directed by the one who hears. The Gospel's opening states the same exclusion in a single line: those who received Him "were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13). Descent does not produce it, desire does not produce it, decision does not produce it. The birth is of God.

The promise behind the words stands in Ezekiel. "I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh" (Ezek 36:26). Every verb in the promise is God's: He gives, He puts, He takes away. James names the same act from the same side: "Of his own will he gave birth to us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures" (Jas 1:18). The birth is located in His will, and its instrument is His word. Titus excludes the other candidate and names the washing: "not by works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5). Works done by the man are ruled out as the ground; mercy is ruled in.

What this birth produces in the man is itself given. Believing is granted: "Because it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer on his behalf" (Phil 1:29). The sentence places believing and suffering side by side as things granted on Christ's behalf, neither of them a contribution. Repentance is granted in the same grammar. When the Jerusalem believers heard that God had gone to the Gentiles, they concluded, "Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life!" (Acts 11:18). Paul instructs Timothy to correct opponents in gentleness, "Perhaps God may give them repentance leading to a full knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim 2:25) — repentance sits in God's hand to give, and the correction of a servant is the occasion, not the cause. Ephesians gathers the whole under gift: "for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast" (Eph 2:8-9). As the outline notes, the LSB footnote takes "this" in that sentence to mean the salvation — the whole of being saved by grace through faith — and not faith alone considered by itself.

The order of the birth and the believing is not stated in a single sentence anywhere; what follows is an inference, and it is labeled as one. The Lord states the inability and the drawing together: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up in the last day" (John 6:44), and again, "no one can come to me, unless it is given to him by my Father" (John 6:65). At Philippi the drawing is shown in an event: Lydia "heard us. The Lord opened her heart to listen to the things which were spoken by Paul" (Acts 16:14). The opening of the heart is the Lord's act, and it precedes her listening in the order of the sentence. John states the believing man's standing in a completed tense: "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God" (1 John 5:1). The one believing has already been born. From the drawing that must precede the coming, the heart opened before the listening, and the birth spoken of as already accomplished in the believer, the inference is drawn that regeneration stands before faith. The texts are quoted; the ordering is the inference, and it is not presented as a quotation.

The water of John 3:5 carries its own thread, and its link to Ezekiel is likewise an inference, labeled as such. When Nicodemus does not understand, the Lord's rebuke fixes where a teacher of Israel should have looked: "Are you the teacher of Israel, and don't understand these things?" (John 3:10). What a teacher of Israel was faulted for not knowing stands in the Scriptures he taught, and Ezekiel's promise joins water, cleansing, new heart, and Spirit in one act of God: "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. You will keep my ordinances and do them" (Ezek 36:25-27). The comparison texts run in the same channel. Titus, already quoted, names the salvation a "washing of regeneration." Ephesians says of the church "that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word" (Eph 5:26). James, already quoted, says God gave birth "by the word of truth." Peter joins birth and word directly: "having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and remains forever" (1 Pet 1:23). The water, the washing, the word, and the birth stand together across the texts; that John 3:5 points back to Ezekiel 36 is the inference the rebuke of 3:10 supports, and it is held as inference.

The section closes where the apostolic preaching closes: the gift is commanded of all. The Lord's first recorded sermon is an imperative: "The time is fulfilled, and God's Kingdom is at hand! Repent, and believe in the Good News" (Mark 1:15). Paul at Athens makes the command universal in scope: "The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent" (Acts 17:30). His own summary of his preaching joins the two halves: "testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus" (Acts 20:21). Romans then attaches the promise to the commanded response without narrowing it: "that if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes resulting in righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, 'Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.' For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich to all who call on him. For, 'Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved'" (Rom 10:9-13). The command goes to all people everywhere; the birth that answers it is of God, and not of the will of man.