Someone can walk into church lost, dead in trespasses and sin. They can leave church, having heard the gospel and the Word of God, and leave a new creature in Christ Jesus.
You heard R.C. Sproul preach on the conversion of the Apostle Paul. But what made Paul go from a persecutor of the church to a follower of Christ? Paul was born again. He experienced the new birth. Welcome to the Monday edition of Renewing Your Mind.
I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. The new birth experienced by Paul was a work of God by His Spirit. And over the next few days, Ligonier teaching fellow, Stephen Lawson, will help us see more clearly what takes place when we are born again. This week's messages are from his 12-message series, The New Birth.
And until Thursday, you can request the entire series with your donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. Unlike our growth in holiness as Christians, that is lifelong and is a process. The new birth is instantaneous.
Here's Dr. Lawson to start this week's study. In this series, we want to address the aspect that it is an instantaneous birth. One of the most important and dramatic conversions to ever take place in the history of the church was that one which was experienced by the man who is regarded to be the greatest theologian in the first 1,500 years of church history. That man is Augustine.
Augustine was born in 354 in North Africa, what is today Algeria, near Carthage. And when Augustine was 16 years of age, of course, he was unregenerate at this point. His father died, and in the vacuum of his father leaving, he fell into gross sexual sins, so much so that he ended up moving in with a woman who bore him a son out of wedlock.
And for the next 15 years, Augustine lived in high-handed immorality of the grossest kind. He had a friend who died subsequent, which really provoked his thinking. What is death?
What is life? What lies beyond the grave? And in that searching, Augustine traveled to Italy. He went to Rome, and he had a Christian mother, Monica, who was known for praying for him, praying for his salvation, praying that he'd be born again. And when he went to Rome, his mother literally followed him to Rome to pray for him, constantly at his side. His immoral relationship continued. He became engrossed in one of the worst heresies and cults of the ancient world that was intricate and very philosophical and dealt with the origin of evil, and it was one of those heresies and cults that it was not even easy to disentangle oneself from it.
Augustine became very disillusioned. The deeper he plunged into sin, and he finally moved to Milan, and he was a lawyer and skilled in rhetoric. And in order to improve his public speaking and his rhetorical skills, he went to hear the greatest preacher of the day in Italy, a man named Ambrose.
No doubt you're familiar with his name. And Augustine, unregenerate, unconverted, would slip into the back row of the church and listen to Ambrose preach, simply to learn how to better command the language. But sitting on the back row of that church and under the power of the Word of God, Augustine began to be convicted of his sin. And the Word of God came with power upon his life. He got far more than he bargained for, and he said, Well, I opened my heart to acknowledge how skillfully Ambrose spoke. There also came an awareness of how truthfully he spoke. Well, it was not long after that, at age 32, you know the story of how Augustine was sitting in a garden, contemplating and meditating just the futility and the vanity of his life. And he overheard some children who were playing, and he heard one of them cry out, Tollelege, Tollelege, take up and read, take up and read. And so Augustine, who had a Bible next to him, picked it up. And he did the random, just opened it.
Of course, we know nothing is random. And as he opened it, he turned it to Romans 13, verses 13 and 14, which were open before his eyes, and he read, Not in reveling in drunkenness, nor in lust and wantonness, not in quarrels and rivalries. Rather, arm yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Spend no more thought on nature or nature's appetites. And Augustine, who would write in his Confessions, said that, In that instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, referring to Romans 13, 14, It was as though the light flooded into my heart, and all of the darkness was dispelled. And in that moment, in that instant, Augustine was regenerated. Augustine was born again. He was birthed into the family of God.
His mother's prayers had long since been offered on his behalf, were now answered. Augustine became the towering theologian of the early church. But in Augustine's experience of coming to Christ, it was such a sudden and such an instant conversion.
I want us to know that every new birth is instantaneous. One may not be aware of exactly that split second when regeneration occurs, but nevertheless, it is a sudden act of the sovereign grace of God acting upon the dead soul. And as we discussed last time, it is in response to the Word of God that is placed there. James Montgomery Boice writes, We are born again spiritually by means of the Word of God.
That was Augustine's experience. He picked up the Bible. He opened it to Romans 13. He had been sitting on the back row listening to Ambrose preach, and it was the Word of God that came with such regenerating, converting power in his life. And John Piper writes, God makes the Word his instrument in the new birth, and the way the Word works in the new birth is by awakening faith. God causes the new birth through the Word. How does God regenerate us? God causes us to be born again through the living and abiding Word. Stephen Charnock's a great Puritan, divine, and Charnock writes, The Word is the instrument of regeneration. The Word is the instrument whereby God brings the soul forth in a new birth.
That was certainly the experience of Augustine in his life. It was the Word of God that awakened faith by the operation of the Holy Spirit as he came into the kingdom of heaven. I think by way of implication, we see this in John chapter 3. We've been spending each of our sessions looking at John chapter 3, and I want to draw our attention to some verses that we've already considered, verses 3 and 5. And these are the two verses that speak so directly to being born again.
In John 3 and verse 3, Jesus said, Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. The very analogy of birth implies that it is instantaneous, that there is a particular day, that there is a particular time when we are regenerated. I was born on April the 13th, 1951, 10-13 at night.
I was not born in 1951 in the months of March, April, May, and June. There was a point on a timeline when God brought me forth into this world naturally. And so it is true supernaturally. There is a point in time when we are suddenly and instantly and instantaneously birthed into the kingdom, when we go from death to life. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, has said, Every regeneration is instantaneous, its evidences, its outward manifestations may be gradual, but there must be a time when the man begins to live. There must be a period when the first ray of light darts on the open eye. There must be a time when the man is condemned and a period when he is not condemned. There must be an instant when the change takes place.
Now, this is true in my life. This must be true of your life, a moment, a time when we went from death to life. Louis Berkhoff, who is a renowned Reformed theologian, writes, The new birth is an instantaneous change of man's nature, affecting at once the whole man.
It is not a gradual process like sanctification. There is no intermediate stage between life and death. One either lives or is dead. And so it is in our life spiritually. And it was in an instant we were resurrected from the dead.
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, it will be at the end of the age. So, it will be in a moment in the twinkling of an eye when one is born again spiritually. Now, this is all by way of just the analogy, the metaphor that Jesus uses in the new birth.
That happens at a point in time to be born. There's another analogy that is used here in verse 5, and it's the analogy of an entrance into the kingdom of God. Jesus says in verse 5, Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Again, as we stated earlier, this implies we were born outside the kingdom, and we must be brought into the kingdom. We must enter into the kingdom. And there is only one means of entrance into the kingdom of God, and that is through the new birth.
But to enter into the kingdom, that analogy itself implies that it happens in a moment. Conversion is the other side of regeneration. Regeneration is one side of the coin. Conversion is the other. Regeneration is God's work of giving us life, and conversion is our heart being turned to God. We are converted, and there is a step of faith that one takes to go through the narrow gate. It's not running a marathon.
It's not a long-term race. It is a step of faith by which we enter into the kingdom of God. So, we are arguing that it is an instantaneous birth. What did Jesus say to the thief on the cross? Today, you will be with me in paradise.
Not a month from now, not a year from now, not a decade from now. Today, you will be with me in paradise. That is how quickly the new birth takes place. Someone can walk into church lost, dead in trespasses and sin. They can leave church having heard the gospel and the Word of God and leave a new creature in Christ Jesus. Someone as well said that God puts a new man inside the coat without ever unbuttoning the jacket. He just puts a new man on the inside.
It happens all at once. This is what we read in the book of Acts, is it not, as the gospel was going forth in Acts chapter 2, Peter stands up on the day of Pentecost. He says, ye men of Galilee, hearken unto me. This is that that was spoken of the prophet Joel. He reads Joel 2, verses 28 to 32, and then he begins to expound that last verse in Joel. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Peter then begins to define who the Lord is, whose name must be called upon this Jesus, foreknown and predetermined in His death, you nailed to a cross, but God has raised Him from the dead. And Peter preaches Joel 2, Psalm 16, Psalm 132, back to Psalm 110, scripture after scripture after scripture after scripture.
Remember, the Word of God is the means, the instrument by which the Spirit works in bringing about the new birth. And what was the result of that? Were they regenerated a month later, or was it a three-month process? No, in Acts chapter 2, we read, quote, that day there were added about three thousand souls. They came to hear that sermon. They were lost. They were dead in trespasses and sin. In fact, in the middle of the sermon, they were regenerated. They interrupted the sermon. They cried out, what must we do to be saved? Peter said, repent, and gloriously they were regenerated.
What is our point? That regeneration is not like sanctification. Sanctification is a lifelong process. It's a long journey in the same direction, but regeneration is not a journey. Regeneration takes place in a moment.
It is a point in time where we cross the line. We go from death to life. We read later in Acts chapter 2 that they were preaching the Word of God everywhere and house to house, praising God, having favor with all the people. And you recall what it says in Acts 2, 47, and day by day the Lord was adding to their number those who were being saved.
There were specific individual days when people were regenerated by the Spirit of God. I think of Acts chapter 8, you remember the account of the Ethiopian eunuch who came up from Africa, went to Jerusalem, searching, looking. God in reality was drawing that one to where the truth would be made known, but went to Jerusalem and was confronted with just the barren, dead religion of Judaism. There was no truth for him to be heard, and then he's making his journey back, and the Spirit of God impressed Philip to leave, a place where many were being saved, and to go out into the desert by himself. And he went out there, and you talk about a divine appointment, and the Ethiopian eunuch came riding by in a chariot, and he had his entourage there, and he had Isaiah 53, and he's reading it, and Philip pops up in the chariot with him and says, do you understand what you're reading? He says, how could I, except someone explain, and it says, he began to preach to him Jesus. And in that moment, in that instant, the Spirit of God so found out that Ethiopian eunuch, and he was born again right there in that chariot as they were riding along.
That's how quickly the new birth comes. It comes with dramatic power, but there is a moment, there is a point, there is a time when we are brought into the kingdom of God. Let me give you one more example, probably the premier example of all examples that I could set before us in Acts chapter 9, Saul of Tarsus. How long did it take for Saul of Tarsus to be regenerated? Not long, if there was ever an act of sovereign regeneration that took place in a moment in the twinkling of an eye, it was Saul of Tarsus, and he stands as an example, as a picture, as a type of every regeneration. In Acts chapter 9, we read, Saul was breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, and went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. He was lost in sin, he was spiritually blind, he could not see the truth, his heart was spiritually dead, he could not believe the truth, his will was paralyzed. If anyone was ever bound in nature's night, it was Saul of Tarsus. And as he was traveling, verse 3, it happened that as he was approaching Damascus, now notice the next two words, and suddenly, a light from heaven flashed around him, and he fell to the ground. Christ knocked him off his high horse, and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? To persecute the church is to persecute the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, for He is the head of the body, the church.
And he said, who are you, Lord? If there was ever an instance of lordship, salvation, this was it, and every salvation, there is a recognition of the sovereign authority of Jesus Christ to be totally in control of that life that is surrendered and committed to Jesus Christ by faith. In that moment, with that light shining out of heaven and shining into the darkened soul of Saul of Tarsus, he was immediately and instantly born again. All this is to say, regeneration or the new birth is a decisive act. It is not an ongoing process.
It is a single point on a timeline, not an extended season or a lengthy period of time or parentheses in time. It is a pinpoint moment when the life of God enters into the empty vacuum of a spiritually dead soul, and that soul is made to come alive. When Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth, Lazarus immediately came forth, and so it is in our new birth, when He calls and when He quickens and when He raises and when He imparts supernatural life, we are instantly born again from above. That was Stephen Lawson teaching on the instantaneous nature of the new birth. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind, and if you'd like a daily reminder of each day's episode, you can enter your email address at renewingyourmind.org slash email, and we'll send you a daily email with a description of that day's episode, a link to listen, and a link to that day's resource offer. Today's message is one of 12 in Dr. Lawson's series on the new birth, and with much confusion surrounding what it means to be born again, this is a clarifying and detailed study of the gracious work of the Holy Spirit. You can request your copy when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343. With 12 messages, this could be an ideal three-month study for you or your small group, so secure your copy along with digital access to the study guide when you click the link in the podcast show notes or give your gift at renewingyourmind.org, and if you select give monthly, you'll have the opportunity to become a ministry partner, fueling the spread of trusted teaching and unlocking exclusive discipleship resources for you and your family. The work of God in the new birth is instantaneous, but it's also comprehensive, and that's what Stephen Lawson will teach on tomorrow, here on Renewing Your Mind.
