A Cleansing Birth

There is the cleansing power of God by His grace in the act of the new birth.

He never puts a new heart into a dirty soul. He puts a new heart into a sanitized, cleansed soul. And the result is, He makes something beautiful of our lives. Isaiah 118 says, Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.

Though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. What a beautiful and grace-filled promise for all those who trust in Christ alone. And it's that cleansing work of God that will be our focus today. This is the Wednesday edition of Renewing Your Mind.

I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. All true Christians have experienced the new birth. And this week, Stephen Lawson has been helping us see the scope of this work, approaching the new birth from different angles to lead each of us to doxology, praising God for His kindness and mercy toward His people. And today, he'll consider the reality that regeneration, the new birth, is a cleansing birth.

Here's Dr. Lawson. What we want to address in this time together is that the new birth is a cleansing birth. This presupposes really the doctrine of total depravity, that our entire inner person has been polluted by sin and needs cleansing, that we have been marred by wickedness, and we need for regeneration to wash us and to cleanse us. Before we address John chapter 3 and the cleansing nature of regeneration, if we could just pause for a moment and think yet again about total depravity. When we say total depravity, what we mean is not that every person is as depraved as they could possibly be, but that depravity has extended to the total person, the mind, the heart, every inch and every ounce of us.

It's like a drop of cyanide into a glass of water. It permeates the whole, such that when we read, for example, in Romans chapter 3, we see that the totality of our being is plagued by sin. Our throat is an open grave, Paul says. Our tongues are deceiving. Under our lips is the poison of ass. The mouth is full of cursings and bitterness. Our feet are swift to shed blood.

In our eyes, there is no fear of God. And so just moving from body part to body part, each representing a certain aspect of our inner soul and our inner life, we see that the totality of our being has become polluted by sin. That is why last time we talked about the comprehensive nature of regeneration, that it must affect the entirety of us. But we also want to add that there must be this cleansing element. In other words, before God puts in the new heart, God must cleanse the soul as well. A new heart going into a cleansed soul. I know at home that when my wife cleans the sheets and it's time to go to bed, she expects me to be clean and to have clean pajamas on as I go to bed.

It makes no sense to clean up the bed and it's clean, but now I'm dirty and get into it. Self-defeating. And so God does the same as He gives to us this new heart of flesh, He also cleanses out the soul into which He puts the new heart.

So that's what I want us to consider in this session. Louis Berkhoff, the great systematic theologian, writes that the governing disposition of the soul is made holy. And this happens in regeneration. So, as you have your Bibles, look with me again in John chapter 3. There's one verse in particular that I want to address.

It is John chapter 3 and verse 5. In this text, Jesus says, Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, that's our emphasis, born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. It's an absolute necessity to be born of water and the Spirit in order to enter into the kingdom of God. Now, there are various interpretations for water, water and the Spirit.

What is Jesus saying here? As He speaks of being born again in the other verses, He doesn't mention water. For example, in verse 3, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. There's not a drop of water in verse 3. In verse 6, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Again, no mention of water. Verse 7, you must be born again. Once again, no mention of water. Verse 8, so is everyone who is born of the Spirit. But yet, in verse 5, there is the inclusion of water and the Spirit. So, what does this mean?

There are four possibilities here that we want to consider. The first is, some have taken this to mean the water of physical birth. The birth of a baby is accompanied by the release of fluid from the mother.

And that is just a known medical fact. However, the word water is never used in the Bible in this way. And so, it seems to be a strange assumption. And this would also be inconsistent with the way the ancients described a physical birth.

So, it seems to be more of a modern way than an ancient way. So, I think we dismiss that he is referring to the fluid involved in a physical birth or water. The second possibility is water baptism, that there would be baptism associated with the Christian faith. That certainly is true and one of the ways that we are marked out publicly, but Nicodemus would not have understood Christian baptism.

There was no Christian baptism at this time. And certainly, water cannot wash away sin, only the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit in regeneration. And so, I would dismiss this from being the water of baptism. The third possibility is that it's a picture of the Word of God. And there are great Bible teachers who have taken it this way.

James Montgomery Boice, one of my mentors in exposition, takes it this way. And there are some verses that would maybe indicate that. John 15, 3, you are already clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

There is a cleansing power in the Word and Ephesians 5, 26 speaks of the washing of water at the time of conversion. But I think that the fourth possibility is really the correct interpretation. And I was reading Dr. Sproul's commentary on the gospel of John and fortunately for me it's the position that he takes as well. So, I think the fourth possibility, which is it represents the cleansing of the Holy Spirit in the work of regeneration. I think what we have in this text is that there are two symbols for the Holy Spirit. One is in verse 5, the other is in verse 8. Water in verse 5, wind in verse 8.

I think as Jesus is teaching the new birth, he is using these two metaphors that there is the power of wind and there is the cleansing of water. And both elements are true in the new birth. You remember in verse 10, Jesus says to Nicodemus, are you not the teacher of Israel?

Do not understand these things. This presupposes that Nicodemus knew very well the Old Testament. That's the only part of scripture that has been written to this point.

And that Nicodemus would have a great awareness as the teacher of Israel. So having said that, I want to take us to an Old Testament passage of scripture that Nicodemus would have known and which water pictures the cleansing of the Holy Spirit. So if you would, turn back with me to the book of Ezekiel, to Ezekiel chapter 36. And in our last time together, we looked at this very verse, but we began at verse 26. In this session, I want to look specifically at verse 25, which is the previous verse.

In the Old Testament, water often symbolically represented purification, spiritual purification. And that's exactly what we see in Ezekiel 36 and beginning in verse 25. And as you recall, verse 26 and 27 make it very clear that the context is speaking to the new birth. You've heard it said, a text without a context is a pretext.

In real estate, three important things, location, location, location. The same is true in Bible study, location, location, location. And so, as we look at verse 25, the next two verses in context, the location of verse 25, make it abundantly clear that the matter that is being addressed is that of the new birth and giving a new heart. So in that context, look, if you will, at verse 25, what this text says, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I can assure you this, if God sprinkles water on you, you will be clean. It will not be a half job.

It will be a full job, a thorough job. Whatever God does, He does all things well, right? And so, as God says, I will. Please note again that this is exclusively God's initiative.

This is God's work. This is not us and God. This is not the priest sprinkling water or some spiritual leader immersing someone in water or sprinkling with water. Whatever the mode of baptism, this is God doing this. This has nothing to do with water baptism. This has everything to do with divine purification, with divine cleansing. God says, I will.

Note the certainty of this, that when God does this, it will come to pass. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. So what kind of cleansing is being addressed here? Is it physical cleansing?

Is this a bath? Is this like Jesus washing the feet of the disciples and Peter saying, oh no, Lord, then give me a bath? No, this is not physical cleansing. Note the next sentence in verse 25. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. It is a moral filthiness.

It is a spiritual depravity that needs to be cleansed and at the heart of it is idolatry and anything that replaces the primacy and the centrality of God in one's life. So God says in verse 25 that in the new birth we are cleansed from sin by the inward work of the Holy Spirit. And so by this interpretation, which I believe is the correct interpretation, water is used as a symbol or a picture of the Holy Spirit even as wind is used as a picture and a symbol of the Holy Spirit. In fact, I believe that John 3 verse 5 could be read this way, unless one is born of water, even the Spirit, oh water, comma, even the Spirit, comma, one cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. Where water and Spirit are used interchangeably, they are used synonymously. One is the reality, the other is the symbol. And this is really what Titus 3 verse 5 teaches. It teaches the very same. He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration.

Did you hear that? By the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit. Regeneration is a synonymous term for being born again or born from above. Regeneration is that divine act of God, Berkov says, by which the principle of new life is implanted in man, and the governing disposition of the soul is made holy. This is the work of the new birth. And associated and included in this divine act is washing, washing of regeneration. That's what Jesus is saying in John 3 verse 5, I believe, that unless one is born of water and the Spirit, there's nothing to do with baptism.

I don't think it is even a reference to the Word of God. I think it is a metaphor or an analogy in a word for the work of the Holy Spirit to cleanse us and to wash us and to make us pure and to make us clean as God puts the new heart into the soul. I've gone to the doctor several times, I'm sure that you have. As a child growing up, I used to play football and went to the doctor quite regularly.

And if you would have an injury, I remember when they installed AstraTurf for the college team that I played for, and you would try to make a diving catch, and you'd go sliding across the football field, and it would leave a third-degree burn or some kind of a burn on you, and you'd go to the training room, and they would need to put some gauze on you and bandage you up. Before they would do that, they would have to clean out, you know, the fragments of the dirt and the debris that would be lodged in your burned area. You have to clean that out before you put the new in or the new on. That's really a picture of what God is saying in the new birth, that God cleans out as He puts the new in. He washes us out. Isaiah 1, verse 18, "'Come, let us reason together,' says the Lord. And though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.

Though they be red like crimson, they shall be white as wool." There is the cleansing power of God by His grace in the act of the new birth. He never puts a new heart into a dirty soul. He puts a new heart into a sanitized, cleansed soul. And the result is that because He cleanses and puts in this new heart, He makes something beautiful of our lives, does He not? There's one more verse that I want to draw your attention to along this line, and it's Ephesians 2 and verse 10, and Ephesians 2 and verse 10 speaks of the act of regeneration, what God has made us by His grace. And he says in Ephesians 2, verse 10, "'For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which He prepared beforehand that we might walk in them.'"

Did you hear that? We have been created in Christ Jesus. That's regeneration. That's the new birth.

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. And associated with this, he says, we are His workmanship. Now this word, workmanship, is a very interesting word. It really means a masterpiece. I'm going to say the Greek word, and you're going to hear an English word in the Greek word, poema. Do you hear the word poem in poema? A poem is a literary work of art. If done well, it is a masterpiece. A poema can also be artistic. It can also be a painting.

It can be a statue. It can be a literary work of art. But it is something that is beautiful. It is something that you intrinsically recognize the beauty that is in it. And in the new birth, the beauty that is in it is Christ in us. The beauty is not in our flesh. The beauty is the image of Christ being restored in us. I don't know where this has come from, but as I have been traveling around preaching and teaching in various places around the country, and I thank God around the world, I will have a little downtime, and my host will say, can I take you someplace? Can I show you something? And I find myself saying, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'll say, take me to your art museum.

I would love to see classical masterpieces. And as I go, I don't know anything about art in the sense I've never had a class in art, but when you walk in and you see a Rembrandt, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to recognize that is beautiful, that is a work of art, that is arresting to the eye and to the attention. That's precisely the word. He says, we are His workmanship. This is not bragging on us, this is bragging on grace. This is bragging on Christ in us, the hope of glory. And regeneration begins this process of making us into the image of Christ and taking away those old things and restoring us and giving us these new things.

I've quoted 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away. Old value systems are gone. Old priorities are a thing of the past. Old beliefs now are ancient history, old loves, old pursuits. That's behind us. These things have passed away.

Oh, they creep up their old ugly head from time to time. But the fact is, that old man has been buried, and that is behind us. And he says, new things have come. There's a whole new life that is emerging within us, and it is the life of Jesus Christ. And for the rest of our Christian lives, the act of sanctification, we are growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are being made more and more like Christ. But that work began in the new birth. And in that moment, Christ was formed in us, and we could see Christ in others when they came to faith in Christ, and suddenly their language changes.

Their way of conducting themselves changes. There's a dramatic break that takes place, and it is because we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. Michelangelo was the great artist of the Renaissance, and they brought down that block of marble, and they set it before him, and from that block of marble, he would create a poema, a masterpiece. Yeah, they created David. David is in Florence, Italy. And they asked Michelangelo once, how did you create this perfect representation of David?

He said, oh, that was easy. He said, I just chiseled away everything that did not look like David. And that's what God's doing in our lives. He is chiseling and pruning and cutting back everything that does not look like Jesus Christ.

Ungodly attitudes and reactions and language, he's just removing it. And he's bringing out and enhancing the beauty of Jesus Christ who is in us. That is a work of regeneration.

That is the new birth where he instantly, comprehensively began this work. He just cleaned house. He cleansed us of our sin and washed us and then put this new heart on the inside. Have you been cleansed? Have you been washed in regeneration? Has he made you a new creature? Are the old things behind you?

Are there new things that have come? This is the glorious work that only God can do in our lives. That was Stephen Lawson on the cleansing reality of the new birth. This is Renewing Your Mind, a daily listener supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries.

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