Regeneration
and Impersonal Love; 1 John 5:1
Titus
3:5 NASB “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
and renewing by the Holy Spirit.”
We
have phase one salvation because we believe in Christ—faith alone in
Christ alone. In Titus 3:5 we see that there is a breakdown of this concept of
being saved. It can be taken from the Greek that this is a synonymous
repetition that the washing of regeneration is the renewal by the Holy Spirit;
it is the Holy Spirit who regenerates us. So regeneration precedes full
salvation. In other words, there are logical steps that precede salvation. What
we can say is that first perfect righteousness is imputed to the believer. At
that same instant and instantaneously God declares that individual to be
justified. He is declared to be just not because he is personally righteous or
moral but because he has received the perfect righteousness of Christ. We are
clothed in His righteousness, we have received that
imputed righteousness, and God the Father looks at us in terms of Christ’s
perfect righteousness. So first there is the imputation of righteousness, then
there is justification by faith alone, then we have at that instant
regeneration and we receive a new human spirit and are then spiritually alive.
That is the process.
What
has happened is that teachers have come along who are teaching that
regeneration comes before faith. There are two passages that they base that on
and we want to ask what the Bible teaches about this.
In
Ephesians 2:1 Paul states: NASB “And you were dead in your
trespasses and sins.” That is a reminder to the Ephesians that they were born
spiritually dead. That doesn’t mean anything else other than that before
salvation they were still positionally in sin; after salvation they were
positionally in Christ. [2] “in which you formerly
walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of
disobedience.” The “in which” refers to sin, so verse 2 is a description of
sin, of the word “sins,” and it concludes with the fact that “this is the
spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience. [3] Among them … ” To whom
does the “them” refer to? The sons of disobedience. So
verse 2 explains the last word in verse 1; verse 3 explains the last phrase in
verse 2. “ …
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the
desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath,
even as the rest.” The English Bible ends that were with a period but the Greek
does not. [4] “But God, being rich in mercy, because
of His great love with which He loved us.” The subject here is God; it is not
back in verse 1. Verse 1 is dependent upon what happens in verse 4. Paul piles
up all of these clauses at the beginning to give a little background before he
hits the main idea, which is God. Then he has a relative clause following “God”
which is describing God—“ being rich in mercy, because of His great love
with which He loved us.” [5] “even
when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by
grace you have been saved), [6] and raised us up with Him, and seated us with
Him in the heavenly {places} in Christ Jesus.” There are three key verbs in vv.
5, 6: God is the subject; “made us alive together with Christ”; “Christ raised
us up He together”; “made us sit together in the heavenly places.” That is a
threefold compound verb for what God does for us at salvation. Then we have a
purpose clause in verse 7: “so that in the ages to come He might show the
surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” So v. 7
describes the ultimate long-range purpose of our salvation.
Notice
something at the end of verse 5. Following the first of the three compound
verbs we have the parenthetical thought: “by grace you have been saved.” God
made us alive together with Christ and Paul says, “By grace you have been
saved.” That is the main thought of this whole section from v. 1 to v. 9. Grace
means it is a free gift; it is not due to anything that we do. God says it is
ours whether or not we take care of it, no strings attached.
Review:
The main subject of the lengthy sentence in the original Greek is God in verse
4. There is a three-fold compound verb: being made alive together, raised
together, and seated together. There is an independent, grammatically unrelated
clause that applies to being made alive together, the action of God, and that
is by grace, and is summarised by faith.
That
idea—by grace you have been saved through faith—is then picked up
and expanded, sort of like an overlap. Then Paul is going to add the idea that
you were dead in trespasses but it is by grace you have been saved. Then he is
going to pick that idea up again in verse 8. Eph 2:8 NASB “For by
grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves…” “Faith”
is a feminine noun in the Greek; “that” is a demonstrative singular pronoun
that is in the neuter gender. A pronoun must always agree with its antecedent
in case, number and gender. So a neuter gender pronoun cannot refer to a
feminine gender noun. The problem is that many popular teachers say that the
“that” refers to faith, and they come up with abstruse reasons that have
nothing to do with Greek grammar in order to demonstrate that, and their
conclusion is that the faith is the gift, i.e. “that [faith] is not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God…” According to that your faith is a gift of
God, and the kind of faith that is exercised at salvation is a “special kind”
of faith, i.e. “saving” faith. What they do, then, is place the significance on
the kind of faith exercised at salvation and not the object of faith.
It
is the object of faith that makes it salvific. The reason we are saved is not
because we have a special kind of faith but because our faith is directed to
the proper object of faith which is the Lord Jesus Christ. The word that is
used for faith throughout the Scriptures is the same word that is used for the
every-day use of faith. It is not a special quality of faith that saves, it is
a faith directed toward the proper object, which is the saving work of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
If
we look at the construction of verse 8 we have the statement: “For by grace you
have been saved,” which is picked up from verse 5, “through faith.” The
“through faith” is a completely new idea that is not germane to the subject of
the verse. The subjective of the verse is “For by grace you have been saved.”
Then we have, “and that not of yourselves.” It is the grace salvation that is
not of yourselves; it is the grace salvation that is a
free gift of God. What we learn from Ephesians 2:8, 9 is that the end result of
our salvation is “by grace”; that these verses do not teach that faith precedes
regeneration. Regeneration precedes the final result, the salvation.
In
1 John chapter five John is still talking about the abiding Christian life and
avoiding shame and embarrassment at the judgment seat of Christ. One of the
major themes that John has introduced in chapters three and four is that the
believer must abide in Christ in order to come to a position of knowing God.
(Knowing God is not another phrase for salvation) As we come to understand the
dimensions of salvation we begin to appreciate who God is more and more and we
begin to fall in love with Him. Knowledge comes only after we are saved and
after a certain level of spiritual growth and understanding of the Scriptures,
and then as we come to know Him we come to love Him. This means we have to
understand his Word, know His Word and apply His Word or we don’t really love
God and we don’t love one another. We have to reach that stage of spiritual
maturity otherwise there is going to be some embarrassment at the judgment seat
of Christ.
In
5:1-3 John is concluding what he began in verse 4:17, i.e. “By this, love is
perfected [matured] with us, so that we may have confidence in the Day of Judgment;
because as He is, so also are we in this world. [18] There is no fear in love;
but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one
who fears is not perfected [matured] in love.”
1
John 5:1 NASB “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of
God, and whoever loves the Father loves the {child} born of Him.” The issue in
the first part of this verse is the Greek construction. He begins with a
present participle—“Who ever believes that Jesus in the Christ is born of
God.” The main verb is “is born.” Notice how it is translated in the English as
a present tense. In Greek it is a perfect passive indicative. The perfect means
it refers to an action that has been completed in the past. Whenever there is a
perfect tense it emphasises either the completion of the action, which is
called an extensive perfect, or it is emphasizing the present results of that
completed past action; that is called an intensive perfect. This is emphasising
the present consequences of regeneration. You were born again at some time in the
past when you put your faith alone in Christ alone and at that instant you were
regenerated. So he is emphasising the present reality of a past action, and it
is translated in the English as a present tense; but in actuality it is a
perfect tense in the Greek. That perfect tense is preceded in the context by a
present participle, and here is where things get a little complicated.
Participles
don’t have time per
se, they
are all related to the time aspect in the main verb. So an aorist participle
precedes the action of the main verb. A present tense action goes along with
the same time as the action of the verb, and a future tense would come after
the action of the verb. Well this is a present participle and that indicates
that believing would be viewed as cotemporaneous with being born again. That
doesn’t really tell us anything. The problem is that we get a number of people
who come along and look at this perfect tense and they want to say that is past
action. What that means is that we are regenerated first and then we believe
afterwards. They interpret this verse to relate to phase one salvation because
of the phrase “believes that Jesus is the Christ.”
This
grammar is not uncommon in 1 John—a perfect tense main verb preceded by a
present tense participle. What we have to do is look at the other examples of
this in the Greek to see exactly how John uses it.
1
John 2:29 NASB “If you know that He is righteous, you know that
everyone also who practices righteousness [present participle] is born [perfect
tense] of Him.” So this indicates that the one who practices righteousness has
already been born of Him. So practicing righteousness comes after we are born.
1
John 3:9 NASB “No one who is born [prefect tense] of God practices
sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of
God.” So a consequence of being born of God is that we cannot sin—while
abiding.
1
John 4:7 NASB “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is
from God; and everyone who loves [present participle] is born of God and knows
God.” Here we have the same construction. There it seems like loving is a
consequence of being born.
1
John 5:1 NASB “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of
God, and whoever loves the Father loves the {child} born of Him.” But if we
look at the other examples that seems to indicate that Jesus is the Christ is a
consequence of being born of God; that faith comes after regeneration.
1
John 5:4, same construction: NASB “For whatever is born of God
overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the
world—our faith.” Because we are born of God a consequence is overcoming
the world.
1
John 5:18 NASB “We know that no one who is born of God
sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch
him.” So not sinning would be something that is a consequence of being born of
God.
Those
are the verses where we have this perfect tense of ginao, the verb for regeneration. The key verses are 1 John
2:29; 4:7; 5:1. Looking at them again we see the phrase “the one who practices
righteousness,” present active participle, “is born of Him.” So the practicing
righteousness here looks like it is a consequence of being born; 1 John 4:7,
loving a consequence of being born; 5:1, whoever believes that Jesus is the
Christ is born of God, so believing seems to be the result of being born.
Some
observations: First, in 2:29 the phrase “who practices righteousness” isn’t the
Greek prasso, meaning practice,
but poieo which means to do:
“Whoever does righteousness is born of Him.” Second, all three of these
statements (2:29; 4:7; 5;1) have to be understood in
the same way. That means that if 2:29 is talking about what happens after
salvation, the Christian life, then 4:7 and 5:1 have to be talking about the
Christian life. In other words, we are not talking about what happened at
salvation, we are talking about what the believer looks like after salvation.
We have to treat them the same because they’re consistent. In 2:28 the theme
was to abide in Christ, so he is addressing believers with the command to abide
in Christ so that they won’t experience shame at the judgment seat of Christ.
This means that contextually from 2:28 to 5:3a John is not talking about being
saved. He is not addressing salvation, he is addressing Christian life truth, the subject of what the abiding life looks like. He is not
addressing the question of how we get saved. It would not be consistent for him
to suddenly in the midst of this whole section, this dealing with what the
biding life looks like, introduce something about phase one salvation or
justification.
What
John is saying in 5:1 is exactly what he has been saying in 2:29 and 4:7, that
is, the believer who is manifesting his family birth does righteousness. The
believer who is manifesting his family birth loves his brother and the believer
who is manifesting his family birth continues to believe that Jesus is the
Messiah. On the other hand, the believer who is not manifesting his family birth
sins; he hates his brother. The believer who is not abiding, not walking in the
light, rejects Jesus as the Messiah. This is exactly John’s point here because
as he has already stated part of the problem with the false teachers that he is
dealing with is that they have started teaching that Jesus wasn’t the Messiah, and
that He didn’t come in the flesh. They were Docetists, they were
teaching that Jesus didn’t really appear in the flesh. In 1 John 4:2 the spirit
of error mentioned there is teaching that Jesus is not the Messiah, and that is
related back to 1 John 2:19 where John says: “They went out from us, but they
were not of us.” He says that these false teachers once associated with the
apostles and were using their former association to give their ministry
credibility. This doesn’t mean that they weren’t saved, it just means that they
go into false doctrine after they were saved and because they were into false
doctrine they were no longer in fellowship, no longer abiding, and they will
experience at the judgment seat of Christ.
Therefore
what John is saying here is not phase one salvation. He is looking at the
person born of God in each of these verses, a person who is in the family of
God and who is continuing to abide. He is assuming this is a growing believer.
In the other two verses he says the person born of God doesn’t sin; he is
assuming the person born of God and abiding doesn’t sin. He is looking at a
person who is manifesting his new birth. There are certain things that are
going to characterise a person who is manifesting his position in the family of
God. And that is, they are going to love their brother, they are not going to
sin, and they are going to continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. But a
disobedient believer in reversionism, living in
carnality, walking according to the flesh and not paying attention to the truth
of Scripture, then he is going to hate his brother, is not going to practice
righteousness, and it going to get caught up in false doctrine and may even
reject the deity of Christ and that he is the Messiah. That makes sense when we
look down to verse 13 where John says: “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.” The point is there were those who weren’t continuing to believe
that Jesus was the Messiah. As a result of that John is addressing them as one evidence of their carnality.
Faith
comes first, then regeneration. Neither Ephesians 2 nor 1 John 5 can support
the pernicious doctrine that regeneration precedes faith. If regeneration
precedes faith then our volition is not involved at all in our salvation. That
goes along with the hyper-Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election, that
God just chooses us and then is going to regenerate us, and then He is going
save us and we don’t have anything to do with it at all. It happens because God
made the decision and our will wasn’t involved at any point. The concept of
regeneration preceding faith isn’t in John’s mind at all but we had to address
it because that is the error that we face in our modern times.
What
John is saying is that whoever is manifesting his position in the family of God
is going to love one another. This is what he goes on to emphasise in the
second half of the verse: ‘…whoever loves the Father loves the {child} born of
Him.” He is still dealing with what it means and how it is evidenced that we
love God.
1
John 5:2 NASB “By this we know that we love the children of God,
when we love God and observe His commandments.” We know we love God when we do
what He says to do. So we are ruled by an external system of
integrity—the character of God—and we live according to that
external system of integrity which is God’s plan for our lives. In order to
live according to that plan we have to know it. In order to know it we have to
make the knowledge of God and His Word the highest priority in life. So John
follows a rigorous stair-step of logic here and he concludes it in 1 John 5:3 NASB
“For this is the love God of [for God: objective genitive], that we keep His
commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.”
1.
The person who loves God also loves the child of God whom He
has begotten.
2.
The person who loves the child of God loves God and keeps
His commandments.
3.
Love for God consists in keeping His commandments,
therefore love for God consists in making the knowledge of His commandments and
the application of those commandments the highest priority in life.
4.
To get to that point requires a tremendous amount of spiritual
maturity. That is why the issue in all of this is maturity. Loving God and
loving one another only happens when we have reached a level of spiritual
adulthood. It doesn’t happen when a person is a spiritual child. Only by
becoming a spiritual adult can we be sure that we are going to make it at the
judgment seat of Christ, not lose rewards and not embarrass ourselves and the
plan of God.
5.
It doesn’t have anything to do with gaining salvation or the
approbation of God so that we will spend eternity in heaven. It has everything
to do with glorifying Him so that we are demonstrating the opposite
characteristics of Satan in Satan’s fall. Satan said the creature can exalt himself, be absorbed with himself, and do it his
own way and be successful. God is demonstrating through the church age that the
only way the creature can have real success in life and in eternity is to be
completely oriented to God’s plan, to love God, and to manifest just the
opposite characteristics of Satan. Not arrogance but humility; not hatred but
through genuine love.