I’m reading a John Piper book right now called Finally Alive. It has been available for years for free on Piper’s Desiring God website. It is a study on the topic of rebirth or regeneration in the New Testament. Virtually every NT writer speaks about the new birth. Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3 is most famous. Elsewhere Paul speaks of the new birth in Ephesians 2:4-5, Peter does so in 1 Peter 1:3, James in James 1:17-18, and the idea comes up multiple times in 1 John.
In beginning his study, Piper alludes to a contemporary study put out by the Barna group that suggests that “born-again Christians” display characteristics that show them as no different in any way from those who don’t identify as “born again.” The upshot of this notion is that Christians in the western world are just like the rest of the world; so they’re, on the whole, hypocrites. Examples are given to prove this point, such as divorce rates, tithing rates, racism, and others.* This should be startling to a Christian who knows that being a Christian is supposed to show itself in how one lives.
Piper continues, showing how the Barna group defined “born again” in their research:
“Born again Christians were defined in these surveys as people who said they have made ‘a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today’ and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as ‘born again.’ Being classified as ‘born again’ is not dependent upon church or denominational affiliation or involvement.”**
Using the Term Backwards
Piper concludes that because the Barna study thus uses the term “born again” to describe people who merely say things, they are making a profound mistake, because the New Testament "moves in the opposite direction." Piper says it better than I can:
“I’m not saying their research is wrong. It appears to be appallingly right. I am not saying that the church is not as worldly as they say it is. I am saying that the writers of the NT think in exactly the opposite direction about being born again. Instead of moving from a profession of faith, to the label “born again,” to the worldliness of these so-called “born again” people, to the conclusion that the new birth does not radically change people, the NT moves in the other direction. It moves from absolute certainty that the new birth radically changes people, to the observation that many professing Christians are indeed not radically changed, to the conclusion that they are not born again. The New Testament, unlike the Barna Group, does not defile the new birth with the worldliness of unregenerate, professing Christians.” (emphasis mine)^
Piper then goes on to list several passages from 1 John that drive this point home:
-1 John 2:29 says that everyone born of Christ practices righteousness like him.
-3:9 says that no one born of God makes a practice of sinning, because God’s seed abides in him (not saying Christians never sin, but there is a decisive change in their behavior).
-4:7 says that whoever loves has been born of God.
-5:4 says that everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.
What we find from the Apostle John (and secondarily from Pastor John) is that if one is truly born again, it changes how they live. Therefore, one can be tragically mistaken in what they say about their faith or their convictions – what matters is whether or not one truly is born again; if they are, it’ll show itself in how they live. And if the life doesn’t match up to the profession, then the profession is phony. This is why Paul labors in Galatians 5:16-24 in teaching about the so-called fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peach, patience, etc.) If one has the Spirit, they’ll live like and look like Jesus. If they don’t live like Jesus, they don’t have the Spirit. This is not to say that every Christian is perfect like Jesus. But it is to say that their life has been changed by Jesus, and changed decisively.
The Shift
Iain Murray makes the point in his Revival and Revivalism that in the 19thcentury, Christianity began a massive shift in the Western world. Before the shift, Christians were people who love Jesus and live like Him (as John says). After the shift, a Christian is a person who has walked an aisle, prayed a prayer, and given a profession of faith.^^ The (generally faithful) labor of the late Billy Graham unfortunately exacerbated this notion. Therefore, if one has made a profession of faith, they must be born again. But if they don’t follow Jesus, what then? Some may say that they’re hypocritical converts. John the Apostle would say they’re no converts at all. They might be hypocrites and liars (1 John 2:4), but they are no convert and certainly are not born again.
The reality is that if one doesn’t follow Jesus, it isn’t that they stopped following him at some point in the past. It is that they never were following to begin with. Thus, again, John, speaking about some professing Christians who had left the church, says, “They went out from us to prove that they were not really of us” (1 John 2:19). Elsewhere, Jesus said that his sheep are marked by their following Him (John 10:27) and Paul wrote of our need to test ourselves to see if we’re indeed in the faith (2 Cor. 13:5), because it’s possible one to only think they are. Further, while many in Timothy’s church had “made shipwreck of their faith” (1 Tim. 1:19), the reality is that their faith is simply being proven as a pseudo-faith, because true faith is faithful to the end (Gal. 5:22; see also Jude 24).
This is what lies behind the stern warning of Jesus when he warns about telling a certain people in the final judgment, “Depart from me, for I never knew you” (Matt. 7:21-23). If you read that section, you see that the people to whom he speaks are entirely convinced they’re “in” with Him. But notice the proof to which they allude: “Did we not cast out demons and perform many mighty works in your name?” Jesus then tells them that those things are no proof that they’ve been born again. In fact that is why they allude to those things – they’ve missed the truth that people only come into God’s presence because of Jesus’ righteousness, accounted to the guilty sinner by faith. The answer to the question, “Why should you enjoy the new heavens and the new earth?” isn’t, “Because I did this or that,” but is, “I shouldn’t – my only hope is you, Lord, as the perfect man who lived for me, died for me, and rose to make me a new creation.” And these people in Matthew 7 don’t have that reality.
To Be Truly Alive in Jesus
But those who do have it not only believe it and profess it, but they show it in how they live. Again, Iain Murray helps:
“The first and invariable result of the new birth, according to Christ, is ‘sight’ (John 3:4). By this rebirth an individual comes to belong to the number of whom it is written: ‘They shall all be taught by God’ (John 6:45). He possesses an enlightenment which sets apart the teaching of God from all the teaching of men; for this reason the promise ‘You shall know the truth’ is a reality (John 8:32).^*
One sees Jesus for who He really is, sees their need for Him, and senses that He came for them, to give them life. This truth has taken hold of them, and it will keep hold of them for forever. And being constrained by the truth, they are truly living in the freedom that the whole world longs for, but won’t (and can’t) find because it won’t look to Jesus for it. And neither will those who merely say they’ve been born again, but don’t treasure Jesus, follow Him, and live the way He does.
May we repent from a wrong doctrine of conversion that holds a false notion that one can be born again and not love and follow Jesus. The truth is that if one has been born again, it is because they’ve seen God’s glory in Jesus’ face. And beholding the glory, they, like Moses on the mountain (Ex. 33:13, 18), can’t help but to seek more.
*John Piper, Finally Alive, 22
**Ibid, 23-24
^Ibid, 25
^^See especially chs 7-9 in Iain Murray, Revival and Revivalism. Also click here for a helpful summary of the book.
^*Murray, Evangelicalism Divided, 153
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