Rewarding Faith:

 Regeneration:

The English word regeneration or its twin brother palingenesia in the Greek, literally means a “new birth”.

A ruler of the Jews, a Pharisee named Nicodemus came to Jesus by night and said, “We know You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with Him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:1-3.

In other parts of the new covenant we can read terms like, born of God, born from above, born of the Spirit, born anew etc, these all have the same meaning as born again which literally means a new birth or regeneration of the human spirit, for it is a spiritual birth as opposed to a physical birth.

Since Nicodemus had no revelation of being reborn in the spirit man, his thoughts automatically began to relate to physical birth and he asked, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Now Jesus knew fully well that neither Nicodemus nor any other man at that particular time could receive or even begin to understand this new term “born again”. Why? Because no man had as yet received the new birth. This could only happen after the resurrection of the Christ and the descension of the Holy Spirit. Which happened on the day of Pentecost when He was poured out upon all flesh. Joel 2:28 – Acts 2:4.

There were approximately 120 believers who received regeneration at the same time and began to share the good news with all of those who were in hearing distance. This was the first great revival of the Christian Church.

From this moment on the new birth was made available to any living person on the face of the earth who hears the gospel and receives it by faith, by confessing with their mouth and believing in their heart that Jesus is Lord.

I pray that this has happened or will eventually happen in your life.

R W Nagle.