This article, being published in a county newspaper and having limited space for explanation, makes it difficult to know where to begin. There being such a vast misunderstanding of this most vital doctrine also makes it very tedious to write. A hundred years ago or so the evangelical church had to deal only with those limited cults and sects of religion that had brought into Christendom that damnable doctrine labeled “Baptismal Regeneration”, introduced by the apostates, William & Alexander Campbell. Today we have another “two-headed beast” even more subtle and deceptive than the one introduced by the Campbell’s. Namely “decisional regeneration” brought in by those who advocate the “easy-believism” of modern evangelism. The new birth, my friends, is not brought about by someone’s proposition of four easy steps to salvation. The “Roman Road Proposition” that many use leads no where but to deception and hell if the Sovereign Spirit has not been pleased to breathe life into the soul of the spiritually dead sinner. Many people in our day believe that it is just as easy to let the flesh-withering Spirit of God into the soul as it is to raise the window shade and let the bright rays of the morning sun into our homes. In John 3:1-14 our Lord presents the doctrine of the new birth to us in a detailed way as He dialogues with Nicodemus. Note carefully the discourse reveals to us a man who was religiously enlightened, but spiritually darkened; a man religiously active, but spiritually an invalid. Christ told him he could not see, nor enter the Kingdom of God until he was born from above. The mistake that men make today is presentation. They present the sinner with this proposition, “You must repent and believe and be (or in order to be) born again.” The cart is before the horse. A man cannot repent and believe until the Spirit, who sovereignly breathes life upon whom He will, regenerates him. Christ clearly teaches this when He says to Nicodemus in John 3:8, “The wind (or Spirit, for that is whom He speaks of) blows where it wants, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. SO IS EVERYONE WHO IS BORN OF THE SPIRIT” (AKJV). It is just as impossible for men to control the work of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of souls as it is for them to control the wind. Do not be deceived my friend, you must be born again, not propositioned! The doctrine of the new birth is placed in its proper order in John 1:12-13, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Two key words interpret the doctrine of the text; “received” in verse twelve, and “were” in verse thirteen. They “received Him”, because they “were born of God”.
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