One of the most profound statements made by Jesus was one He spoke to Nicodemus in John 3. Nicodemus came to Jesus in the middle of the night with questions and almost immediately Jesus pronounced and made it abundantly clear that to enter and see the Kingdom of God one must be born again. Jesus’s statement makes it clear that spiritual engagement with God requires that new life be imparted to us from a source outside of us. Furthermore, Ephesians 2:8 tells us that faith is a gift further reinforcing our need for an external source for spiritual life and awakening as Jesus emphasized with Nicodemus. Ephesians 2:8 states: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”
Acknowledging the necessity for the new birth while recognizing that faith is a gift from an outside source should cause us to take a careful look at ourselves. From one perspective, when we see that God is that outside source, it’s apparent that we have no hope outside of Him and are hopeless without Him. In fact, you might say we’re like dust as the psalmist says in Psalm 103:14-16: “For he knows we are but dust and that our days are few and brief, like grass, like flowers, blown by the wind and gone forever.”
However, a much greater reflection needs to happen for us to acknowledge God’s mercy in bringing about the new birth. To start, God recognized the depravity of mankind that was rooted in the ultimate act of radical betrayal and disobedience by our first parents, Adam and Eve. Scripture details this depravity in numerous passages. Take Genesis 6:5, “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” Note the emphasis on ‘every’ and ‘only’ indicating man’s pervasive internal corruption. Let’s examine Psalm 14:2-3, “The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.” These verses dispel any notion that a person will ‘seek’ God without the quickening of the Holy Spirit, once again reinforcing the necessity for the new birth. There’s an old expression, ‘all means all,’ which certainly pertains here. So, the ‘alls’ in this scripture address mankind’s complete fall with Adam as he broke the covenant that God established with him in the Garden of Eden.
There are many other scripture passages that point to man’s depravity. Take Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Also, to demonstrate man’s disposition outside of the Holy Spirit’s quickening, we see the declaration of Romans 3:18, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Thankfully, God is intentional in bringing about the new birth on those to whom He chooses to grant mercy. In doing so, He demonstrates the application of His unmerited Grace further showing that He is sovereign over man’s salvation. We see God applying His Grace In 1 Timothy 1:15 as Paul states that Christ came into the world to save sinners. This truth is validated by Jesus as He spoke His final words on the cross, “It is finished,” meaning that He completely bore God’s wrath and served as a substitute for all those who are to believe in Him over time.
Further validation of God’s sovereign role in the redemption of His own is found in Romans 8:30, “And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” Paul also speaks to this in Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
This should make us fall to our knees if not completely face down as we recognize our utter hopelessness apart from God’s mercy. Furthermore, we should praise Him for saving us sinners from the wretched depths of our misery. As Colossians 1:13-14 states, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
To close in doxology, I leave us with Romans 11:36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”
In His Image 