I don’t think there is a single verse, a single passage, in the Bible that teaches that faith causes or brings about regeneration, or the new birth. But I think there are many texts that teach that the new birth precedes and brings about faith — in other words, texts that teach the new birth, or regeneration, is the gracious, free, sovereign work of God prior to our new life in Christ, which creates that life and brings about faith.
“The new birth, or regeneration, is the gracious, free, sovereign work of God.”
Passages that teach this and then why I think it’s so important. First John 5:1 says, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.” Not “everyone who believes will be born of God,” but “everyone who is now believing has already been born of God.” It’s the new birth by God that brings about the believing.
Or John 1:12 “To all who did receive [Christ], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God.” Then he explains what he just said, how that believing came about, in the next verse, verse 13: “. . . who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” In other words, the new birth, which he wants to underline several ways, did not come about from the powers of the flesh, nor from human willing. It came about from God. We didn’t will ourselves alive. God, not man, brings about the new birth, which provides the spiritual life that believes.
Or Acts 13:48, when the Gentiles heard Paul’s gospel, “they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord.” It says, “As many as were appointed to eternal life believed,” not the other way around — not “as many as believed were then appointed to eternal life.” But as many as God had already appointed for eternal life, those are the ones who believed, because God grants his elect the gift of faith.
Or Ephesians 2:8–9 says, “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
I’m going to list a few verses here, look them all up:
Why the Order Matters
Everyone must do their own work on that — track those down, decide for yourself. Why this is so important? Because some people might say, “ What difference does it make — believe and have life, either way, first or second?” Well, here’s why it matters.
1. Realistic About Sin
First, it makes us realistic and so remind us of the power of sin. If we think that we can provide the decisive power in the moment of our conversion – our own innate faith – to pass from spiritual death to life – we simply do not yet have a right view of the power and depth and horror of our own sinful depravity.
“Left to ourselves, apart from sovereign grace, we will be dead and blind forever.”
Paul says in Romans 8:7–8, “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” In other words, the fallen condition of every human is the frightening, desperate moral inability to change his own nature. Left to ourselves, apart from sovereign grace decisively changing us so that we treasure the glory of Christ, we will be dead and blind forever.
We do no one any service by treating the condition of the fallen human heart in a way that’s not true by implying people can create their own faith when they are dead in their trespasses and sins.
2. Alive to Grace
Secondly, unless we realize that God takes the initiative and provides the decisive power for us to wake from the dead and see Christ as true and glorious, we will never sing amazing grace with the kind of understanding and affection that we ought to. We’ll never know the greatness and the sweetness of the grace of God unless we know that new birth was his totally sovereign, undeserved gift when we were dead. We just won’t know what it means to be saved.
3. Hopeful in Prayer and Witness
Here’s the third, if you know that the new birth is the sovereign work of God, a gift of grace, you will have both hope in your praying and hope in your personal witnessing (so prayer and evangelism).
You will have hope to pray as you ought and witness to lost people as you ought. You will realize that you cannot cause anyone to believe who is dead in their trespasses and sins and who’s blind to the glory of Christ. But if you believe that God has ordained prayer and witnessing as the means of his own sovereign act in raising people from the dead, then you will be able to pray and to share the gospel with hope and with earnestness.
“The new birth, or regeneration, is the gracious, free, sovereign work of God.”
Soli Deo Gloria