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Saturday, July 28, 2018

"Not By the Will of Man"


Joh 1:11  He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. Joh 1:12  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, Joh 1:13  who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

The Passage above is full of important truth and those that ignore it have developed all sorts of doctrinal errors that have caused damage for Christianity.  Primarily it tells us to whom we owe the new birth.  The first 18 verses of the Gospel of John are a prologue to the book in which John tells us that Jesus is the eternal Word of God, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity.  He also is telling us of Jesus’s mission and that the Jews did not receive him.  In verses 12-13 it seems that thinking about the Jews not receiving him makes him think about how it is that anyone does receive Jesus as the Messiah.  And so under the inspiration of the Spirit he makes it crystal clear that Jew and Gentle alike will always reject Jesus unless God intervenes. 

In verse 12 he states that all who receive Jesus are given the right to become sons of God.  In Pauline vernacular we would say that one is saved through faith (receiving) and that one cannot believe until they are regenerated (born again)

And then in vs. 13 he gives us one of the most important truths in the Bible for understanding to whom we owe our salvation.  He goes on to explain that we don’t become born again when we believe, but we must be born from above so that we can believe.  Verse 12 alone sounds like our salvation is just a matter of whether we decide to believe or not, but the Bible never teaches this.  And so verse 13 removes any idea that one is saved by any manmade faith apart from the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. 

He lists three things that have no part in our spiritual birth.  First of all blood; our ethnicity, genealogy or any family connection has no bearing on whether we get saved or not.  Just because my parents are Christians or being a Jew vs. a Gentile has no bearing on the election of grace.  God saves from all people groups, Rev 5:9  And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

Secondly, my will did not cause me to be born again.  It is amazing how many people refuse to accept the clear teaching from the Scriptures on this point.  Until God overrides our sinful nature and rebellious will and gives us a new heart, we will never choose him.  Even though Romans 3 says, "None is righteous, no, not one; Rom 3:11  no one understands; no one seeks for God. Rom 3:12  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one”, so many must think that they are the exception; that they can understand and choose what is good.  One can never understand the necessity of the sovereignty of God in salvation until they realize that they are dead in sin and under sin’s dominion and so will never believe until enabled by the Holy Spirit.  What could be more clear than, Php 1:29  For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.  So by now it should be clear that the new birth has to precede faith or this whole passage makes no sense.

Thirdly, John says not by the will of man.  At first glance this might seem redundant but experience has taught us that there are some that think they can force others into the Kingdom of God or they can bring someone into it without the other’s consent, so this is referring to someone else’s will.  Roman Catholic “missionaries” would be the first to come ashore when the conquistadors or some Catholic conquering force would overtake a new land.   The newly conquered people would be forced to pass before the priest and be “baptized” into the Catholic Church.  It clearly wasn’t the will of the “converted” but the will of the Church but this verse tells us that such forced conversions are still the will of man and does not bring anyone into the Kingdom. 

Another example of this is baptizing babies.  In this case it is obvious that the infant is not exercising faith because the infant has no ideas what is going on, so the adults are doing something to bypass true conversion and forcing salvation on them.  Never mind that there is no instance of this in the Bible, John 1:13 says that one cannot enter the Kingdom of God by the will of another person.  Only the will of God brings about the new birth and the resulting faith in Christ. 

Until the Lord comes back, the fact will always be that there will be different denominations and Christian groups who see things differently and therefore worship separately.  That is fine and no doubt one reason the Lord allows this is because it keeps us searching the Bible and defending the faith.  But I wonder how fewer false Christian sects and cults there would be if just these two verses were taken at face value?  If they would bow the knee to the sovereign God without whose work we would all be lost.  There would certainly be far fewer denominations, sects and cults than we have today.

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