Open Letter to John Piper #0.019
Introduction
Pages 19-20
Crucial Questions about Being Born Again
(I’ll include my corporate comments at the end.)
+ “What is the new birth? That is, what actually happens? What is it like? What changes? What comes into being that wasn’t there before?
+ “How does being born again relate to:
God’s effectual calling (“Those whom he called he justified,” Rom. 8:30),
the new creation (“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” 2 Cor. 5:17),
God’s drawing us to Christ (“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him,” John 6:44),
God’s giving people to his Son (“All that the Father gives me will come to me,” John 6:37),
God’s opening our hearts (“The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul,” Acts 16:14),
God’s illumining our hearts (“God…has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,” 2 Cor. 4:6),
God’s taking the heart of stone out and giving us a heart of flesh (“I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh,” Ezek. 36:26),
God’s making us alive (“even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ,” Eph. 2:5),
God’s adopting us into his family (“You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” Rom. 8:15).”
+ “How does God’s act of regeneration relate to all these wonderful ways of describing what happened to us when God saved us?”
+ “Why is the new birth necessary?”
+ “Until we realize that we must be born again, and why we must be born again, we probably will not realize what our condition really is without salvation. Most people do not know what is really wrong with them. One way to help them make a true and terrible and hopeful diagnosis is to show them the kind of remedy God has provided, namely, the new birth.”
+ “How?”
+ “For what?”
+ “What can we do to help others be born again?”
John, you cover every pertinent question regarding the new birth that could possibly come to mind. Well done. This beyond a shadow of a doubt the most careful introduction (biblically speaking) I’ve read in a long time. Hoping to read biblical answers to these vital questions in the pages to come!
