Crucial Questions about Being Born Again

Crucial Questions about Being Born Again

There are several crucial questions we will be asking. One is: 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?

Along the way, we will be trying to explain how the new birth
relates to other things that God does to save us. For example,
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 tres-
passes, [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).

This page is from a book "Finally Alive" by John Piper page 19