Regeneration V: Return to Sender

Regeneration V
Return to Sender

Introduction

Today we will finish the final section on our series into the biblical doctrine of Regeneration, or what Jesus called, being “born again”. (Read John 3:16-21)

I remember when I was a new a Christian I was so excited because it seemed like- and this is how I explained it at the time- I had been wearing dark sunglasses all my life so that everything had been as a shadow of reality. But suddenly one day in March 2002, those sunglasses were miraculously removed so that I could finally see everything as it really was.

Not only that, but I realized that God could see everything inside of me- there was no thought that could be hidden from Him. It was as if he was this great flashlight that was shining into the dark pit of my mind and soul and penetrating every thought. You might think that access to my private thoughts by some omnipotent holy deity would be intimidating to say the least, but it actually brought me tremendous comfort. In spite of my darkness he still loved me and gave me salvation. Subjectively speaking, isn’t that what being born again is like?

I wanted to tell everyone about this truth I had discovered. In spite of the superficiality of my relationships, I knew my friends enough to know that they felt just as barren and were also starving for the ultimate meaning in life just as I had once been.

So imagine how surprised I was when one-by-one I phoned friends and even family members to tell them about my new faith only to have them respond to me with apathy and even outright hostility.

Most of them never spoke to me again- my family thought I was in some kind of a cult. Funny, because they had no problem when I was trafficking narcotics; when I was a foul mouthed, selfish man then. That was okay with everybody.

It wasn’t until I came to God and let him clean up my life so that my deeds were of Him that anybody thought I had a problem. They accused me of being simple minded and brain washed. I couldn’t understand how they unable see the Kingdom of God.

Maybe the answer is found in our text today; although for their sakes I hope not.

Notice that after verse 16 the tone of Jesus’ message begins to change in as he shifts away from the topic of salvation and towards the idea of judgment (condemnation): “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

From that we learn two precious facts: 1) Jesus was sent; 2) he was not sent to condemn (because that has already been done).

1) Let’s look at the first fact: Jesus was sent by His Father. In fact, it was a plan that they had conceived in eternity past and had been incubating through the course of human history.

To be an Apostle means being so close to the one who does the sending as to be deemed indistinguishable from the one sent. Jesus is the Father’s representative on earth. That’s why Jesus so often says things like, “if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Being sent is not only the epitome of Jesus’ life and mission, it is inherent in who he actually is.

John’s gospel frequently reiterates the apostolic character of Jesus’ incarnation which is simply to proclaim on behalf of God the Father the message most beautifully stated in John 3:16. “He whom God has sent speaks the words of God” (v. 34).

Even Jesus’ works were only secondary to his mission; their purpose was to testify to the fact that he had been sent to speak for God. Nichodemus seemed to get that when he testified to believing that Jesus was a teacher sent from God. it’s what Jesus meant when he said, “the very works that I do, [they] bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me” (5:36).

Believing that Jesus was sent by God the Father is indispensable to regeneration. And that is the work, not of the Son, but of the Father, who, through His Holy Spirit, draws people to Jesus and gives them the ability to believe so that they can be saved: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (6:27).

The dreadful flipside of that proposition is the condemnation of those who willfully disbelieve that Jesus was sent by God to preach that there is no other name on earth but Jesus’ name by which men can be saved (5:38): “He who does not believe has been judged already, because he does not believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (v. 18). I will have more to say about that shortly.

Jesus’ work then is to preach and to perform the signs, then to die for the elect in order to propitiate for their sins and then return to the Sender. He will come again, but not as an apostle, rather as a King and a judge. The message that he now preaches will have the decisive polarizing effect upon all humanity for all ages.

The parable of the Wicked Vinedressers in Luke 20:9-16 gives us a good picture of Jesus apostolic mission. The parable is about a rich man who purchased some property and planted a vineyard. The he leased it out to some of the locals and returned to his own country.

After the harvest he sent his servants to collect the rent, but the wicked vinedressers mistreated and abused the servants. After several tries, the landowner finally decided to send his son to them thinking they would respect him (Read v. 14-16).

The son was sent by his father to collect what was his and they killed him. Likewise, Jesus was sent to claim those whom the father has given him (Read vv. 17ff.). The Light that the darkness rejected will become a consuming fire…
2) That brings us to the second precious fact that we learn from John 3:17. It is that Jesus was not sent to bring condemnation. But then he goes on to talk about the condemnation of those who do not believe the gospel.

What, I wonder is this “Condemnation” that Jesus spoke of? Didn’t he just say that “God so loves the world”- why should there be any judgment? Can’t God just forgive us the way that we forgive others when they hurt us?

No… God can’t just forgive us that way because the sin which we have committed against Him is not only qualitatively different then the hurt which we cause each other, our sin is also quantitatively different.

1. It is qualitatively different because we have sinned against a God who is unspottedly Holy and Just and His Holiness demands justice.
2. It is quantitatively different because God is infinite and that makes our sin against Him infinite. Nothing that a finite being can do is sufficient to traverse the infinite gulf that separates us from our maker.

“This is the Condemnation” (v. 19). The Greek word is Krisis, it’s where we get our word Crisis- it means separation, judgment, or verdict. The thing that is being separated is humanity: between the children of light and the children of darkness.

In Matthew 13, Jesus taught the parable of the Wheat and the Tares, which helps us to understand what is being taught here.

The parable is about a farmer who sowed good seed and afterwards he went into his home. While he slept, the farmer’s enemy came and sowed weeds among the good seed. When the farmer’s servants discovered his treachery they came to the farmer and asked if they should go out and pull out all of the weeds.

Listen to that wise farmer’s reply, “Do not do this, lest while you gather up the weeds you pull out the wheat with them (now you know why he did not come to judge the world). Let them grow up together” said the farmer, “until the harvest” (Matt 13:29-30). Then at the harvest the wheat and the weeds will be gathered by the reapers and the weeds will be bound into bundles and burned, but the wheat will be stored in the barn.

That’s a picture of the krisis- the separation that Jesus did not come to do. But do not think that the seperation has not occurred between those who are saved and those who are condemned, because Jesus said that those who loved darkness already stand condemned.

Those lovers of darkness are the weeds, the sons of the evil one. They are of the same stock as the Egyptians who refused to set Moses’ people free from bondage and the Moabites who would not let them pass into the land of promise.

They share in the inheritance of people like some of the Pharisees whom Jesus called the sons of their father the devil because they loved darkness and so they shut up the only entrance to heaven thinking that if they could put him to death on the cross then no one would dare to believe his message.

“If God were your Father,” Jesus once told the Pharisees, “you would love Me; for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me’” (Jn 8:42).

We also know that in the last times immediately before Christ’s return, the Anti-Christ will appear. He’s also called the son of perdition, the son of Satan. Like Judas and those wicked Pharisees, the Anti-Christ already stands condemned- judged before the foundations of the earth- there is no hope for redemption in him.

Do we blame God for this? Certainly not, for if God were to arbitrarily elect some while he condemns others He would be unjust. It only appears like the wind is blowing, but the truth is that it is blowing where it wills according to the wisedom and foreknowledge of God.

Calling God unfair is like saying that a farmer who stored the wheat and destroyed the useless weeds unjust. Even though they didn’t deserve it, those weeds had their opportunity at life until the time of the harvest. And there judgment will be just.

It is not in condemnation that God’s justice appears unfair, but in those who go to heaven. For, those who are saved are the ones who don’t get what they deserve. But make no mistake, God’s justice is in no way compromised in our salvation, it is perfectly met by Christ on our behalf at the cross.

Here’s the application:

If you practice the truth, if you really love the light, then come out of the darkness now, “so that your deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God. Do it before it’s too late. And if you are born again, remember that you are in the light:

For, destruction will come suddenly upon those who love darkness… and they will not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do…. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for… salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. (1 Thess 5:3-10).

If you are of the light this morning, rejoice; if you are not, don’t delay- come to the light, come to the truth, believe that Jesus is sent of God, believe the gospel that he preached. The Children of light will return to the source of their light and darkness will be condemned because it hates the light.