Regeneration in the Old Testament? Oh Yes!
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 4:23PM 
In the conversation between Christ and Nicodemus, recorded in John’s Gospel, the Saviour showed that there are no spiritual activities without regeneration; in his first epistle, John labours the converse truth that there is no regeneration without spiritual activities. The fruits of regeneration are repentance, faith and good works. The regenerate believe rightly in Jesus Christ (1 John 5:1). They do righteousness (2:29). They do not live a life of sin (3:9; 5:18; the verbs ‘commits sin’, ‘cannot sin’, ‘does not sin’, express habitual actions, as the present tense regularly does in Greek, and not absolute sinlessness, as 1:8-10 makes clear). They experience faith’s victory over the world (5:4). They love their fellow-Christians (4:7). These are the marks by which the regenerate are known; for no man could do any of these things were he not born again. But we have no warrant for regarding anyone as regenerate without these marks. Any who lack them, whatever they may claim, are to be adjudged unregenerate children of the devil (3:6-10). Regeneration is known by its fruits.
Here, incidentally, is a sufficient answer to the question whether spiritual regeneration was a reality in Old Testament times. Fallen human nature was no less incompetent in spiritual things then than it is now. Had there been no regeneration in Old Testament times, there would have been no faith, and Hebrews 11 could never have been written.
From the chapter on regeneration in 18 Words: The Most Important Words You Will Ever Know by J. I. Packer.
Reader Comments (4)
Good words here. Thinking also of I Peter 1:10-11:
"Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories"
Salvation would be impossible apart from regeneration in any age.
Have a great weekend Rebecca.
Is the death of Christ necessary for regeneration? If not, why then did Christ have to die for our sins?
The reason I am asking is this: the work of Max Black and Antony Flew pretty much disproved the possibility of backward causation. If it were possible, it would lead to what are called "bilking" paradoxes. Because those paradoxes are self-contradictory, so is backward causation.
This means that if the cross of Christ is essential to regeneration (Hebrews 10 supports this), then regeneration could not have taken place in the Old Testament. Yet, many in the Old Testament were saved, and repentant, and obedient.
So I would turn your modus ponens into a modus tollens. Because Hebrews 11 was written, it means that the Old Testament saints had salvation and repentant hearts apart from regeneration, and we must take this fact into account whenever we come to a New Testament passage like Romans 8. Whatever it means, it cannot be speaking in terms of regenerate vs. unregenerate.
Is the death of Christ necessary for regeneration?
Didn't God pass over sins committed in OT times because he knows he will bring about Christ's death in NT times (Romans 3:24-26)? Couldn't regeneration in OT times be the same sort of thing?
BTW, this is not backwards causation because Christ's death is not in the chain of events (so to speak) that brings about regeneration in OT times. It's only God's knowledge that he will bring about Christ's death that is in the chain of events that cause OT regeneration.
Hebrew children in the Old Testament were born into God's covenant, both male and female. Circumcision was the sign of this covenant for boys, but the sign was not what saved them. Faith saved them. Rejecting the sign, circumcision, for boys, either by the parents or later as an adult himself, was a sign of a lack of true faith, and therefore the child was "cut off" from God's promises as clearly stated in Genesis chapter 17:
"Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, 13 both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
What was the purpose of this covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? God tells us in the beginning of this chapter of Genesis:
"And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you."
This covenant wasn't just to establish a Jewish national identity or a promise of the inheritance of the land of Caanan, as some evangelicals want you to believe. In this covenant, God promises to be their God. Does God say here that he will be their God only if they make a "decision for God" when they are old enough to have the intelligence and maturity to decide for themselves? No! They are born into the covenant!
If Jewish children grew up trusting in God and lived by faith, they then received eternal life when they died. If when they grew up, they rejected God, turned their back on God, and lived a life of willful sin, when they died, they suffered eternal damnation. Salvation was theirs to LOSE. There is no record anywhere in the Bible that Jewish children were required to make a one time "decision for God" upon reaching an "Age of Accountability" in order to be saved.
Therefore, Jewish infants who died, even before circumcision, were saved.
The same is true today. Christian children are born into the covenant. They are saved by faith. It is not the act of baptism that saves, it is faith. The refusal to be baptized is a sign of a lack of true faith and may result in the child being "cut off" from God's promise of eternal life, to suffer eternal damnation, as happened with the unfaithful Hebrew in the OT.
Christ said, "He that believes and is baptized will be saved, but he that does not believe will be damned."
It is not the lack of baptism that damns, it is the lack of faith that damns.
http://www.lutherwasnotbornagain.com/2013/09/the-bible-says-that-infants-can-have.html