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One January when my youngest children were both in elementary school, we had a long cold snap. The thermometer stayed below -40C for almost three weeks. I didn’t want to drive in such extreme temperatures, so I walked them to school each morning. The three of us, bundled in thick parkas, snow pants, heavy boots, tuques, mitts, hats, and scarves, set out toward the school each morning.

At first it didn’t feel cold, and the street lights and lamps in our neighbours’ houses lit out way. But three-quarters of the way there, we left our subdivision to walk through the forest on a small trail that led to the school. The sky was black, the air was thick with ice fog, and our legs began to ache with cold. If there were other people on the trail, we didn’t see or hear them. No life, no light, no warmth. It was as if the whole world was dead around us.

But just five months, our morning walks to school were completely different. The sun was up and shining. The air was warm. The trees had fresh green leaves, and the birds were singing. The land was alive once more.

The yearly change from winter to spring reminds me of the first part of Ephesians 2. All believers, Paul writes, were once “dead in the trespasses and sins” (verse 1), but God “made [them] alive together with Christ” (verse 5). God’s work of salvation brings new spiritual life to people who were spiritually dead. He brings the warmth and light of spring where there was once dark winter coldness.

Everything Changes

Scripture also calls this transformation being born again (John 3:3-8; 1 Peter 1:23), being newly created (Ephesians 2:10; 2 Corinthians 5:17), or becoming a new self or new person (Ephesians 4:24). Theologians often call it regeneration.

According to Louis Berkhof, when this change happens, “the governing disposition of [a person’s] soul is made holy”.¹ In Ephesians 2:2-3, which come between verses 1 and 5 quoted above, Paul wrote that our natural governing disposition—the spiritually dead one we are born with—is definitely unholy. A spiritually dead person is

following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind … . (Ephesians 2:2-3)

In our natural state, we are governed by Satan and our own sinful desires. But when we are reborn, we come under the dominion of the Holy Spirit. Or to put it another way, in the new birth, the Spirit unites us to Christ, who lives his resurrection life within us.

When we recieve new life, everything changes. We once saw no need for repentance, but now, repentance is our way of life. We had no desire or ability to follow Christ, but now we do.

New Life Gives Faith

Someone who has been born again believes Christ, loves him, and trusts him. In the last post in this series, we learned that the faith by which we are saved is a gift from God. He implants new life within us, and “conscious, intentional, active faith in Christ is [the] immediate fruit.”²Everyone who has been born again repents and believes. The reverse is also true: No one repents and believes unless they have been born again.

New Life Grows Holiness

What’s more, just as the light of spring brings new growth in a forest, new spiritual life brings spiritual growth. Regeneration changes our attitudes and actions, and we become more and more obedient to Christ. We begin to bear spiritual fruit. Some sin will always remain in this life (1 John 1:8), but a person who has been born again cannot keep on living the same old life characterized by sin (1 John 3:9). Someone with new life will grow increasingly holy (1 John 2:29).

Theologians call this process—the growth of holiness in someone who is regenerated—sanctification. Sanctification is, first of all, God’s work. The Holy Spirit works within the believer, causing them to want to please God and giving them the power to do so (Philippians 2:13). And in response, the believer works to do what pleases God (Philippians 2:12). Our growth in obedience is completely dependent on God’s inner recreative work, but we are never passive in the process. We work to do what God has prepared for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

Out with the Old, In with the New

It is every believer’s job to become what, through God’s regenerating work, we already are. Paul exhorts us to “put off [our] old self, which belongs to [our] former manner of life” and “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24).

Jesus, the one with whom we have been united in the new birth, the one whose resurrection life gives us our new life, is our example as we live out our new life of obedience. In sanctification, we are becoming conformed to his image—and the more we grow in our knowledge him, the more we become like him (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Are you a believer? Then work to become what you already are—a new person recreated in Christ’s image.

1 Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof, page 469
2 Concise Theology by J. I. Packer, page 158.

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