The Spirit Quickens!

How does a sinner suddenly receive spiritual life? How can a person be dead in sins one moment and then a second later...he or she receives life? We understand that in the moments of salvation there are some things that we must do. We must humble ourselves before a thrice holy God admitting that we are sinners from a heart of Spirit-wrought repentance. In our helplessness to save ourselves we cry out to the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness. Trusting His full payment for our sins we believe His death, burial, and resurrection paid for our gross violations against the perfect law of God. We acknowledge that Jesus is God and Lord and place ourselves at His mercy to deliver us from our blood-guilt, past of sinful practices, and to grant us eternal life in grace. In short we repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:23; 3:10; 5:12; 6:23; 3:21-28; 10:8-17). 

What does God do in those moments when we trust Him for salvation? The Scriptures declare repeatedly that God performs a miracle in our souls called regeneration (Tit 3:5; John 3). God floods us with divine life! He awakens our dead human spirit and suddenly we are alive to God! Note now more specifically how all of this unfolds.

We Are Quickened To Life

The Apostle Paul in Galatians 5:25, says, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Believers are thus described as living in the Spirit. We have life and relationship with God in the Holy Spirit. John’s gospel in 6:63, says, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” The Lord Jesus distinguishes the physical from the spiritual indicating his words are quickening and life giving when believed. Then Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:6, says, “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” Once again the Spirit of God gives life and this is the fundamental nature of the New Testament message. So believers live in the Spirit, are quickened by the Word and the Spirit, and the Spirit gives life.

The word “quicken” means to make alive or revive. It refers to being made alive together with the risen living Christ (Eph. 2:1, 5; Col. 2:13). God uses His word to make spiritually dead sinners alive in Christ when they repent and believe the gospel. The “quick” are the saved and the “dead” are the unsaved (Acts 10:42; 2Tim. 4:1).

God Gives Us A Divine Nature

So regeneration is the Spirit quickening man’s dead spirit and implanting a divine nature (Eph. 2:4-5; 2Pet. 1:4). How does the new birth relate to the new nature? By regeneration sinners are made “partakers” of the “divine nature” according to Peter (2 Pet. 1:4).  Paul describes this as having put on the “new man,” which after God is created in holiness and righteousness (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10).  Christ now lives in the NT believer (Gal. 2:20).  God’s “seed” now abides in each child of God (1John 3:9). So that henceforth the believer is possessed of two natures (Gal. 5:17). This reality situates Christians to live out a life devoted to the Lord daily. 

A new nature (2 Cor. 5:17), means a new capacity to serve and live in righteousness.  The old nature is not eradicated, for the capacity to serve self and sin continues until one dies. Regeneration does not make believers perfect, but it places them in the family of God and gives them the new ability to please The Father by growing into the image of Christ. The struggle within may be intense on occasions, but the new nature can triumph over the old more frequently if Christians conscientiously strengthen it and capitulate to it.  Fruit from the new nature is proof that regeneration has occurred (1Jn 2:29).  Thus regeneration is a crisis with a view to a process of change. The Spirit’s new governing power comes into the regenerate man’s life by which they are enabled to become holy in experience: “Old things are passed away; behold all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).  Consider also Acts 16:14; Ezekiel 36:25–27;  and 1 John 3:6–9 for more biblical insight.

Mankind has self-destructed gorging itself with sin and wicked lawlessness. “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)” (Ephesians 2:4–5). Out of such hopelessness and devastation, Christians are raised to new life in Christ. “We were dead” in trespasses and “sins,” Paul wrote. In what sense was humanity dead?  Obviously all mankind is not dead physically. Sinners were dead spiritually, which means separated from God and destined to an eternity in the Lake of Fire.  Max Anders (1995, Chapter 3) said in his book The Holy Spirit: Knowing Our Comforter,

It is like a husband and wife who no longer love each other. Hostility and rejection lie at the core of their relationship. They do not talk to each other. They no longer live in the same house. Their relationship, people say, is dead. It means more than that to be dead in our trespasses and sins before God, but at least that example gives us a glimpse of the meaning. It does not mean that we have ceased living, spiritually. It means we are separated, cut off, alienated from God.  

Certainly the human spirit has been contaminated with sin, and God cannot tolerate the presence of sin. Therefore, apart from His amazing love for lost humanity, He cannot tolerate sin at all. There is only one hope. The “old man,” contaminated with sin, must die. That is what Paul meant when he said, “I am crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20).  Spiritually identified with Christ, believers are placed in Christ, and the crucifixion that He experienced, believers also experience. The death that Christ literally died, believers likewise share. This gets rid of the sin. Then, by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, repentant sinners turn to Christ and are born again, this time, to new life. This time, Christians are without sin in their new inner man (Romans 7:15–8:1).  To be sure Christians  still sin, but somehow the sin is not attributed to their regenerated spirit, the new inner man; it is correctly assigned to the old flesh—fallen human nature. 

According to Anders (1995, Chapter 3) there is nothing else that needs to happen to the new spirit before it can go to heaven. Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:24, “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” What an astonishing statement. The “new man,” is fashioned in the likeness of God, in righteousness and holiness.  Of course, believers all know that they sin, but Paul steadfastly refuses to attribute the sin to the new inner man. He goes out of his way to place it in what he calls “the flesh”. Consider what he said to the Romans,

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me (Romans 7:18-21).

Struggles with the old nature will persist throughout the Christian experience. Regeneration is the imparting of the new nature and not the elimination of the old nature. For now believers must daily fight the flesh and trust the Spirit for power and victory. This will be developed in a later chapter more thoroughly. Consider how Paul completes this thought in Romans 8:22-23,

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

Salvation is currently incomplete. Though consummation will certainly be realized in the fullest sense, for now it is a future hope. Max Anders (1995, Chapter 3) explains,

His point here is that our complete redemption will not occur until we die and get a new body, uncontaminated by sin. We could say that we are redeemed in stages. One stage is our spiritual redemption when we are born again. Another stage is our progressive spiritual growth while on earth. A third stage is our physical redemption, when we receive new bodies.... Again regeneration is that act of the Holy Spirit by which He causes us to be born again, spiritually, at the moment we place our faith in Christ.  In our salvation, the Holy Spirit causes us to be born again, spiritually, resulting in eternal life. 

So there you have it! The Spirit does indeed quicken our dead human spirits at the instant we trust Christ as Savior and Lord. This miracle of grace cannot be manufactured by us; this is why we cannot earn salvation or serve to make ourselves acceptable to God. God will never be forced to save anyone because they were so devoted, sincere, committed, served so long, or was such a good person. These are not the basis for genuine salvation according to the Scriptures. God must regenerate and quicken us as an expression of incredible mercy and grace! What a blessing though! To be touched deep within by the Spirit of the Living God and made alive forever!