Regeneration with John Piper, “Faith: Unique and Fruitful Effect of the New Birth,” Part 1, 13

John 1:1-14 and the New Birth Through the Word

The sermon text for this evening is John chapter 1, verses 1 through 14, and again we're at John chapter 1, verses 1 through 14. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we have seen his glory. Glory is the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Let's pray. Lord, those are spectacular words. To those who received him, who believed on his name, he gave the right, the authority to become children of the Creator of the universe, who were born not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of any man, but born of God.

Spectacular words. To be a child of God. There is nothing greater than to be an heir of all that God is and has. To have God as our Father. There's nothing greater. So God, we want to get this right. We don't want to mess up when it comes to understanding these two verses in John 1.

So help us. We want to understand what it is to be born of God and how it relates to receiving Christ and believing on his name. We want to understand how the Word of God, which awakens faith, works. So come, help us.

And while we work on this, do this work. Do it at the downtown campus. Do it at the South site. And do it here right now. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. I was listening to a lecture by Vishal Mangalwadi called, From Bach to Cobain.

A lecture that he gave at the University of Minnesota last fall in a series of messages entitled, Must the Sun Set on the West? So I'm three messages into it and finding it most provocative and helpful.

I recommend it to you. In that talk, he mentioned briefly the reality of this thing called mantra, the mantra in Eastern religions. And as I listened to him describe what it is and how it functions, I thought, I gotta talk about that in relationship to the new birth.

Because everything hangs on how we understand and then apply the biblical teaching that it is through Word that we are born again. Do we understand it as mantra or gospel? And what's the difference? So let's try to make a connection between last week's focus from 1 Peter 1 .23 to this week's focus in John 1 verses 12 and 13.

They're very similar verses when you think about them. I'm amazed how many religious websites, not Christian websites, just religious websites link mantra with John 1 .1. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, brought in as a support for the understanding of mantra.

And the essence of it is that ultimate reality resides in sound, sacred sound. And the way you come to transcend your earthly existence and participate in the divine is to take sacred sounds upon your lips and by means of their repetition, empty your mind and become unified with that ultimate sound, the Word.

That's the way they understand or expropriate John 1 .1. One site, website, explains mantra like this, quote, Just by repeating the name, that which cannot be understood will be understood and that which, and just by repeating the name, that which cannot be seen will be seen, close quote.

So in other words, the way a mantra works is not by clarifying the meaning of words and showing how the meaning of words corresponds to ultimate reality. Rather, a mantra works by being a combination of verbal sounds without verbal meaning.

The aim of a mantra is not to make ideas clear, but to make ideas vanish. So that by a more immediate route, you may commune with ultimate reality. Now you need to know where you stand on that, how you think about that use of words and sounds and repetition, especially as it relates to salvation and the new birth.

Many Christians with very weak roots in Scripture don't know what they believe about mantra and other aspects of Eastern religion and how God relates to them, how the mind relates to God through word, and they drift into practices of Eastern religions without any sense.

That they might be drifting away from Christ. First Peter 1 .23, I'm going to draw you from last week to this week. First Peter 1 .23 says, having been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the miracle of renewal and newness and life from the dead comes through the living and abiding Word of God.

Now how do you conceive of that happening? This is stupendously important. We are born again, united by the Spirit to the living Christ who is our life. We are born again through the Word of God. This miracle by which we become children of the living God and live forever with Him and escape condemnation, this miracle happens through the Word of God, it says in First Peter 1 .23.

So you need to decide whether that's a reference to the use of the Word of God as a mantra or the use of the Word of God as a mentally intelligible narration of historical events concerning Jesus Christ crucified and risen for our sins.

This is really big. We take something so for granted we don't realize how really strange they are in the world, and not realizing how distinct the Bible view is of how you get born again through the Word, not realizing how distinct it is in how the mind and word and understanding relate to the miracle, we can be easily drawn into some mystical offering that comes our way that sounds like it might add to our failing experience.

Are we connected to the divine reality, to God by the new birth, by a mystical process of repetition of sacred sounds, freeing our minds from thought and gaining immediate access to ultimate reality, or are we connected to divine reality, Jesus Christ crucified and risen by hearing and believing intelligible words about history, history, events, namely Jesus Christ's death and resurrection?

After saying in First Peter 1 .23, through the living and abiding Word, he says in verse 25, this Word is the good news that was preached to you. In other words, the Word through which we're born again is called the gospel, the good news.

Let me read it to you. This is 1 Corinthians 15 .1 -3. This is the summary, the clear summary in the Bible of the news that one is born again by hearing, grasping, and embracing. It goes like this. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel, that is the good news that I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold fast to the Word that I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with Scriptures, and that He was buried. Feel that earth. That He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, that He appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve.

That's verses 1 -5 of 1 Corinthians 15. In other words, when 1 Peter 1 .23 says we are born again by the living and abiding Word, that Word is the gospel which we preach, and that gospel is defined on He died for our sins according to Scripture, He was buried, He was raised according to Scriptures.

Those are historical events. This is a story about a person and about an event that you could see with your eyes, touch with your hands, hear with your ears. That must be known, believed, embraced as a historical reality.

Through that we are born again. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. We are saved by believing it, standing in it, embracing it. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

Romans 10 .17. Listen to Galatians 3 .2 and 5. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law? Pause. Insert mantra. I will do this thing. I will do this thing. I will do this thing. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

Hearing what? The gospel, the story. Does He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Answer, hearing with faith. In other words, hearing with faith is what happens when you are born again through the living and abiding Word of God because the Word of God is the gospel and the gospel awakens faith.

It's news about Jesus Christ. It's news. You never can emphasize enough that the heart of Christianity is news. Did you hear? Did you hear? Son of God has come. Son of God lived. Son of God died for you.

Son of God rose again. Death is defeated. Hell is closed. Victory over death is achieved. It's for you. Will you have it? It's news. We turn it into so many other things besides news. It's just stunning news.

Really good news. And you've got to understand it. You've got to hear it like a story. You've got to know, well, who is this Jesus and what do you mean by a cross and what's a resurrection? You've got to understand a few things and then you've got to embrace it as your hope of life.

Living in abiding Word, the gospel is not a mantra. It doesn't work like that. It doesn't work through the repetition of sacred sounds. It works because it is an intelligible truth about what really happened in history, about Jesus Christ and how as a perfect God-man, He was put to death by the Father's will, bearing the wrath of God so that we might go free from our sins and then He rises to vindicate His work and He reigns at the Father's right hand.

There's the story. You've got to know that. Believe that. Not work yourself into an empty-headed, free, immediate communer with some abstract divine reality. Please, Bethlehem, don't go there. Don't add that on and thus undermine the gospel.

So what we learn from 1 Peter 1 .23, born again through the living and abiding Word of God, is that the whole worldview supporting the mantra is wrong. It isn't rooted in history. It isn't rooted in Jesus Christ.

It isn't rooted in intelligibility of historical reality and narrative. It isn't rooted in responsibility of human mind to construe meaning from the preaching of Christ. It isn't rooted in the duty of the soul to see and believe the gospel, Christ crucified.

I'm jealous for you. I am jealous for Bethlehem to have discernment when you go to the YWCA and not be foolish signing up for your yoga classes, not knowing what you're doing, maybe even leading them and not knowing what you're doing.

Yoga is to the body what a mantra is to the mouth. They're both rooted in the same worldview. You go to the Minneapolis YWCA website, go to fitness classes, try this tonight, go to fitness classes, and then do a little search, yoga, 22 entries, beginning yoga, MS yoga, youngster yoga, youth dancing yoga, yoga for everybody.

Here's one definition of mantra yoga, quote, one has to chant a word or phrase until he or she transcends mind and emotions. In the process, the superconscious is discovered and achieved. Or here's the definition of yoga at one website.

It's not a Christian website. These are just yoga websites. Yoga focuses on harmony between mind and body. Yoga derives its philosophy from Indian metaphysical beliefs. The word yoga comes from Sanskrit language and means union or merger.

The ultimate aim of this philosophy is to strike a balance between mind and body and attain self-enlightenment. To achieve this, yoga uses movement, breath, posture, relaxation, meditation in order to establish a healthy, lively, balanced approach to life.

You were born again by the living and abiding word of God. This word is the gospel of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen and reigning on your behalf. Don't fall prey to another gospel. Don't undermine the true gospel by attaching another gospel to it.

There is no other gospel and there is no other path to God or to ultimate well-being than hearing, understanding, and believing the scandalous news of Jesus Christ. So, when we come to John 1 .1, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

We don't stop there and rip it out of context and make it serve mantra. We don't do that. We keep reading to find out what you mean. Who are you, Word? And we come to verse 14, which is why I ended the text there.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen His glory, glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. That's why the Word can't be a mantra. It became a man. The gospel became a man and the man became the gospel.

Dwelt among us, lived a perfect life, died in our place, bore the wrath of God, rose physically from the dead, comes to us in a historical narrative. Christ comes to you in the gospel. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation.

Christ comes to you in the gospel, the story of His saving work, that He died for you, that He rose for you. Our job, hear it by grace, understand it, receive it, be born again in it, and never, never, never, never, never by mantras or any other means try to empty your brain of it, ever.

Empty brains are a big welcome sign for the devil. Jesus said, sweep the room clean, put nothing in it, seven demons come back, not one. You think this is small stuff at the YWCA? Let's focus on verses 11 to 13.

He came to His own, this touchable, seeable flesh, Jesus, He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. Don't be among that number in this service, downtown, south. Don't be among that number.

Don't you be among that number. He came to His own, His own people did not receive Him, but be among this number. To all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave them the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

The structure of those two verses, 12 and 13, is very similar to 1 Peter 1 .22 and 1 .23. In verse 12, the right to become a child of God is connected with what? Receiving Him, that is, believing on Him.

Said in two ways, use either one. Receive Him or believe on His name, same thing, just repetition. So in doing that, you receive the right to become a child of God. You become a child of God. That's very much like verse 22, where we were purified by obedience to the truth.

And the purification representing what happened to the new birth and obedience to the truth was obedience to the gospel, which is faith. So faith and new birth, being a child of God, are connected in verse 12 here, like they were in verse 22 in 1 Peter 1.

Then in verse 13, being born again is not connected with the act of believing, but with God's act of begetting. He's mentioned faith and child of God in verse 12. Now he's mentioning born again by God, born again by God.

Who were born again, verse 13, not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. So the emphasis in verse 13 is God did this. And the emphasis of verse 12 is you believe and you receive, and in that, you become a child of God.

Okay, so same thing we saw last week.