The Timelessness of God — Major Ian Thomas

Living within us, through his gracious indwelling Holy Spirit. So give us sensitivity to your instructions and the grace of obedience, that the Holy Spirit may do his delightful work in clothing our Lord Jesus in fuller and increasing measure with our bodies as we gladly yield them to him, that he might be king in his kingdom.

And we ask it in his DNA. Amen. Good to be with you again this morning. We're going to turn to the first chapter of the second of Peter's epistles. This is where we shall begin this morning. Probably won't be where we'll end, but at least it'll be where we begin.

The second of Peter's epistles, and the first chapter, and the sixteenth verse. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we make known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

Peter’s Eyewitness of Christ’s Majesty

For he received from God the Father honour and glory. When there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

And so here Peter describes what must have been to him a very treasured memory. A wonderful experience, we call it today the mount of transfiguration. When the Lord Jesus appeared to Peter, James and John, as they were with him in the mount, transfigured before their presence, a foretaste of his present glory.

And this was an experience which was entirely legitimate, it was healthy, wholesome and wonderful. And one which Peter might, together with James and John, legitimately treasure. And God in his goodness gives to all of us such unique experiences, when in a special and wonderful way we are conscious of the Lord's presence.

But having reminded those to whom he is here writing, of this very wonderful time that he spent with James and John in the mount with the Lord Jesus, Elijah, Moses, do you remember who appeared and with whom the Lord Jesus discussed the death as he described it?

Not that he would suffer, but the death that he would accomplish at Jerusalem. For the death of the Lord Jesus, remember, was not that of a noble idealist who drifted tragically to disaster, it was an accomplishment, it was a divine end.

The things concerning me, said the Lord Jesus, have an end. They're not coming to an end, they have an end. But having reminded them of this, then Peter goes on to say this. In spite of all of that, marvelous as it was to hear the very voice of God himself from heaven, acknowledging his own dear son, transfigured before our very eyes, in spite of all that, verse 19, we have a more sure word of promise.

Where unto you do well that you take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star rise in your heart. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Now, do you get the main thrust of what Peter is saying? He says marvelous, legitimate, wholesome, healthy, wonderful, as may have been that unusual experience.

We have a more sure word of promise. This amazing book of divine authorship, the scriptures, given as holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. What Peter in so many words is saying is this.

Truth never ultimately derives from experience. No matter how marvelous that experience may be, no matter how right, no matter how divinely originated, no truth derives from experience. But experience to be valid, experience to be healthy, experience to be wholesome, experience to be safe must always derive from truth.

And that is something that we need always to remind ourselves of. You see, if Peter hadn't grasped that fact, then, of course, his experience there on the Mount of Transfiguration would have been exaggerated in his mind out of all proportions.

And, of course, in any case, his memory could have failed him. And human nature being what it is, how easily we can multiply our experiences, exaggerate them and overemphasize them. And it wouldn't have been long before Peter would have been wholly preoccupied with that experience.

This would have been the criterion of his Christian life. And he would have become a Transfigurationist. And instead of preaching Christ, he'd have preached Transfiguration. He'd have been going around saying, Have you had a Transfiguration experience?

You haven't? Well, I am sorry. You must seek that Transfiguration experience because, you know, that really is the criterion of spirituality. Until you have a Transfiguration experience like me, you know how you go?

That's what would have happened. This has happened all down the centuries. To what a tragic extent it's happening today, where people are putting experiences on the market rather than the Lord Jesus himself.

The blessings instead of the blessing. The gifts instead of the gifts. You see, the one that matters is the one from whom everything must always derive. The Lord Jesus, who is the life. The life of the body.

The one who, as God alone, has the sovereign right to direct your activity and mine and express himself spontaneously through it, 24 hours a day, in any way he pleases, subject to his divine, sovereign and timeless will.

Notice, Peter, we've got a more sure word of prophecy. I have every right to look back with thankfulness to God for that particular manifestation that we enjoyed at that particular time. But he said, I don't derive my Christian life from that.

I don't derive the message that I proclaim from that. God has given us a timeless revelation that is always authentic and ever true. It's this more sure word of prophecy. So this is the first principle with which we'll begin these morning sessions.

Scripture as God’s Timeless Word

And that is this, that the form of Scripture, the form of Scripture from Genesis to the Revelation, right the way through, the form of Scripture is the word of God. It doesn't just contain the word of God.

You don't have to pick and scratch and find little bits that you think are valid and jettison the rest. No, from the beginning to the end, the form of Scripture is the word of God. It is a divine declaration of intent.

It's something that God had to say, and having said it, it's something that God intends that you and I should know. A declaration of intent. And when I describe the word of God as a declaration of intent, I don't mean that it is something that God hopes will happen.

When we make a declaration of intent, that's all that is really involved. If I say to you, it is my intention on Saturday to fly to Portland, Oregon, that isn't the final word. I may die of a heart attack the day after tomorrow.

Or somebody very kindly may drive me down the road and wind me around a lamppost. The Lord Jesus himself may come between now and Saturday. All kinds of things could happen. It's my intention, but there's absolutely no certainty that it's going to take place.

It may be your intention, and you may have thus declared it to your friends, to visit Europe next vacation. Well, that's your declaration of intent, but there's absolutely no certainty about it. But when, you see, God makes a declaration of intent, it's as timeless and valid and sure as God himself.

You see, there is a historicity about the future, so far as God is concerned, as there is a historicity about the past, so far as we're concerned. You see, God is timeless. We're creatures of time. We happen to live on a little planet that goes revolving around the sun.

Happens to do it in what we have divided into 24 hours, so we call it a day. Sunrise, sunset, then a new day dawn. Of course, if we were a little nearer to the sun, our hours would be that much shorter because we'd go around that much quicker.

And of course, if we were farther away from the sun, our hours would be that much longer. We'd have to be awake for twice as many hours before we had the chance of going to bed. Because, you see, it would take that much longer to go around the sun.

We're just creatures of relativity. God isn't. God isn't. God is timeless. The Lord Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. There's no past, no present, no future with God. As though they were relative to one to the other.

God is the eternal I am. This is something that our finite minds, of course, find it very difficult to grasp. The only difference between the future and the past, as far as God is concerned, is that the future hasn't happened yet in human experience.

That's the only difference. I don't know whether you've seen one of those Swiss sort of musical boxes. I'm sure some of you, if you've visited that country, have got one. You know, you open the lid and it plays a little tune.

Or it may be a fruit bowl. And when you take the weight off, then it plays a tune again. Have you ever looked inside? I'm sure some of you must have done so. But, you see, that tune is pegged out on a brass cylinder.

It's just a brass cylinder. And a little peg all over it. And this brass cylinder revolves by clockwork. And as it revolves, so the little pegs, placed differently, impinge upon the teeth of what looks like a comb.

But, of course, all the teeth are different lengths. So each tooth plays a different note. And as the cylinder revolves, so the teeth that are pegged out on it impinge against the teeth on the comb and play the tune.

So, you see, in a sense, you can pick up that brass cylinder and there's the whole tune, pegged out. From beginning to end. But it doesn't become experiential to you until in the process of time, slowly it turns.

And in the process of time, the tune already pegged out to play and becomes real in your experience. Now, that, in a sense, is God compared to you and to me. He can see the whole picture from beginning to end.

I'm glad that's true. If it weren't true, we'd never be absolutely certain the Lord Jesus was coming again. We can only hope that everything will work out according to plan. You know, and God sitting up in heaven, sort of, peeping through damp clouds, biting his fingernails, hoping, you know, that everything is going to, you know, fulfill the...

Is that the expectation we have of the return of the Lord Jesus? No, it's as sure as the dawn. Just as sure as the dawn. We're looking forward to his coming. You look in the prophecy of Isaiah, and the 47th chapter, 46th chapter.

Isaiah 46, and verse 9. Remember the former things of old. For I am God. There is none else. I am. Not I was. Not I will be. I am God. And there is none like me. And you know, if there is one thing that God wants us to know more than anything else, it's just precisely and exactly that.

I am God. And in point of fact, if only we'd settle for that, if only we would settle for that, and act on the assumption that is true, all our problems would immediately be solved. At once. For each one of us, individually.

I am God. In all that that comprehends. Be still, he says in the psalm, and know something. Now stop the panic. Stop fighting. Stop rushing around. Be still, God, and know something. What is it? I'm God.

I'm God. You see, in all our planning, in all our programming, in all the ambitions we cherish, in all our manipulations, there's one thing we constantly forget. What is it? God just happens to be God.

He that cometh to God must first believe that God was. God will be. So you simply cherish memories of the past, or plan for the future. Uh-uh. He that cometh to God must first believe that God is. And not only that he is, but that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

In other words, all that God is, is available to the man who is available to all that God is. Now that's the secret of the Christian life. All that God is, is available to the man who is available to all that God is.

Now if that's true, and you were to settle for being totally available to all that God is, what could frighten you? If God be for us, who can be against us? So what's the panic? This is the sheer glorious sublime simplicity of the Christian life.

But for some reason or other we will avoid that simplicity at all costs, and complicate it. We must, we must somehow turn it into a procedure. We must somehow turn it into a formula. We must somehow reduce it to rules and regulations.

Instead of the glorious fact that God is, and all that he is, is available to me so long as I am available to him. All I've got to do in other words is let God be God. And that's the nature of faith that we were talking about yesterday.

Remember the former things of old, he says, I am God, there is none else. I am God, there is none like me. Verse 10 of Isaiah 46, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done.

Saying, my counsel shall stand. I will do. How much? All my pleasure. Middle of verse 11, I, God says, have spoken. I, says God, will also bring it apart. I have purposed it. I will also do it. So you and I are safe, only as we are prepared to be caught up into his eternal, timeless purposes and plans.

And of course if we are prepared for that, according to his purpose, what can we know? All things work together for good to them that are called according to his purpose. And are available to that purpose because they love him.

All things work together for good to them that love God, and demonstrate their love for God, by being numbered amongst those who are called according to his purpose. Then you know that history is on your side.

God’s Timeless Purpose in Christ’s Coming

You know that all history is waiting for you. Every day that dawns is waiting for you. When the Lord Jesus Christ came to this world, all history was waiting for him. Because he was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

And he was born precisely at the right moment. Where should he have been born according to the scriptures? In Bethlehem. Right. Micah tells us that, 5th chapter, 2nd verse. Out of Bethlehem is he to come forth from the days of eternity.

Stepping out of eternity into time, born at Bethlehem. Where did his mother live? In Nazareth. Why should a baby be born in Bethlehem whose mother lives in Nazareth? Well simply because a heathen, godless Roman emperor, decided for the first time in history, to tax the whole then known world that was subject to the Roman yoke.

And every individual was commanded by the Roman Caesar, to go to the city of their father. So Joseph and Mary went to the city of their father David, Bethlehem. And arrived just precisely at that moment when Mary being great with trials was to be delivered.

So who organized, humanly speaking, the birth of the Lord Jesus in Bethlehem when his mother lived in Nazareth? A heathen, godless Roman Caesar. Who really organized it? God. God. It was just a few of the pegs on the brass cylinder you see.

And in the process of time, precisely at the right moment, Jesus was born. And all history was waiting for him. Of course he could have been born a thousand years earlier. And instead of writing 1972 on our note paper, today we would write 2972.

Of course he could have come a thousand years later. And instead of writing 1972, our note paper today would be 972. You see, God's purposes are timeless. And of course hundreds of millions of people today are going to bear testament to the fact when they put the date on the paper, that Jesus was born according to the scripture.

In the timeless purpose of a timeless God. Now of course this baffles us. We could spend a lovely time, and maybe we'll have the opportunity one morning, I don't know. But we could spend a lovely time simply going to the Old Testament and seeing all the meticulous details of the birth, life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus foreshadowed in advance in the Old Testament concerning his coming.

A wonderfully encouraging exercise. Because you see, you and I do not believe that the Lord Jesus was born, lived and died for our sins and rose again from the dead and is coming back simply because the Bible says he did.

We believe it because the Bible said he would. Not just that he did, but that he would. In the New Testament there is simply recorded for us as what he did, that which was foreshadowed in the Old Testament as that which he would.

That's all. History in advance. It baffles our finite minds, but remember when Bobby Fisher and the Russians were playing chess? Spassky, wasn't it? Fascinated me. Because you know, you'd read the report in the paper of the latest game and you'd find they'd taken, say, five moves or seven moves, and one of them resigned.

Gave up. And the explanation was that the man who gave up after five moves knew that 37 moves later he'd be defeated. So he wasn't going to waste his time. Well, they have sort of computerized brains, you see.

And they look at the board and they can see the situation and after five moves, knowing that in 37 other moves he'd be defeated, he says, I resign. He knows the end from the beginning. Well, you see, God's got a mind like that.

Vastly beyond our human comprehension. And I wouldn't begin to try to explain it, but he knows the end from the beginning. And the most fantastic thing is that in spite of all that, into the timeless sovereignty of an eternal God for whom it's always present tense, man was created with the capacity to choose.

For God, in the unchallengeable sovereignty of our Creator, so chose, as we shall discover during our evening service, to create a man capable of exercising a moral option. So in his unchallengeable sovereignty, he chose to limit himself by the law of faith that may be exercised by one of his creatures that says yes or no, that lets him or doesn't.

Isn't that fantastic? Now, the form of Scripture is the Word of God. It's a divine declaration of intent. As timeless and immutable as God himself. That's principle number one. The form of Scripture is the Word of God.

The Gospel as God’s Complete Remedy

Now, the second principle is equally simple, and it's this. If the form of Scripture is the Word of God, the character of the Word of God is gospel. It's gospel. The form of Scripture is the Word of God, a divine declaration of intent recorded for us from Genesis to the Revelation.

But the character of the Word of God, the character of that divine declaration of intent, the character of everything God has had to say and has been so graciously preserved for us, authored by the Holy Spirit, the character of the Word of God is gospel.

Now, you understand the term gospel. The gospel, as you know, translated into English simply means good news. It's the evangelist's good news. And no matter what God may have recorded for us in this book, from Genesis to the Revelation, no matter how severe may appear what He says, no matter how stern His warning, no matter how resolute His judgment, everything that God has to say to you and to me in this book is good news.

Good news. It's calculated to introduce us to the remedial measures that God has provided for you and for me that in our lost condition we might be restored to our true function. Now, without any apology and in marvelous kindness and honesty and faithfulness to us, God tells us exactly the nature of sin and the consequences of sin, but not to depress us, not to plunge us into despair, but that we might be awakened to the nature of our case and embrace the provision that He's made for us in the one slain from the foundation of the world before ever the world was created.

If a doctor comes and pronounces a person sick, it's not to depress the individual, but it is to diagnose his case and to give that individual the good news that there is a provision available for precisely that particular ailment that he may become wholly well.

Good news. How unfaithful a doctor would be to pretend that that person wasn't sick in case he hurt that person's feelings. God doesn't treat us that way. He tells us exactly the nature of our case, what's wrong with us, why it went wrong, the awful consequences if it isn't put right, and the fantastically good news that there is complete, total, all-embracing provision for precisely that condition for any boy, any girl, any man, any woman, anywhere, anytime in gospel.

The good news. So the form of Scripture is the Word of God and the character of the Word of God is gospel. But here again we've got to pause because we mustn't take a narrow view of gospel. And by and large the spiritual poverty of the evangelical church of Jesus Christ derives from the fact that we have emasculated gospel.

We've reduced it to a mere shadow of its real substance. We've talked about gospel meeting as though that simply applied to the unregenerate, the unconverted, the wicked sinner who needs to claim forgiveness and go to heaven.

And by and large we've geared our whole church machinery simply to precipitate a particular crisis in a particular person at a particular time after which, as it were, we take them off and then program them into the machine and call that gospel.

Of course that's far divorced from the revelation of gospel in the Word of God. Gospel in the Word of God, God's good news is calculated to restore the man in totality because that function for which God has created created man as his creature and anything less than that is less than gospel.

You see, so often somebody will say, will it be a gospel meeting? Now what do they mean by that? Every time you open this book and proclaim its message that's a gospel meeting. Somebody sometimes comes to me and says is it going to be a salvation message?

I don't know any other. Unless I'm going to be a Buddhist or a Mohammedan or an atheist or something or a humanist or a philosopher with some quack remedy to human needs. I only know salvation as the total remedial purpose of God calculated to get any boy, any girl, any man, any woman back into that relationship with God that allows God as God to be functional in that individual and restore that individual to God's holy satisfaction to that relationship with himself that allows God in the man to fulfill the purpose which he created him.

That is salvation. Anything less than that is a cheap, empty, nasty imitation of the real thing that sells Jesus Christ down the river and cheats him of that for which his blood was shed. And the church by and large has settled for it.

That's why you've got hundreds of thousands of Sunday Christians and they've settled for that. And Jesus Christ has gospelism through the insurance policy the premium of which they paid one day years ago when they walked the aisle and got baptized and ever since they've been paying just a small annual premium to make quite sure the policy is still in being.

What a miserable caricature of the real thing. Gospel comprehends the total restorative purposes of God calculated to bring a man back into that relationship with God himself that for God's holy satisfaction that man may once more on earth function for the purpose which he was created and then forever in eternity.

That's one of the simplest definitions that you have of salvation is given to us in two very fine verses that you'll find, if you care to note it in the first of Paul's two epistles to the Thessalonians the fifth chapter and verses 9 and 10.

1 Thessalonians chapter 5, 9 and 10. This is what they say. God has not appointed us to judgment. I call it judgment, you see, because in the Bible it says wrath but you wouldn't know what I mean if I said wrath.

What I really mean is wrath, you see. But I can never quite understand why you call it wrath when it's spelt wrath. So I call it judgment, you see, then there's no confusion. So God has not appointed us to judgment but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, lest there should be any doubt in our mind or fuzziness in our mind as to what salvation involves it goes on in the next verse to define it. God has not appointed us to judgment but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us to what end?

That whether we wake or sleep. What does that mean? Well, in the context of that chapter and the preceding chapter, of course, as well you know it means whether I'm still physically alive or already physically dead.

It means whether I'm still on earth with my two feet on the ground or already in heaven. It means whether I'm still here or already there whether it is now or then. He died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with Him.

That's salvation. That a boy, girl, man or woman is reconciled to God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ receives the forgiveness of sins that on the grounds of that redemptive transaction the Lord Jesus Himself might come back into the humanity of that boy, that girl, that man, that woman in both their personalities that from that moment on for every 24 hours that they ever live in time or eternity they might live together with Him sharing the very life of their creation so that no situation will ever confront them for which Jesus Christ in them will be less than adequate.

No single situation, no responsibility, no task, no problem no temptation with which they may be confronted that they do not face it in the assurance that they live together with Him. That all there is of God has become available to all there is of them because all there is of them has been made available to all there is of God.

That is salvation. A far cry simply from knowing that because something happened 20 years ago you're on the way to heaven and not on the way to hell. Salvation involves the identity of the redeemed sinner with the Lord Jesus and the power of His resurrection indivisibly, indivisibly identified through the presence of the Holy Spirit within the human spirit given absolutely unswallowed access to the human soul.

So that He, Christ, by the Holy Spirit teaching the mind, controlling emotions directing the will of God in behaviour and expressing Himself spontaneously in the behaviour patterns of that particular individual in such a way that everything He does and says and is bears the divine stamp because it has its origin in Christ Himself and there's no explanation for that person's life save Jesus Christ.

That is salvation. And all that is comprehended in gospel. And if anybody has told you that you've obeyed the gospel simply because one day you accepted Christ as your Redeemer forget it. You began to obey the gospel.

You took the first baby step in gospel. You got converted. You were reconciled to God by the death of God's Son and you were made fit for heaven but that didn't make you fit for earth. It may leave you fit for heaven and pathetically unfit for earth like hundreds of thousands of truly converted people that's why they're so difficult to live with.

But that wasn't the object of the exercise. The whole object of the exercise wasn't to change man's destination from hell to heaven. The whole object of the exercise was this whom He did foreknow, them He did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son.

God's end product in gospel is not destination but character. What a man is like, not only here in time but also in eternity. Not only what he's going to be like in eternity but what he's like in time.

That is gospel. That's why people by and large settle for the former and repudiate the latter. Because they want the kind of gospel that will give them assurance policies make quite sure they'll get to heaven when they die but any other claims upon their life are invalid so that when you begin to tell them something of the implications of discipleship what it really means to be re-inhabited by God the Creator and to present your body to Him that He may use it for the purpose which He created it.

They say pull off my back! I am saved. By and large people who talk like that of course have never been regenerated. They've been house trained to certain evangelical procedures but they've never been born again.

And they will die in their sin. So we need to be disillusioned in these areas so that we may discover reality. Gospel is both redemptive and regenerative. It is calculated to make a man not only sit for heaven it is calculated to make a man sit for heaven sit for earth on the way to heaven.

It demands the death of the Lord Jesus redemptively and it demands the life of the Lord Jesus regeneratively. Don't let me confuse you with that term regeneratively. I mean by regeneration the genuine spiritual content of that new birth or regeneration that takes place only when the life of God is re-imparted to the soul of man.

For the life of God in the soul of man is absolutely inseparable from the likeness of God in the character of man. And the whole purpose of the redemptive act when Jesus died for us was the regenerative purpose to put the life of the Lord Jesus in us.

Because it's only the life of the Lord Jesus in us as we shall discover more clearly tonight only the life of the Lord Jesus in us that gives us a part of being in the process of time living day by day in the nitty gritty of being on earth seven days a week.

Only the life of the Lord Jesus in you gives you the part of being what the death of the Lord Jesus for you gave you the right to become. That's why you need not only what he did so that you might become you need what he is so that you can be.

One is a crisis, the other is a process. And to say I am redeemed is not to say I am born again. To say that I am born again is not to say that I am redeemed. They are indivisible the one from the other and now they are simultaneous in time.

But they must not be confused the one for the other. Redemption demanded the death of Jesus Christ for us as a historical act two thousand years ago. New birth or spiritual regeneration demands the life of the Lord Jesus in us.

If one demands his death for us and the other demands his life in us how can they be one and the same thing? His death for us was designed to put his life in us. In other words, redemption as an act was designed to precipitate the regenerated process whereby we live together with him.

His Holy Spirit we present within the human spirit to credit to the forgiven sin of the resurrection life of his once crucified and now risen and glorified Creator, God and Saviour. You see on the grounds of the death of the Lord Jesus for us redemption.

And as I indicated last evening deriving from redemption what the Bible calls justification. I am justified, just as if I'd never sinned just as if I'd never sinned because the Lord Jesus died for me as though just as if he'd committed all my sins.

That is the basis upon which I am justified. It is redemption that demands the death of Christ. Where God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

He died vicariously as a substitute. God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him which I have quoted. And justification derives from redemption and redemption derives from his death.

That allows God to see we in Christ so that I am accepted in the beloved I'm clothed with his righteousness I'm wearing the reddened garment. That is justification. And the grounds of redemption deriving from the death of Jesus God sees me in Christ.

Now regeneration or new birth takes place when the one who having died for me now being risen again from the dead comes in the person of his Holy Spirit to take up residence within my human spirit and by his presence in life abolish that state of death in which I was born.

For you and I you see were born in that state of death again as we shall discover more clearly in the evening service. You see since Adam fell into sin no boy, girl, man or woman has, can or ever will die for their sins.

Did you know that? Since Adam fell into sin no boy, girl, man or woman has, can or ever will die for their sins. For a very good reason. Too late. It's already happened. In what condition were you born?

Spiritually alive or spiritually dead? Dead. Can dead men die? Dead men can't die. If you and I were born spiritually dead quite obviously we couldn't die for our sins. It's already happened. We were heirs of that state of death that occurred in Adam when he died.

The only two things that can take place in a person who is dead is stay dead or what? Come alive. Resurrection. That's gospel. But you and I alas have become all too acquainted with the gospel that says come to Jesus and you will not die for your sins.

That's nonsense. Totally diametrically opposed to the revelation of Scripture. You don't come to the Lord Jesus so that you will not die for your sins. You come to the Lord Jesus as one already dead in your sins to come alive.

To be raised from the dead. To have life restored to the lifeless. That's why the Lord Jesus said, I am come that you might have life. But because the vast bulk of Christians have never understood the nature of that spiritual resurrection they equate new birth with redemption.

But new birth is that resurrection that derives from redemption. New birth is the coming back of the life of God into the soul of a redeemed sinner that abolishes death by the presence of life. That's regeneration.