I’ve recently been reading Finally Alive by John Piper on the subject of the new birth. It is a great book and begins with the story of C.S. Lewis’ conversion/regeneration/new birth. Lewis states:
I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. It was more like when a man, after long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake.
That description of the born again experience has stuck with me that past couple days and I recalled to mind an old Keith Green song that similarly bears the same truth. The following excerpt from Green’s “Your Love Broke Through” says basically the same thing Lewis said of his conversion experience:
Like a foolish dreamer, trying to build a highway to the sky
All my hopes would come tumbling down, and I never knew just why
Until today, when you pulled away the clouds that hung like curtains on my eyes
Well I’ve been blind all these wasted years and I though I was so wise
But then you took me by surprise
Like waking up from the longest dream, how real it seemed
Until your love broke through
I’ve been lost in a fantasy, that blinded me until your love broke through
In thinking about how waking up from a long sleep reflects the new birth experience, I have attempted to draw from my own “sleeping” experience. When asleep, I am not conscious of my body, soul, mind, even my very existence. I lie there in bed dead to all awareness or conciousness until the moment I wake. After waking I am fully aware of my existence and begin to “live” again.
The deadness of the unregenerate heart causes it to be unaware that it is spiritually dead. Ephesians 2 says that we were dead in trespasses and sins. Titus 3 says that we were saved when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared. We are dead in sins until God appears and wakes us up through regeneration, or the new birth. I do not want to diminish our dead and desperate condition before God by using the phrase “wakes us up.” We are dead in sin. The rigamortis has set in. We cannot nor will not make any move toward God and repentance until the Holy Spirit regenerates our dead hearts and breathes spiritual life into us. At that point, the conversion experience is like a new birth, like waking up from the longest sleep.
When I sleep, I have no awareness of time (indeed, by body’s internal clock works lest I should never wake up), therefore, I could sleep forever and not know it if it were possible. So it is with the spiritually dead — they are unaware that they are spiritually dead and were it not for the grace of God, they would never be aware of their spiritual deadness.
The ultimate point is that salvation/regeneration/the new birth etc. is all the work of God and not man. Soli Deo Gloria.
“Like Waking Up From The Longest Dream…”
I’ve recently been reading Finally Alive by John Piper on the subject of the new birth. It is a great book and begins with the story of C.S. Lewis’ conversion/regeneration/new birth. Lewis states:
That description of the born again experience has stuck with me that past couple days and I recalled to mind an old Keith Green song that similarly bears the same truth. The following excerpt from Green’s “Your Love Broke Through” says basically the same thing Lewis said of his conversion experience:
In thinking about how waking up from a long sleep reflects the new birth experience, I have attempted to draw from my own “sleeping” experience. When asleep, I am not conscious of my body, soul, mind, even my very existence. I lie there in bed dead to all awareness or conciousness until the moment I wake. After waking I am fully aware of my existence and begin to “live” again.
The deadness of the unregenerate heart causes it to be unaware that it is spiritually dead. Ephesians 2 says that we were dead in trespasses and sins. Titus 3 says that we were saved when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared. We are dead in sins until God appears and wakes us up through regeneration, or the new birth. I do not want to diminish our dead and desperate condition before God by using the phrase “wakes us up.” We are dead in sin. The rigamortis has set in. We cannot nor will not make any move toward God and repentance until the Holy Spirit regenerates our dead hearts and breathes spiritual life into us. At that point, the conversion experience is like a new birth, like waking up from the longest sleep.
When I sleep, I have no awareness of time (indeed, by body’s internal clock works lest I should never wake up), therefore, I could sleep forever and not know it if it were possible. So it is with the spiritually dead — they are unaware that they are spiritually dead and were it not for the grace of God, they would never be aware of their spiritual deadness.
The ultimate point is that salvation/regeneration/the new birth etc. is all the work of God and not man. Soli Deo Gloria.
Tags: born again, new birth, regeneration
This entry was posted on Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Biblical Truth, Commentary, Reformed Theology/Calvinism. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.