The Reformed world is currently cooking up an perfect Irish stew controversy. Thrown into the pot have been the meaning of regeneration, imputation, and justification, the relationship of faith and works, the New Perspective on Paul, the firing of Norman Shepherd twenty years ago from Westminister Seminary, and a Presbyterian (!) newspaper charging me with having become a paedobaptist ten years ago.
Part of this strange mix has been a concern to protect the historic evangelical faith with regard to the new birth. The point of this series of posts is to offer a defense of the historic evangelical understanding of regeneration, but also to place it in a more scriptural context. That context is the Restoration of the heavens and earth that came with Jesus Christ. Hence the title—Life in the Regeneration. The new life in Jesus Christ is a reality in the heart of each individual genuinely converted to God. But this new life has come to pass in a new world, a world or age that Jesus called the Regeneration (Matt. 19:2).
The Scripture reference at the end should read, Matthew 19:28.
Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world [in the regeneration], when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.