Regeneration is God’s act alone. Just like our natural birth, there is nothing we can do to make regeneration happen, and praise God that there is nothing we can do to reverse it. Rejoice that your God-given faith in Christ (Eph. 2:8-9), however weak or strong at any given moment, is evidence that you have been born of the Spirit and are a citizen of God’s kingdom both now and for eternity.

Why is it that no one can inherit eternal life without being regenerated by the Holy Spirit?

In John 3:1-8, Jesus tells Nicodemus, a Pharisee, what is required to enter the kingdom of God:

“Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:7-8)

Becoming a New Creation Is a Result of the Regenerating Work of the Spirit

We need spiritual life to inherit eternal life, and Jesus states emphatically that this spiritual life is born by the sovereign act of the Holy Spirit. All who are saved in Christ are part of the new creation:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Cor. 5:17)

Believers not only have Spirit-wrought life, but they also have the Spirit himself dwelling in them:

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17).

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