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{Sermons on John 1:47
The Doctrine Confirmed
The Principles and Doctrines of Godliness Are Not Fantasy
Of Regeneration
The Change Made by Regeneration Is Great and Mighty}
The change that is worked by regeneration is a great and mighty change. It is as great as making something out of nothing. Regeneration is a new creation. It is as great as raising people up from death to life. Regeneration is a resurrection: “God … even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4–5 NASB).160 There is as much power and as much display of God shown in bringing a dead soul to life as there is in raising a dead body. When God would confirm the faith of the Jews concerning their conversion and restoration after their cutting off (which the apostle tells us will be as life from the dead [Romans 11:15]), he proves that He is able to accomplish it by His making dry bones live.161 “And he said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live? … Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord’” (Ezekiel 37:3–4 ESV). It was a strange task the prophet was given, but he prophesied and “there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them … and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then he said to me, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel … and … Judah’” (Ezekiel 37:7–11, 19 ESV). The meaning of the passage is this: Israel lay in their state of rejection by God. If the Lord had not been able to make the bones live, He would have failed to confirm the faith of this dead people in their restoration.
When the ministers of the Gospel are sent out to preach to sinners, it is just as likely a job as if they had been sent among the tombs and graves to prophesy to the skulls, bones, and dust of the dead. And if there were not a Divine and Almighty Power accompanying their ministry, their success would be the same as if they were preaching to the beasts of the field to make them into people or attempting to raise up children to Abraham from stones.
160Alleine quoted from Ephesians 2:1 in the AV. However, the translators of the KJV inserted the words “he hath quickened” in this verse without clear manuscript justification, an insertion also followed by the NKJV. Since other versions do not have this phrase, the editor substituted a portion of Ephesians 2:4–5. Alleine’s exegesis stands on very solid scriptural ground in spite of his poor choice of prooftext.
161Alleine mixes two restorations here (not improperly). The first fulfillment of Ezekiel 37 was the return from the Babylonian captivity. The fulfillment of Romans 11:12–28 from which Alleine quotes (Romans 11:15) is also well illustrated by Ezekiel 37, and a second fulfillment of that vision will be when God brings the Jews into the Christian Church in vast numbers.
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