Regeneration Necessary
By C. T. Wilson
Right living flows only from right being. The heart is the seat of character and the fountain of conduct. Can a fountain send forth sweet water and bitter at the same time? Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? These questions answer themselves without a word of comment. Now the Bible enforces it as essential truth, that in order to be right in conduct, in God’s sight, we must have a heart that is in harmony with God—and this means, as we very well know, that we must have a new heart, a heart new-created in us by the power of the Spirit of God. The ethical code of the Bible presupposes, in order to its practise, a new and spiritual life in the soul, by as clear a necessity as light implies an eye, as music implies an ear, as friends imply affections, and as science implies an understanding. Hence the doctrine of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and the doctrine of the divine indwelling with the soul of the believer, pervades the whole Bible; and a special mission of the Christian religion is to help us into the experience of this new life, that our way may be pure in God’s sight.—C. T. Wilson in Preacher’s Helper.