While (correctly) noting that regeneration took place in the Old Testament side of the cross, Beeke and Smalley note that there is a debate about this issue in various Protestant circles:
The Necessity of the New Birth to Enter the
Kingdom
A third argument for the Spirit’s renewing work in the
Old Testament is that without regeneration it is impossible for anyone to be
saved from sin and brought into God’s kingdom. Our Lord Jesus Christ said,
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God. . . . Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he
cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:3, 5). Christ also said that
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and the prophets who followed them—will be in the kingdom
(Matt. 8:11; Luke 13:28). Therefore, the patriarchs were born of the Spirit.
It might be objected that regeneration is a new covenant
grace. Dispensationalist theologian Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871–1952) said that
the Old Testament saints were renewed to some level of moral obedience to the
law, but we cannot affirm that this resulted “in the impartation of the divine
nature, in an actual sonship, a joint heirship with Christ, or a placing in the
household and family of God,” or in being “justified on the ground of the
imputed righteousness of Christ.” Bill Gillham (1927–2011) said that the old
covenant saints will receive regeneration when God raises them from the dead,
but during their lives they lacked both regeneration and spiritual
participation in the kingdom of God, for those are new covenant realities that
did not begin until Christ died on the cross.
In reply, we acknowledge that there is no clear, explicit
reference to God regenerating a sinner, causing a new birth, or giving a person
a new heart under the old covenant.46 However, this objection misses Christ’s
point to Nicodemus. The new birth is not an additional benefit, but is
essential to salvation, for only the Holy Spirit can produce spiritual life:
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit
is spirit” (John 3:6; cf. 6:63). The new birth produces a life of righteousness,
a radical break from sin, authentic Christian love, faith in Christ, and
overcoming the world. Unless we desire to argue that Abraham, Moses, David, and
Isaiah had no repentance, faith, love, and obedience, we must conclude that
they were born of the Spirit. Owen argued that men of all times must be saved
“by the same kind of operation, and the same effect of the Holy Spirit on the
faculties of their souls”; because all unregenerate men are in the same state
of sin and spiritual death, salvation must rescue sinners from that state and
bring them all into essentially the same state of grace and spiritual life. To
deny the new birth to those saved in ancient Israel is by implication to deny
the corruption of man and the necessity of salvation by grace alone.
Christ said, “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7) to the
teacher of Israel who was yet under the old covenant—and rebuked him for not
knowing this doctrine from his studies of the Hebrew Bible (v. 10). Christ’s
reference to being “born of water and of the Spirit” (v. 5) alludes to the use
of water as an image of renewal and cleansing, as in the promises of Ezekiel
36:25– 27. Furthermore, it makes no sense for Christ to say, “Ye must be born
again,” if regeneration were not possible before Jesus died and rose again.
Indeed, Ezekiel pressed upon his contemporaries their need for “a new
heart”—which was a call for their immediate conversion (Ezek. 18:31). (Joel R.
Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology, 4 vols.
[Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2021], 3:105-6)
One possible example of spiritual rebirth in the Old
Testament might be when Samuel said to Saul, “The Spirit of the L will come
upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned [haphak]
into another man. . . . God is with thee,” and the narrator says, “And it was
so, that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave [haphak]
him another heart: and all those signs came to pass that day. . . . And the
Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them” (1 Sam. 10:6– 10).
Thus, Erickson, Christian Theology, 911. However, the context pertains
entirely to Saul’s empowerment to serve as king, and in subsequent narratives
Saul does not demonstrate the godliness and perseverance associated with the
new birth, making his spiritual state dubious at best. The verb haphak, which
means to turn or overturn, is used with “heart” as its object to describe
emotional disturbance (Lam. 1:20; figuratively of God in Hos. 11:8) or God’s
directing people’s attitudes without saving them (Ex. 14:4–5; Ps. 105:25).
Therefore, it is not clear that Saul was regenerated by the Spirit. (Ibid., 105
n. 46)
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