Magna Tales

At the heart of this essay is a valiant attempt to persuade the reader that salvation as we know it or being ” born again, ” (a coinage whose progenitor is Jesus Himself )-is not only the sole prerogative of One, but that the supply of necessary ingredients for salvation is the efficacious labor of that same One.
So that, the entire architectural renderings, scaffolding and edifice of salvation are monergistic and not synergistic as some are wont to proclaim. So in advancing the argument, I am acutely aware that this very notion runs counter to the belief and dogma of many in the charismatic and evangelical extraction, who espouse that salvation is a co-operative enterprise between God and man so as to bring about the desired net result. In making the case for the monergistic nature of salvation, I remain alive to the fact therefore, that this will greatly upset many a reader who is unable to reconcile the unvarnished truth claims made by Jesus Himself with what they have been taught and conditioned to believe.
Join me therefore in this excursion into the landscape of the exposition given by Jesus-the author and finisher of our faith-to Nicodemus on this very subject of being born again, in the Gospel of John at Chapter 3, which is one of the most intriguing dialogues that I have ever encountered between Jesus and anyone and on any subject in the entirety of scripture .
We are told that Nicodemus of the Pharisees, a leader of the Jews, approached Jesus at night with this icebreaker:
“Rabbi, we know you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do the things you do if God were not with him.”
Jesus, on the other hand wasted no time at all in pleasantries but went straight to the heart of the matter with Nicodemus: “Assuredly I say to you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
A little background information on Nicodemus. In the orthodoxy of Jewish society, he belonged to an elite and influential cadre of those who served as synagogue leaders and experts in Mosaic Law. As a matter of fact, the Pharisees were considered not only teachers of the law, but also the repositories of that very law. It is they who not only gave instruction but extracted strict observance of the law from the masses as they considered themselves to be the moral exemplars of that law. It was a position not only of privilege but of pride too. But most importantly, it was a position that was earned. A position of merit and of works achieved through great learning, observance and application.
That is the backdrop against which Nicodemus’ encounter with Jesus occurs and as fate would have it, all his learning and understanding of the law was about to be torpedoed; in fact, it would end up in a tailspin faster than he had ever anticipated resulting in his coming wholly undone in a matter of minutes under that opening salvo by Jesus.
For his immediate response is, “But how can that be since am already old, how can I go back to my mother’s womb a second time?” What Nicodemus was really grappling with here, is the fact that it had dawned on him, that what Jesus had declared, was a feat beyond his reach, and for that matter, any man’s reach. One that can’t just be achieved, earned or merited. That was an important acknowledgment and confession by Nicodemus. In other words, he admitted that he quite could not come up with the wherewithal to bring about such a happening of rebirth.  How could anyone? The limitation of, the poverty of and utter hopelessness of the human condition and endeavor is what Jesus made Nicodemus realize. If being born again was both a physical and biological impossibility, how much more herculean would it be to bring about spiritual rebirth? The rebirth that Jesus was now teaching and introducing to Nicodemus was one that was and is beyond human conception nor indeed can it possibly be.
Jesus then compounds matters further by adding: “Verily verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” ( John 3:5-6)
The Lord Jesus, a masterful teacher, skipped the milk altogether and threw the bone at Nicodemus for him to chew as he too was a teacher of the Jews. For the subjects that the Lord was broaching here were heavy theological themes or doctrines of rebirth, regeneration by the Spirit alone and ELECTION by the Spirit alone. To rephrase it, what Jesus intimated to Nicodemus was to the effect that it is the Spirit of God who not only brings about regeneration or rebirth but it is He who elects who is to receive the rebirth in the first place.
So that, those who will enter the kingdom of God are those who have not only been born again by Him but have also been elected by Him; born out of His good pleasure which is in turn born out of His will. Therefore, human piety, endeavor, merit and achievement are expressly stripped and ousted and in their place man stands before and comes face to face with the grace of God such as Nicodemus did, staring straight into the face of the embodiment of God’s grace but he perceived Him not and could not see clearly, perhaps because it was nightfall. We like to think that Paul is the one who introduces the doctrine of Election in scripture but in fact it is Jesus who inaugurated it, yes, even proclaimed it albeit through the veil of metaphors to Nicodemus. We see not only why but how in the succeeding verses of the same chapter.
That rebirth or regeneration or being “born again” is foremost, the work of God the Holy Spirit cannot be overstated. For certitude’s sake, it bears repeating here again, that it is monergistic in its nature and operation in that there is only ONE agent who brings about the said rebirth and that is God the Holy Spirit. It cannot be achieved by man, it cannot be brought about by sheer will neither can it be earned so that man should boast or be prideful about it. Man’s agency is altogether excluded.
But second of all, and perhaps even more profound is the proclamation that the work of rebirth is a SOVEREIGN prerogative. And now we see how. Continuing after verse 6 of the same chapter, Jesus continues to lay into Nicodemus with the following words: 
“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
The metaphor of the wind is the Spirit. He comes under no direction of any man, seeks not the concurrence of any man and blows wherever and to whomever He pleases. You will hear Him but won’t tell where He has come from and in His wake no one will tell where or to whom He goes next.
Nicodemus was astute enough to understand what exactly Jesus was talking about here and he became all the more unravelled and protested much after this exposition by the Teacher quipping thus, ” how can these things be?” And of course, the Teacher retorts right back at him, that if he has problems understanding earthly things what will become of him should He begin to expound on heavenly things.
Friends, the problem here that Nicodemus presents is one of works and of human agency. He came to Jesus with the mental rigor of the law, and Jesus discerning the disposition of his heart schooled him gently that the coming kingdom of God which He was here on earth to inaugurate, will not be based on works of men but on the grace of God which had now appeared to all men.
In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul writes in chapter 11:6 thus:
“But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”           
Again elsewhere, to demonstrate the correspondence of this truth enunciated by Jesus Himself to Nicodemus, Paul writes in his epistle to the Galatian church in chapter 2:16:
“Knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not of the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be saved.”
It is those who are born of the Spirit that Jesus fondly referred to as, “little children.” It was for their sake therefore before His departure, that he charged Peter solemnly to feed His lambs.
It is my sincere hope that in due course, we will examine how man comes to have faith in Jesus Christ in the first place for the purposes of salvation. For the instant theme of the Monergy of salvation which we have delved into, is true and has correspondence and continuity in holy writ.