Is It Important to Know the Moment of Our Regeneration?

Christians are commanded to make their calling and election sure. But how important is it for believers to know when they were born again? Today, Derek Thomas considers to what extent it matters to know precisely when we were regenerated by the Spirit of God.

NATHAN W. BINGHAM: I'm here on the Ligonier campus with one of our teaching fellows, Dr. Derek Thomas. Is it important for Christians to know that point in time when they were born again?

DR. DEREK THOMAS: No. In fact, regeneration takes place at the level of the subconscious, and what we experience is the effect of that regeneration. I have no memory of being born. My first conscious memory is when I'm two or thereabouts, sitting on my grandfather's knee. I have no memory that stretches back to the moment of my birth, and the same is true spiritually. When did John the Baptist become regenerate? In his mother's womb. When did Samuel become regenerate? Again, probably in his mother's womb. Not every conversion is like Saul of Tarsus. And we do a disservice if we make the morphology of regeneration in a manner that stereotypes Saul of Tarsus, the conversion of Paul.

I can tell you down to within an hour of my expression of regeneration in terms of saving faith"on December the 28th round about eleven o'clock at night in 1971. My wife, on the other hand, can't remember a day when she didn't believe in Jesus. And although she didn't come to make a profession of faith until she was a teenager, she was probably regenerate as a very little child but was not aware of it. It didn't manifest itself. So what's important is that we are regenerate and that we show that regeneration by the fruits of the Spirit.