Regeneration means that one has been born again or born from above (Jn. 3:3, 5, 7, 8). The new birth is the work of God, so that all those who are born again are “born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3:8). Or, as 1 Pet 1:3 says, it is God who “caused us to be born again to a living hope” (1 Pet 1:3). The means God uses to grant such new life is the gospel, for believers “have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Pet. 1:23; cf. Jas. 1:18). Regeneration or being born again is a supernatural birth. Just as we cannot do anything to be born physically – it just happens to us! – so too we cannot do anything to cause our spiritual rebirth.
Thomas Schreiner