Titus 3:5-7 How Salvation Works Pt. 2: Grace Gives New Birth

The Doctrine we are going to be looking at today from Titus 3:5-7 is the Doctrine of Irresistible Grace, and this is one of the most difficult doctrines of our faith.

Its really difficult for two reasons.

One, its theologically difficult. This is a hard doctrine tie together and understand. How does faith work with grace and salvation? Its difficult.

Second, and probably most of the reason why this doctrine is so difficult, is that its spiritually difficult.

Its unpopular. We don’t like it very much. Its hard, and you’ll see why its hard, to say salvation is monergistic.

That means it is entirely a work of God and its impossible were it not for his grace.

But as difficult as it is, God told us about it, because God wanted us to know. And God wanted us to know it so that we would see his glory in it and give him adoration and praise.

So here it is. Here’s the Big Idea. The theological truth this sermon is aimed at.

The grace of Regeneration leads to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

Now immediately, remember, I said it was a difficult doctrine, some of you are saying I don’t even know what that sentence means.

And that’s ok. My goal is to help you understand and treasure what that sentence says and by God’s grace grow your love for Christ.

This doctrine is crucial. Because how we understand our sin, faith and God’s grace has a direct impact on how we understand God.

The Reformers saw the sovereignty of God’s grace in salvation to be the very life blood of the Christian faith.

Hear what the Great Reformer, Martin Luther, himself said.

Our aim is, simply, to investigate what ability “free will” has…and how it stands related tot he grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity…Now if I am ignorant of God’s works and power, I am ignorant of God himself; and if I do not know God, I cannot worship, praise, give thanks or serve Him, for I do not know how much I should attribute to myself and how much to Him. We need, therefore, to have in mind a clearcut distinction between God’s power and ours, and God’s work and ours, if we would live a godly life (Sproul, What is Reformed Theology, 182).

The doctrines of grace, first and foremost are revealed to us to tell us something about the glory of God.

And the question that cuts through all the arguments and frees us to worship God as he has revealed himself in the Scriptures is this: How gracious is God’s grace? Is it a little bit gracious or infinitely gracious?

I want you to keep that question in mind as we talk about the New Birth and God’s irresistible grace.

Let’s dive into Titus 3:5-7 with point number 1...

I. Saving Faith is Impossible for Anyone Dead in their Sins

Titus 3:5-6 He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior...

Overview

Now what can easily happen in a sermon, especially if you’re dealing with a big theological concept, is that you can get lost pretty quick.

So let me frame up for you how all of the pieces of this verse fit together. That way you are able to focus on what we are talking about and not wondering in your head, “Well how does that connect with this.” or “What does this word or that phrase mean?”

First, He saved us.

This passage is all about God’s grace.

We don’t save ourselves. We aren’t saved because of works done by us in righteousness. We are saved according to God’s own mercy.

And God’s mercy flows out of God’s goodness and loving kindness.

So salvation, from beginning to end, is the work of God our Savior, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And God saves us simply because God loves us.

If everything before the word mercy, focuses on why God saved us, everything after mercy focuses on how God saved us and what that salvation accomplishes on our behalf.

And how God saves us is by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.

Now here’s where this can get confusing. We are going to look at these two aspects of salvation separately, but we can’t separate them.

The washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit go hand in hand.

They are both pillars of the same thing. And that is the New Creation.

You know the verse. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17).

Without trying to be too simplistic, the washing of regeneration is the old passing away, and the renewal of the Holy Spirit is the coming of the new.

So God saves us by making us a New Creation in Christ, washing us clean and removing every stain and curse of sin.

And that New Creation comes to life through regeneration and renewal. Through the New Birth and the New Life.

You don’t have the New Birth without the New Life as the result.

And you don’t have the New Life without first being born again.

Regeneration and renewal are both fundamental to Salvation.

And all of this is a work of the Holy Spirit in the heart and life of the sinner.

So that’s the 10,000 foot view of the passage.

But I don’t want to short change these amazing doctrines by trying to cram it all into one sermon.

So this week all we are going to focus on is the New Birth. The doctrine of Regeneration. What it is, How it happens, and What does it tell us about who God is.

Regeneration

Let’s start with a definition of Regeneration.

John MacArthur says this, “Regeneration is the sovereign act of God, by the Holy Spirit and through the preached gospel, whereby he instantaneously imparts spiritual life to a sinner, bringing them out of spiritual death and into spiritual life.” (Biblical Doctrine 585).

Here’s the big idea. Regeneration is being born again. Re-created. Its moving from death to life in Christ.

And regeneration, or the New Birth, is entirely a work of God’s sovereign grace. We contribute nothing to it.

Now this is usually where people start to get discombobulated.

What do you mean I don’t have anything to do with being born again. I had faith! I put my faith in Jesus, and when I put my faith in Jesus, God saved me. He gave me eternal life!

But here’s the million dollar question: what caused you to have faith?

Was it you? Was it your will? Your intelligence where you saw all the evidence of the gospel, sin and salvation, and determined the best and most logical choice was to believe in Jesus?

Or was your faith the result of God’s grace?

The Biblical answer might surprise you.

But before we can answer that question, and more than that, before we are willing to hear the answer to that question, we need to have a biblical understanding of sin and what it means when the Bible says we are spiritually dead.

The Bible says that everyone outside of Christ is dead in their trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1).

Ephesians 4:18 says They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.

Notice what Paul says is the cause of all this spiritual death. Hardness of heart.

In sin, man has a heart of stone.

Where we are called to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, we love our sin instead.

We loved darkness rather than the light.

So what is the result of this hardness of heart? What does it mean when the Bible says we are spiritually dead in our sins?

Quoting multiple passages from the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit tells us this:

Romans 3:10-18 None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. 13 Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. 14 Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known. 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Left to ourselves, no one seeks God. No one fears him, understands, or cares about God at all.

Here’s what that means. Left to ourselves, none of us would ever, hear me, ever, choose Christ.

We would always choose our sin.

The way Jesus said it is everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin (John 8:34).

With our dead, stony hearts, we have no other choice but to choose sin. We are slaves to it.

We don’t like this very much. Nothing in us wants to believe we are not in control. That our free will is actually enslaved to our own sinful lusts and desires.

Let me put it all together for you. Is that you could hear the gospel a million times. And without the Holy Spirit working in us the grace of regeneration a million out of a million you’ll choose your sin over Christ.

And every single time, it will have been your choice to do so.

To put it another way because of sin, left to yourself, you would never choose to trust in Christ. You would never choose faith and you would be shut out of eternal life and salvation.

Now someone will inevitably say, Wait. I thought I was a slave? If I’m a slave, and I can choose no other how is it fair for God to condemn me? How is it fair for God to condemn anyone?

Think of it like this. Are you a cake person or a pie person?

One of you is wondering, “What about cobbler?” Cobbler is for degenerates and that’s not part of the illustration.

Cake or Pie.

You’re at a party, and on the table there’s both. Which do you choose? If you’re a cake person you’re going to choose cake. If you’re a pie person your going to choose pie.

Were you free to choose the other? Yes! Would you every have chosen the other? No.

Why? Because you are a slave to your desires.

Sin is like that. Jeremiah 16:12 says for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me.

We follow our will. We get exactly what we want. And because of our slavery to sin, because we are spiritually dead, we would never have it any other way save for God’s amazing grace.

That is how sinful we really are. And that’s a hard pill to swallow because what it ultimately means is that salvation is impossible for every single person dead in their sins.

And because they are dead, they are darkened in their understanding, deaf and blind to the good news of the gospel and the glory of Jesus Christ.

Dead men do not hear. Dead men do not see. Dead men do not have the power within themselves to will themselves to believe. That’s what dead means.

And were it not for Christ all of us would be hopeless, destined to suffer God’s judgment for all eternity for the sin and death we freely chose.

But God, being rich in mercy, saved us by the washing of regeneration. God caused us to be born again and gave us the gift of saving faith so that we would be forgiven of our sins, cleansed, and made new.

That’s point number 2...

II. Saving Faith Follows Regeneration

Titus 3:5-6 He saved us...by the washing of regeneration.

Remember, the word regeneration is tied to the New Creation. It means to be born again. And the argument we’ve been making is that this New Birth is the work and initiative solely of God’s grace.

We contribute nothing to it. We do not cause ourselves to be born again by willing ourselves to saving faith.

Rather, God gives us saving faith, by breathing life into our dead, sinful hearts, and making us born again.

Regeneration precedes faith.

Now you might ask, “If that’s true, how can anyone be born again? If even our faith rests on God’s grace to give us a new heart, then how can we be saved?

In John 3, there is a man that asked that same exact question.

John 3:1-3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Jesus is clearly talking about salvation here. That’s what he means by see the Kingdom of God. No one can see, experience, know, take part in the Kingdom of God unless he is born again.

And the word again has a double meaning. It can mean again as in a second time, but at the same time it means “from above.”

So Jesus uses this word to say the only way someone is saved is if they are born a second time with the birth that is from above. From heaven. From God.

That leads Nicodemus to ask the same question we are asking. John 3:4 How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?

Nicodemus asks, how is that possible. How can you be born again?

And what does Jesus tell him? Nicodemus all you have to do is pray the sinners prayer! No!

John 3:5-8 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Jesus says, You can’t do it! That which is born of the flesh is flesh. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves.

Being born again, the New Birth is a work of the Holy Spirit. We do not cause it. We do not initiate it. Being born again does not happen by taking the first step of faith, and God taking care of the rest.

Being born again is entirely a work of God’s grace.

That’s why Jesus says Do not marvel at what I say to you. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

Jesus gives a second illustration. The wind blows where it wishes. No one controls it. No one sends it. You hear the sound, you see its power, but you don’t cause it.

So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

Nicodemus asks How can these things be? And Jesus said, Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

Nicodemus was the teacher. He was one of the celebrated spiritual leaders of his day, and yet he did not understand what Jesus meant.

But Jesus’ response tells us that Nicodemus should have. He should have understood what Jesus was saying.

And the key is when Jesus said, unless one is born of water and the Spirit.

Now typically when people read this they think born of water means a physical birth, as when a woman’s water breaks and its time to deliver the baby, and born of the Spirit is, of course, the spiritual birth.

After all, that’s two births. You’re born physically, the you’re born again spiritually.

But that’s not what Jesus means. Jesus is alluding to an important Old Testament prophecy which is why Jesus expects Nicodemus to understand what he is saying.

Go to Ezekiel 36:25-27

Ezekiel 36:25-27 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

You see it right there. I will sprinkle clean water on you. I will cleanse you. I will remove the heart of stone, and I will give you a new heart. I will put my Spirit within you.

This is what Jesus meant by being born of water and the Spirit.

Under the New Covenant, we must be born again. We must be born from above. And this New Birth is not from human effort or will, it is the work of God’s grace.

Notice the language. I will, I will, I will. 6 times God says I will do this. This New Birth is the work of God, and solely the work of God.

That’s why Scripture says that everyone who is born again, who is born from above is born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:13).

Not of blood means the new birth is not passed down through your family line. Coming from a Christian family doesn’t save you.

Not of the will of the flesh means no one simply decides to be born again. Our wills, before Christ are enslaved to sin.

Nor the will of man means no moral effort or religious system we can concoct can forgive even one of our sins.

Those who are born again are born of God, who gives the new birth, takes out our heart of stone, and gives us a new heart that loves him more than we love our sin through the Holy Spirit.

So the clearest way for me to say it is this. When you are born again it is not because you chose to believe in Christ.

You are born again solely by the gracious, regenerating, New Creation work of God through the Holy Spirit.

Now that begs the question: Where does faith come in? Do we not believe that we are saved by grace through faith? Faith has to play a role. What is that?

And before we can answer that, we need to understand that the relationship between the New Birth and Faith is one of cause not of time.

In terms of time faith and the New Birth happen simultaneously. Their on top of each other. When a sinner is born again and believes in Christ that all happens in an instant. In a moment.

What we are asking is which one causes the other?

Does the sinner believe in Christ, and as a result of that faith, experience the New Birth?

Or are we born again where the result of that New Birth is saving faith in Christ?

The Bible is clear, the New Birth comes before and causes saving faith in Christ.

Think carefully through the creed of the Reformation.

We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone for the glory of God alone.

We are saved by grace. By God’s grace. Faith is not what saves us. It is God who saves us.

Faith is the vehicle, the instrument, the means by which God unites us to Christ in his death and resurrection so that our sin is paid for and we are forgiven.

But faith is not possible. Love for God is not possible. Trust in Christ is not possible. Unless God first overcomes our dead, stony hearts, hearts that Zechariah 7:12 says are diamond hard to God and his grace, and gives us a heart of flesh freed from slavery to sin to love the One, True Living God.

Order

So here’s how the New Birth works.

External Call

First, there is the external call. This is the proclamation of the gospel. The good news that Jesus Christ, The Son of God, Second Person of the Trinity, took on human flesh, lived a sinless life, suffered and died on a cross, and rose again three days later to forgive our sins and give us eternal life.

The Holy Spirit works through the proclamation of the gospel to give us New Birth.

That’s why Romans 10:17 says Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

That we are cleansed by the washing of water with the word (Eph 5:16).

And 1 Peter 1:23 that we are born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.

God saves sinners through the proclamation of the gospel.

But this external call is not automatically effectual. Just hearing the gospel doesn’t save you. Why? Because in our sin we resist it and more than that we are blind to it.

This is why Jesus says many are called, but few are chosen (Matt 22:14).

The call of the gospel is a legitimate call. Its a legitimate invitation to repent of our sins and trust in Christ. Its a real offer of salvation.

Jesus himself said in John 3, the chapter talking about the New Birth and the wind blowing where it wishes that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

And the only thing that keeps anyone outside the Kingdom of Heaven is their stubborn unbelief that flows out of their dead heart.

This is where the New Birth comes in.

Internal Call

According to God’s own good pleasure and will, in a moment of grace, God takes what is dead and makes us alive.

The Holy Spirit quickens us. He gives us a new heart of flesh that loves God.

At the moment of Regeneration, the Spirit shines the light of the gospel in the darkness and we see our sin for what it really is in all of its grotesque ugliness, and at the same time see Christ for who he really is in all of his beauty and glory.

And when God opens our eyes our only response is to turn from the filth of our sin and lay hold of Christ.

This is why theologians call this internal call the effectual call of God’s grace. It accomplishes what the external call of the gospel by itself could never accomplish on its own because of our hardness of heart.

People resist the external call all the time. They hear the good news and they go on with their day.

But the internal call is irresistible. That’s why its called the doctrine of irresistible grace.

Not in the sense that God violates our will, where we are dragged kicking and screaming into the Kingdom.

But in the sense that he frees our will so that for the first time we can choose him instead of our sin.

And when God opens our eyes to see our sin in comparison to God’s grace and glory in Jesus Christ we can’t do anything but choose Christ.

You see, God’s internal call, his regenerating grace is irresistible, because Christ is irresistible. And this is where saving faith comes in.

Saving Faith

The automatic, instantaneous result of regeneration is turning away from sin and turning to Christ for salvation.

We repent and believe. That is saving faith.

And that faith is only possible because God in his grace overcomes all our resistance to Him, sprinkles us with the clean water of the gospel and gives us a new heart so that we are born again from above, a New Creation.

So you see, saving faith follows regeneration. Faith itself is not a work we do to save ourselves. Faith itself is a gift of God’s grace.

Ephesians 2:4-5; 8-9 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ...8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Every rule of Greek grammar says that when Paul wrote, And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, the gift of God is faith.

And through this faith God saves us. He washes us clean.

He takes our sins like scarlet and makes them white as snow (Is. 1:18).

He removes them as far from as as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).

And he casts them into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19).

And through this irresistible grace that gives us saving faith in Christ God gives us eternal life.

That’s point number 3...

III. Saving Faith Leads to Eternal Life

Titus 3:5-7 He saved us...by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

What does God accomplish when he justifies us by his grace? When he forgives our sins and reconciles us to himself?

He adopts us as his sons and daughters and makes us heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

The word heirs means that we have an inheritance. Something that is rightfully ours and we are simply waiting for the day where it is fully ours.

Yes. We have eternal life now. That’s what being born again is all about.

But we don’t yet experience the fullness of it. Like Romans 8 says, we are still groaning waiting for the fullness of our redemption.

For the Day when Christ returns and regenerates the Heavens and the Earth. When all things will finally, once and for all be made new.

Where every trace and stain of sin is wiped away forever.

Where the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (Revelation 21:3-4).

There’s a sense where we are in and experience the blessings of the New Heavens and the New Earth right now. We are the first fruits of the New Creation.

But we only have a foretaste of that blessed, born again creation.

Right now there is a sense where God dwells with us. We are his temple.

Where God has wiped away every tear, and there is no more death, or mourning or crying or pain because in an ultimate sense the sin that causes all of those things has already been over come.

The former things have passed away.

That’s the same language Paul uses to say in Christ we are a New Creation. The old has passed away, the new has come.

But we are still waiting for the consummation of these promises. For the day when God finally removes the curse of sin in fullness.

Where all things are made new, we see God face to face, and dwell with him forever in blessed life, justice, and peace.

That is the Christian hope. That is what all of us are longing for. And God’s in the process of doing that now through the proclamation of the gospel where New Creations, and communities of New Creations are popping up everywhere the gospel goes.

But one day all of Creation will be born again. In fact, the only other time the word regeneration is used in the New Testament ins in Matthew 19:28 where Jesus said, Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

When Jesus says, in the new world, literally that means in the regeneration. God’s salvation and Kingdom is so much bigger than personal justification. Its not less than that, but its so much more than that.

God’s Kingdom is about removing the brokenness and effects of sin as far as the curse is found.

That is the fullness of eternal life, and that is the hope God has given us in the grace of the New Birth made possible by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

And that hope is a sure hope. Its as good as done its guaranteed for every person that believes in Christ. Why?

Because the salvation that secures, gives and bestows that eternal life is a work of the Trinity.

He, being God the Father saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Savior.

The Father wills salvation, the Son accomplishes and secures salvation, and the Spirit applies and makes effective that salvation to everyone who believes in Christ.

And the inheritance of that salvation, of that grace, is eternal life.

Conclusion

If you are only born once, you will die twice. You will die physically, and if you die physically while spiritually dead, you will suffer the second death which is eternal conscious torment in Hell because your sin deserves the wages of death.

But if you are born twice, God’s promise is that you will only die once.

Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? (John 11:25-26).

Do you believe this? If you do, you are born again to follow Christ forgiven of all your sins.

Now if you’re sitting there saying, but how do I know I’m born again. I want to be born again but the whole sermon has been about how we can’t do it ourselves. God has to. What if God hasn’t chosen me to be born again.

Let me encourage you. Spiritually dead people do not care about being born again because they don’t even know they are dead in the first place.

They don’t have eyes to see Christ. They are darkened in their understanding.

So if you’re sitting there, wanting to be born again that is God’s grace at work in you. Respond with saving faith. Repent and believe in Jesus Christ and God will give you eternal life.

The grace of Regeneration leads to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

If that was all we said, this doctrine would be pretty cold.

In fact, that is why many people reject this teaching of Scripture.

Its unfair! Its not right or loving for God to send people to hell if they have no ability to believe in Christ themselves. Its not fair that God wouldn’t even give them a chance!

But God doesn’t owe anyone salvation. He doesn’t owe anyone grace or mercy. By definition those things are not deserved.

The only thing we deserve is judgment.

Is it really so hard to believe that man is so sinful that we would never respond to the gospel and come to Christ if God were not so gracious as to move in our hearts first, overcome all our sin and hatred of God, and give us saving faith?

Instead, look at the doctrine of irresistible grace like this. This is why God told us about this in the first place.

How great is God’s grace that he did the impossible. When left to ourselves, we would have never chosen Christ, we would have always chosen sin, always run from him.

But God was so patient, and so kind, that he did not leave us to ourselves. He came through the preaching of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit and did what we could have never done in a million lifetimes.

He made us alive in Christ. What is impossible with man is possible with God (Luke 18:27).

The doctrine of irresistible grace should not make us question God’s goodness or loving kindness. Rather it should make us know it.

The doctrine of irresistible grace should lead us to praise and glory in God’s incredible, unimaginable, loving, overcoming all resistance grace in Jesus Christ.

When left to myself I’d still be dead in my sins, destined for an eternity of suffering and judgment God was pleased to give me grace.

How gracious is God to save people dead in their sin. How powerful and mighty is God to accomplish the impossible.

Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save.

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

1 Peter 1:3-9 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

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