We know that we have passed from death to life
From a death in sin, a moral or spiritual death; which lies in a
separation from God, Father, Son, and Spirit; in an alienation
from the life of God; in a loss of the image of God, of
righteousness, holiness, and knowledge, in which man was created;
in a privation of all true sense of sin, and in a servitude to
it, which is unto death, and is no other than death: and from a
legal death, or death in a legal sense, under the sentence of
which all men are, as considered in Adam; and which God's elect
are sensible of, when convinced by the Spirit of God, and are in
their own apprehension as dead men. Now in regeneration, which is
a quickening of sinners dead in sin, a resurrection of them from
the dead, the people of God pass from this death of sin, and the
law, to a life of sanctification, having principles of grace and
life implanted in them; and to a life of justification, and of
faith on Christ, as the Lord their righteousness; and to a life
of communion with Christ; and to such a life as is to the glory
of Christ; and to a right to eternal life. And this passing from
the one to the other is not of themselves, it is not their own
act; no man can quicken himself, or raise himself from the dead;
in this men are passive: and so the words are rendered in the
Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions, "we know that we are
translated"; that is, by God the Father, who delivers from the
power of darkness, and death, and translates into the kingdom of
his dear Son, which is a state of light and life; or by Christ,
who is the resurrection and the life, who is the author of the
resurrection from the death of sin to a life of grace; or by the
Spirit of life from Christ, by whom souls are quickened, and of
whom they are born again: and this passage from death to life, or
regeneration, is a thing that may be, and is known by the
regenerate man; who, as he knows surely, that whereas he was
blind he now sees, so that whereas he was dead in sin, he is now
alive; and among other things it may be known by this,
because we love the brethren:
this is not the cause of passing from death to life, but the
effect of it, and so an evidence of it, or that by which it is
known; brotherly love being what the saints are taught of God in
regeneration, and is a fruit of the Spirit of God, and is what
true faith works by, and is what shows itself as soon as anything
in a regenerate man; nor can anyone love the saints, as such, as
brethren in Christ, unless he is born again; a man may indeed
love a saint, as a natural relative, as a good neighbour, and
because he has done him some good offices, and because of some
excellent qualities in him, as a man of learning, sense, candour,
civility though he has not the grace of God; but to love him as a
child of God, a member of Christ, and because he has his image
stamped on him, no man can do this, unless he has received the
grace of God; so that this is a certain evidence of it:
he that loveth not [his] brother, abideth in
death;
in the death of sin, in a state of nature and unregeneracy; under
the sentence of condemnation and death; and he is liable to
eternal death, which is the wages of sin, under the power of
which such a manifestly is. This is said to deter from hatred, as
also what follows.