The verse in Acts implies that Paul was resisting the voice of the Spirit for a period before he was actually saved. The work had begun, but he wasn’t actually ‘saved’ until he met Jesus on the Damascus Road.

 

New birth must precede salvation because without a work of God in the soul I would never even want to be saved. I am not merely lost, but dead 

Look up:

Eph. 2:1

 

We are so bad, and so sinful we don’t WANT to be saved! Its only by God’s grace we are! I only respond to the Gospel because of a prior work of God in the soul. 

 

We cannot even see let alone enter the kingdom of God. 

Look up:

John 3: 3

 

The flesh cannot be made suited to God: it remains flesh. It’s not a repair job! God can’t work with our old sinful selves, there needs to be something *NEW!*                                    

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh ..." 

 

Do not wonder that I said to thee, It is needful that ye should be born anew.”

(John 3: 6, 7)

 

Regeneration and new birth are connected but not identical. (Tit 2:5) as a believer, I am brought into connection with a new state of things as being “in Christ”. This takes us above and beyond new birth. The prodigal experienced new birth in the far country, but that did not bring him into the new state of things until he got home.

 

Look up:

Titus 3:5

John 13: 10

 

Washing- Getting rid of everything that was of our old sinful state.  – we are washed all over through new birth, but we also need  cleansing day by day. We are born of water initially, but also need daily moral cleansing that comes through the reading of/listening to the Scriptures applied to our souls by the Spirit.